MARLYN’S OWNERS AND MASTER FINED £ll5

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28450, 3 December 1957, Page 20

MARLYN’S OWNERS AND MASTER FINED £ll5

Angus Twemlow Kennedy, master of the vessel Marlyn, was fined a total of £4O by Mr Rex C. Abernethy, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday on eight charges arising from the ship’s emergency voyage to Lyttelton in May after its freezing equipment had broken down at the Chatham Islands. The Southern Fairmile Company, Ltd., owner of the ship, was convicted on five of eight similar charges, and fined a total of £75. The Magistrate said the voyage had been an “unjustifiable gamble.” The charges were heard on November 13 and 14. Then, Mr P. T. Mahon prosecuted for the Marine Department. Mr W. F. Brown appeared for the company and Mr B. McClelland for Kennedy.

“Ona can have some sympathy with the company in its facing a possibly heavy loss in regard to the fish in its freezer, and some sympathy with the trawlers in that there might have been some substantial interruption of their fishing,” the Magistrate said. “However, it is clear from the evidence that the Marlyn left on this voyage to the master’s knowledge in breach of every one of the eight charges now laid against him, and. in particular, without any permit from the Marine Department, without which, in default of a proper certificate of survey for the voyage (not obtainable in the Chathams), the Marlyn could not lawfully return to Lyttelton. There might and probably would have been some relaxation made by the department in regard to the first or second mate and as regards the engineer; but Captain Kennedy had only a home trade certificate, whereas a foreigngoing master’s certificate was necessary and had been insisted upon by the department on the vessel’s initial March voyage to the Chathams. “At the very least he should not have taken the ship to sea without a permit from the department. Equipment Lacking “Further, there was no minimum of two able seamen on board. There was no chronometer and no sextant. The wireless broke down on the voyage and navigation lights were not burning. There were lifebuoys without proper self-igniting lights, a lifeboat without flares and rations, and only four serviceable life jackets for 16 persons aboard. “However, the voyage suited the book of the master because he wished to get his wife and family out of the islands, and ap- a patently was not happy in hjs job on the ship. He readily agreed to bring the ship to Lyttelton “It is possible that the owners did not know the state of the lifebuoys. life jackets and lifeboats. At least there is some doubt, as to which they must have the benefit, and I am therefore not going to hold the company in default ih regard to these matters. Those three charges against the company will be dismissed, but I am satisfied that the company, through its director. Smith, was well aware of the position and the default it would make in respect of th* oth<*r flvo charges if it sent the ship back to Lyttelton without a valid certificate of survey or a permit.

“The fact that the ship weathered a severe storm on the voyage and came through without serious mishap cannot justify Smith’s suggestion that all things wer«; done that could and should have been done. “It was not a voyage of demonstrable or clearly inescapable necessity, but by all the rules of the sea, an unjustifiable gamble with -a temporarily ill-found, but apparently usually well-found ship against the lives of an authorised number of persons aboard,” the Magistrate said.