DAMAGED CARGO.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 March 1922, Page 6

DAMAGED CARGO.

CLAIM AGAINST A SHIP. CONSIGNMENT OF BENZINE. SEA-WORTHINESS QUESTIONED. A ease coming within the Admiralty jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was commenced before Mr. Justice Chapman at New Plymouth yesterday. It concerned a claim by Newton King, merchant, of New Plymouth, against the ship C. S. Holmes, plaintiff seeking damages sustained to cargo carried by the vessel from San Francisco to New Plymouth, and of which he was the owner. Mr. R. H. Quilliam. appeared for plaintiff and Mr. C. H. Weston for the defence. The plaintiff was the assignee under a bill of lading in respect to a consignment of benzine that was carried by the vessel from San Francisco to New Plymouth, and was also the owner of the cargo. The vessel carried a certain amount of timber in addition to 20,400 cases of benzine. Of these approximately 1300 cases were damaged on the voyage, the monetary value being about £lOOO. Reviewing the case, Mr. Quilliam said the vessel left San Francisco on May 1, 1920, arriving at New Plymouth, the first port of call, on July 7. When the work of discharging the cargo was commenced it was found that a considerable portion was very badly damaged. The cases had become rotten, and were falling to pieces, while the tins were perforated through rust, causing the leakage of the benzine. The vessel was arrested until security for the amount of the damage was forthcoming. The original claim was £BOO, but by leave of the court it had been increased to £llOO. Dealing with the question of procedure, counsel said that apparently the issue of liability only was determined by the court in similar cases, and the question of damage was referred to the registrar and assessors.

His Honor said this was the usual practice adopted. Continuing, counsel said that the evidence of the master, mate and bosun was taken before the vessel left New Plymouth, and would be before the court. The delay that had occurred in bringing on the action in the period which had elapsed was due to fact that on the application of the ship the evidence of certain people was taken at San Francisco. , QUESTION OF LIABILITY. The contract for the carriage of the cargo was embodied in a bill of lading of the usual kind, and the benzine had been shipped by the Union Oil Company, of California. As to the law on the question of liability, counsel said that a ship-owner, by contracting to carry goods, in the absence of an express stipulation impliedly guaranteed that his ship was seaworthy. The grounds of the present action were that the C. S. Holmes was unseaworthy, resulting in damage to the cargo. As to the particular charges of unseaworthiness, it was alleged that the deckhouse was faultily constructed, that certain scupper drains were insufficient in number, not of proper size, and not protected in the hold, and that the deckhouse was in such a dirty condition at the commencement of the voyage that it caused the drains to become blocked.

The C. S. Holmes is a four-masted sailing vessel, and originally was of ordinary build, but during the war, and probably owing to the demand for extra space a large structure was added on the main deck, and known as the deckhouse. This took up more than onethird of the length of the vessel, and' 1 covered the width, less a few feet on either side. It increased very largely the carrying capacity of the vessel. The theory put forward, counsel said, was that this addition, not being part of the original structure, “worked” or moved and that the water got in. If the deckhouse had been built at the time of the construction of the vessel it would have been attached to the beams ufider the floor of the deck. Actually it was built to a sill on the deck. Counsel understood that this kind of addition was made on several American vessels, and that in most cases it proved a very unsatisfactory business. Its effect in this case was to increase the cargo capacity by about 400 tons. WEATHER ON THE TRIP. The weather experienced by the C. S. Holmes on the voyage to New Plymouth was of a normal nature, except on June 7, when there was a heavy swell, and water was found in the deckhouse. This state continued for the rest of the voyage. Any water that got in should have been released by the scupper drains, but the mushroom caps at the inlet of these drains were clogged with all kinds of rubbish, which indicated that the deckhouse could not have been swept up before the vessel left San Francisco. In addition, these pipes were altogether inadequate and some had been damaged by being left exposed in the loading of the cargo. One of the pipes had been bent in and another had been torn out of its position, no doubt through the moving of the cargo. It was contended that these defects showed that the vessel was unsea worthy at the commencement of the voyage, and that the troubles should have been seen and remedied before the vessel left San Francisco. The evidence of two surveyors who examined the vessel at New Plymouth was to the effect that they would not have passed the vessel for carrying any kind of perishable cargo in the deckhouse. It was obvious that tTiis structure must •’work” with the roll of the vessel and allow water to get inside. The damage was not confined to the cases in the deckhouse. In the middle of the deckhouse there was a hatchway leading to the main hold, and the damage to the cargo in the main hold centred in the space at the bottom of the hatchway, through which the water apparently got in. It was apparently contended that this was a had cargo of benzine from the start, but the damage showed that it was only where the salt water got on the benzine eases that any damage took place. In the evidence taken at San Francisco it was curious to note that one of the surveyors, in evidence, said that the vessel was fit for a voyage from San Francisco to New Plymouth, but not to go round Cape Horn into the Atlantic Ocean. His Honor: That might be so, if there is anything in the notion that the Pacific Ocean is pacific. We know that it can play up at times; we know, too, that the Cape is one of the worst corners of the world. Counsel thought that a vessel not fit to go round Cape Horn was not fit for the trip to New Zealand. A SURVEYOR’S EVIDENCE. The first witness was Archibald Wallurveycft

who detailed the result of an examination of the vessel made on July 14 and 15 at New Plymouth, on behalf of an insurance company in the U.S.A. He found that the benzine had been leaking badly from the tins. A considerable amount of the cargo had then been forwarded to the stores. Tn the bottom tiers in the hold the cases were discolored, the nails were showing signs of rust, and some of the tins were apparently leaking. The witness described the condition of the deck pipes, as outlined by counsel.

In reply to His Honor he said that if the pipes had been large enough it would have been quite a proper method of draining off the water. The pipes were only an inch in diameter.

After examination of the inside of the deckhouse he came to the conclusion that the water had found its way in between the sill on the main deck and the sill on the planking. He could find no other defect that would cause the amount of water to get into the vessel. The effect of the deckhouse being built in such a manner was that it would be subject to a good strain even when the vessel was moving along under a smart breeze. The heel of the vessel would have the result of opening and closing the seams of the sills, which would give access to any water that found its way on to the deck. He inspected the vessel on July 25 before it left the port. He would not have issued a certificate then that the vessel was fit to carry perishable cargo, as the structure of the deckhouse, in his opinion, allowed the water to get in. On the occasiofi of his visit he saw the log, in which an entry recorded that a heavy swell was experienced on June 7 and the scuttle hatches were opened up to examine the cargo. The defects that he remembered in regard to the pipes should have been seen by a master of any vessel that was loading perishable cargo. FITTINGS ON THE SHIP. To Mr. Weston: All sailing ships made a certain amount of water in the bilges. The scupper drains of the C. S. Holmes indicated, in his opinion, that the owners expected a big inflow of water. He would be surprised to hear that the mate of the vessel gave evidence that the mushroom covers of the pipes were not blocked. Leakage in benzine cargoes was usually trifling in a well-found and well-stowed ship. The suggestion that the ship had not been cleaned out before she left San Francisco did not come from witness. In regard to the condition of the pipes witness quoted from his report made after his inspection, which stated that the scupper pipes were inadequate and unprotected, as the cargo h£\d been stowed up against them. In some cases they were bent out of shape and flattened. If this had been done before the ship left San Francisco any marine : surveyor going over the vessel would have "noticed it. From what he learned he concluded that the ship had a fair weather passage. The only event out of the ordinary was the carrying away of a sail, which occurred shortly after leaving San Francisco. Regarding the witness’ opinion of the passage experienced, counsel quoted extracts from the log-book, which showed i that on various dates the vessel was laboring and straining heavily in the trough of a heavy sea. On May 30 and June 8 and 9 the poop rails were under water. On June 8 water was found in the hold, and bailing was commenced the -following day. The witness did not consider this extraordinary for a sailing ship. If the weather had j been heavy he would have expected i some of the standing gear to have carried away.

The case was proceeding when the court adjourned at 5.45 p.m. until this morning.