KAITAWA INQUIRY SISTER-SHIP SENT DISTRESS CALL

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31152, 31 August 1966, Page 1

KAITAWA INQUIRY SISTER-SHIP SENT DISTRESS CALL

Water Shifted Coal Cargo In The Kaiapoi

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, August 30.

A sister-ship of the collier Kaitawa, which sank with all hands in a storm, developed a “dangerous” list during a similar voyage a month later, the Marine Court of Inquiry was told in Wellington today. The Kaitawa went down off North Cape on May 23. There were no survivors from the ship’s company of 29 and only one body was found.

Captain Raymond Stewart, master of the 2500-ton collier Kaiapoi, told the Court of the “dangerous” situation his ship was in after leaving Westport with a load of coal for Auckland on June 23.

During the night a gale blew up and the Kaiapoi began to roll heavily, with waves continually sweeping the foredeck.

On the evening of June 24, the starboard engine had to be stopped because of a lubri-cating-oil supply stoppage. This made the ship lie broadside to the waves and roll even more wildly.

Early next morning Captain Stewart realised she was not recovering fully from each roll.

By 5.30 am. she had developed a 15-degree list.

“With the Kaitawa in the hack of my mind, 1 sent a ‘Pan’ distress message.” he said.

The crew were mustered on deck with their life-jackets. By 10 a.m. ‘he weather had improved and he was able to cancel the distress message. The list was reduced by flooding a tank on the weather side, the engine was repaired again and the Kaiapoi made New Plymouth safely. Hohl Flooded At New Plymouth the cause of the list was found to be flooding of No. 3 hold. This had washed the coal to one side.

More than 100 tons of water was pumped out of the hold and up to 40 tons could have remained after the pumping Questioned by Mr C. H. Arndt for the families of the Kaitawa’s crew. Captain Stewart said the cause of the leak into the hold wrs a gap which had opened between the coamng and the hat h cover. The foredeck was “completely awash” and the water flooded through the gap on to .he coal.

Water also leaked into the crew’s cabins and “they were i bit alarmed."

Captain Stewart said it would have been difficult to '.aunch a lifeboat in such weather if it had become necessary. He ordered the crew on leek and prepared liferafts and signal rocke’s.

In his view it was a "dangerous situation.” To Mr A. F. Mac Alister. for the Merchant Service Guild. Captain Stewart said the list at first developed gradually.

If the Kaitawa had been taking in water in the same way on its last voyage, this might not have been detected as long as the ship was heading into the waves. A change of course bringing the Kaitawa broadside to the waves could have caused water in the hold to produce a list quite suddenly.

Sergeant G. J. Melville, field controller of the search operations around the North Cape beaches from May 24 until June 8. said wreckage from the Kaitawa was found over a wide area. A life-raft was

found in three pieces at different dates. Life-boat wreckage was also found. The most debris was found in the Twilight Beach and Scott’s Point area, between Cape Reinga and Ninety-mile Beach.

A body washed up in this locality on May 30 was later identified as that of John Wright, a member of the crew.

The body was without clothes which had probably been washed off during the six days the body had been in the water.

Sergeant Melville said that from his experience of drownings in the Ninety-mile Beach area he deduced that Mr Wright had drowned near the beach. This explained why his body had been recovered. He deduced that the other 28 members of the crew drowned farther out to sea. Mr Wright must have floated on something to get close to the beach. Sergeant Melville said that part of a skeleton was found in the area on August 1, but there was no means of identifying it Squally Night The head keeper at the Cape Reinga lighthouse, Mr R. Sears, said the station received a radio message from Radio Auckland about 9.20 p.m. on May 23 asking them to keep a watch for the KaitaWa. The next day they were told it was no longer necessary. The station was not fitted for receiving Morse signals and they were unable to keep a listening watch. The night of May 23 was very dark and squally, but between squalls Pandora Bank could be seen. Mr Sears told Mr D. P. Neazor. for the Marine Department, that a vessel without lights could not be seen during the squalls. About 10.40 p.m. the lighthouse staff fired a rocket from the highest point above the station. No reply was received.

Cross-examined by Mr Arndt, Mr Sears said visibility between squalls at about 9 p.m. was 15 miles. During squalls it dropped to about four miles.

“From 9.20 p.m. the weather deteriorated, the wind speed rose and the rain became more frequent.”

Mr Sears said he doubted that the visibility at any stage after this deterioration was ever more than eight to 10 miles.

In the hour before firing the rocket, Mr Sears said, he had flashed an Aldis lamp in an arc. He had seen no reply.

“I think the reason we didn’t see the flare fired from the Kaitawa at 11.50 p.m. was that there was very heavy rain at the time,” he said. “This rain might not have been at the station, but these squalls move around and it is possible the flare went up during a squall.”

Mr Sears said the Kaitawa was his last ship on the coast. He left her in 1957, at which time he was bosun.

In his time aboard he had no experience of any of the ships’ hatches shipping water after she had left Westport. There had only been minor leaks. The Kaitawa had never developed any list while he was in her. An air-traffic controller who directed the Kaitawa search-and-rescue operations, Mr O. F. Cossey, said the aerial search was spread over a wide area to cover the possibility of survivors drifting east past the tip of the North Island.

The day after the Kaitawa’s distress call, an oil slick and wreckage were seen one mile north of Pandora Bank, drifting toward Twilight Beach, (south of Cape Maria van Dieman)." On June 8 the Kaitawa was located by the Navy on the ocean bottom about five miles south-west of Cape Reinga. Doubt On Position Lieutenant-Commander G. Johnson produced a chart on which he had plotted the probable drift of the Kaitawa before she sank. He said the ship, if it was disabled at 9 p,m.—the time of its distress call—would have drifted south of its distress call—would have drifted south with the tide till 1 a.m., and then north with the change of tide till it struck Pandora Bank and capsized about 1.30 a.m. She could then have moved underwater in the same direction to the place where she was found.

The plotted course corresponded with the flare seen from the Cape Horn at 11.50 p.m. It would mean the Kaitawa was not in the position which was given in the “Mayday” call. If the position given in the call had been correct, the Kaitawa could not possibly have been where the flare came from, and it would have been almost impossible for her to get to where she was later found. Lieutenant - Commander Johnson said the area of comparatively shallow water where the Kaitawa was presumed to have met heavier seas and got into trouble, was not shown on previous charts.

Lieutenant Neil Merrick, leader of the Navy diving team which inspected the wreck, said marks on the bottom suggested she had grounded on a fairly soft surface. There was no evidence that the bottom had been pounded while she was aground before she capsized. After capsizing it was clear she had hit the sea-bed “quite hard."

When the inquiry continues tomorrow the Court will watch a demonstration of a selfinflating liferaft of the type with which the Kaitawa was equipped, examine wreckage collected after the sinking and see a television film of the sunken hull.