STRANDING OF CLANSMAN

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28447, 29 November 1957, Page 18

STRANDING OF CLANSMAN

Claim For Cargo Damage

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, November 27.

A ship’s captain who worked the Whakatane harbour bar for many years described the port as “not a very nice place to make toward” when he gave evidence in the Supreme Court at Auckland today about the stranding of the coastal vessel Clansman on the Whakatane bar last year. The witness, Edward Francis Brown, said the bar was difficult to work. “In my opinion it is a shallow, rock-bound entrance to a crock that is exposed to the ocean—Whakatane is not a harbour in my estimation,” he said.

Brown was a witness for his employer, the Northern Steam Ship Company, which is being sued for £1202 7s Id by Boon. Sullivan, Tuke, Ltd., timber and hardware merchants, of Whakatane, as compensation for cargo destroyed or damaged when the Clansman struck the bar at Whakatane on the night of May 3, 1956. The case is being heard before Mr Justice Shorland and a jury. Brown said he had worked all the harbours in New Zealand. He ran to Whakatane in various vessels for about seven years, and had taken the Clansman across the bar on several occasions.

He did not like making toward Whakatane, he said. The “creek,” as he termed it, had two entrances between rocks, and eastern and western channels, and debris came down the river entering the harbour built up between the rocks. Boats often had to cross the bar with only inches to spare, and he had taken vessels in under most conditions.

In the summer, ships visited Whakatane most frequently, and the water was “meanest on the bar.” If ships did not take risks crossing it, there would virtually be no trade at the port of Whakatane.

The greatest difficulty in entering the harbour was to keep ships on a straight course. With little keel in shallow water, when they were “smelling the bottom,” ships sheered consistently. It was not easy to control a vessel when it sheered. Brown said he had touched the bar when crossing it in boats—“l think everybody has.” The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow morning.