No Raft Knife, Life-Belts

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30393, 18 March 1964, Page 17

No Raft Knife, Life-Belts

In wartime all members of a crew were issued with lifebelts but apparently it was not the practice to issue them in peacetime. Mr Justice Spicer: Not at all?

Mr Smyth: Not at all.

A number of seamen claimed more would have been saved had life belts been issued, Mr Smyth continued, “Particularly those who could not swim,” he added. There were some life rafts, but it was not known whether they were from the Voyager or Melbourne. Some were inflated, but others were not, and some of the men were able to inflate them while in the water. The rafts were designed to hold 20 men but held more than 50 men.

Some men were in rafts and others were clinging to them, and, as the latter got tired, they changed places with those aboard.

. There were indications of insufficient instructions for rescue equipment. One officer had had to read instructions. When it was decided to abandon ship no-one had a knife to cut a rope for one of the rafts. A knife should have been on the raft.

Men with this raft had had

to hit the rope with spanners and pull it. This was the only instance in which a knife was not visible.

It was a serious thing if “a ship were sinking rapidly.”

The Melbourne was intended to carry an admiral’s barge, three powered sea cutters, two motor boats, one unpowered whaler and two 14ft sailing dinghies.

The whaler and the dinghies were intended only for use recreationally, or in calm waters.

There had been only one whaler instead of two. One of the cutters had been damaged the previous Thursday in Sydney while a second was unserviceable due to engine trouble at the time of the disaster. This cutter’s fuel lines were not connected.

Repairs were made within 20 minutes or half an hour.

The Admiral’s barge and a motor-boat from the Melbourne also were used in the rescue. In addition, one of the whalers was launched with difficulty. Some of the guide lines gave way and the whaler fell six to nine feet into the water. Whether the vessel was damaged in the fall, or whether someone forgot to put the bung in it, was not clear.

but the whaler sank, and some of its crew had to be picked up by an air-sea rescue launch and others by raft. Helicopters had tried to pick up survivors, but the men had not been trained in this method of rescue.

Lights, including navigation lights, were burning on the destroyer and the aircraftcarrier when they collided.