STRUCK OHAU POINT.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 12, 15 January 1929, Page 9

STRUCK OHAU POINT.

STEAMER INVERCARGILL.

NAUTICAL INQUIRY OPENS.

MASTER ADMITS ERROR.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, this day.

A nautical inquiry was opened to-day in regard to the grounding of the coastal steamer Invercargill at Ohau Point early on the morning of December 3 whrle en route frotn Wanganui to Wellington. The master, Captain Smith, gave evidence to the effect that he was called at 11 p.m., when he found the weather thick, but not thick enough to slow down. He went back to his cabin. He went on duty again at midnight and made an allowance of a mile an hour for six hours on account of the tide. His course would thus take him three and a half miles clear of the point. The ship struck at 3.10 a.m.

Witness said he had made 211 tripe on that route. His practice was not to run more than eight hours from the Wanganui bar in thick weather. He would then make for the open pea and would never enter Cook Strait until he could see the Brother s Light. There was no hurry to make port as the ship did not have to reach Wellington till eight.

The master said he had consulted the chart since the mishap and found that his dead reckoning was a mile per hour out. He agreed that that was a considerable error. He did not take soundings because he did not think he was out of deep water.

Captain Smith attributed the stranding of the steamer to the abnormal set which took him on to Ohau Point an hour and ten minutes sooner than he had ever done. Even on a good trip he saw land soon enough to take some way off. He put his engines astern and the ship backed off steadily. Very little damage was done.

Richard Hart, mate of the Invercargill, said he had been on the run twenty years and had never seen a log used or soundings taken between Wanganui and Wellington. He agreed that there must have been an unusual set on the night of the mishap. There were no meteorological conditions indicating an abnormal set, and he did not think the use of the log would have helped.

Jamee Dalziell, engineer, Mid the engines were run slightly under full speed. The trip was unusually fast.

The court intimated that it would give its decision to-morrow morning.