HELD ON TOO LONG

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 179, 27 April 1931, Page 8

HELD ON TOO LONG

Mishap to Steamer Kini ERROR OF JUDGMENT Captain to Pay Part Costs Giving its report, which will be forwarded on to the Minister of Marine, on the inquiry held concerning the s.s. Kini striking some object off Bare Island, south of Cape Kidnappers, on April 10 last, the Nautical Court on Friday said that it was of opinion that the master, Captain D. Fraser, had committed an error of judgment in holding the course he did for so long. He had complete safety a little further out to sea, the court said, and in its opinion he should have gone further out.

“Though the evidence given at the hearing raises some doubt as to the identity of the point of land that, for a minute or two, came into view, the actions of the master at the time make it clear that he realised his course brought him dangerously close in,” the court said, in giving its decision. “Had the visibility remained good, the course set by the master, for a daylight run. would in our opinion have been a safe and proper one. According to the master’s own estimate, that course, if mads, would have brought him within two miles and a half of Bare Island, which itself lies within a mile and a half of the mainland. The chart shows that there is a rock lying to the south-east of Bare Island, and thus nearer to the ship’s course than Bare Island would be.

“Having regard to those distances and to the facts that thick fog came on. completely obscuring the land; that the vessel was new and her compass therefore subject to greater deviations than In an older vessel, and that the northeasterly swell might have some tendency to set him in, we think the master committed an error of judgment in holding that course so long. When at 5 p.m. he made an alteration of four degrees In the course, he was too near the danger zone, and the amount of alteration that he made was too small to effect its object. He had complete safety a little further out to sea, and in our opinion he should have taken it.”

The court made an order that the master pay 15 guineas toward the cost of the inquiry.