Closing power sought

Press, 29 January 1982, Page 3

Closing power sought

The Court has recommended that harbour masters should have authority to close ports in bad weather,reports the Wellington reporter of "The Press.” The Wellington Harbour Board said in evidence before, the Court that its harbour master had no authority to close the Port of Wellington no matter how severe the weather.. Sir James said that this authority should be granted in the interests of shipping safety. Sir- James’s findings are expected to be of considerable interest overseas because of their direct bearing on safety at sea. In his report, he said that advice to masters entering Wellington Harbour for the first time was “vague and indefinite” in the manuals, the “New Zealand Pilot,” the “Guide to Port Entry,” and others.

He said that a precise position for pilot boarding should be given to eliminate the need for guesswork or assumption by masters and that pilotage areas at all ports should be inscribed on the appropriate charts. Pilots employed by the Wellington Harbour Board seemed “to be left without much in the way of guidelines for the performance of their duties.

“Apart from a direction that the duty pilot must be on station before the ship arrives ... each pilot has to use his own discretion on where he will meet a ship, whether he will board it inside or outside the harbour, or lead it in without boarding.” Sir James said that the board should instruct its pilots to advise masters of foreign vessels about navigation dangers in approaching the port. “In the absence of better instructions, the signalman and the pilot just went about their duties in a casual and routine manner in disregard of the circumtances of this particular night when they were dealing with a strange ship in strange waters and very bad weather conditions. It was nobody’s job to ascertain the difficulties or to counteract them.

“The board did not appear to have given any instructions to signalmen and pilots on surmounting language barriers in communications with foreign ships. It was not simply a case of speaking English slowly and loudly.”

Sir James said that the signalman at the board’s radio station had had no formal instructions on how to keep the station’s log book: he had entered the times and content of mes-

sages transmitted between the pilot and the Pacific Charger at his own discretion. This had impeded the Court’s ability to learn the exact times and content of vital messages. The station’s equipment for recording messages had not worked on the night of the grounding. .

Sir James said that at ports whose approaches were complicated by narrow channels, off-lying rocks and islands, or strong tidal currents, recommended tracks for shipping should be shown in charts and pilots having local knowledge should be expected to offer every assistance and advice to masters, particularly those who were strangers to a port.

He said that the compulsory pilotage limit for Wellington Harbour should be relocated to the seaward end of the harbour’s entrance channel. The present limit was illogical because ships entering the harbour had passed the most hazardous section of the channel by the time they reached it. Sir James said that the harbour’s" the signal station should be equipped with surveillance radar to monitor shipping movements in the harbour and the harbour’s approaches.