CAPTAIN IN ERROR

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 36, 11 February 1926, Page 10

CAPTAIN IN ERROR

FELL ASLEEP AT FERRY STEAMER'S WHEEL

CERTIFICATE SUSPENDED FOR

THREE MONTHS.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, 10th February.

The fact that the master of a ferry steamer was asleep at the wheel was revealed to-day at the inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the collision between the ferry steamer Kestrel and the hulk Wanganui in Auckland Harbour on 12th December. Mr. Cutten, S.M., presided, and associated with him as' assessors were Captain B. E. Smith and T. Braidwood.

Mr. Meredith, who appeared for the Marine Department, said the Kestrel was proceeding from Auckland to Northcote at 9.30 p.m. on the day in question. The course was set, but the master found the vessel getting off her course, amongst the hulks between Northeote and Stanley Point. After managing to clear,two of them, he was unable to avoid a collision and struck the Wanganui's port bow with the starboard bow of the Kestrel. No damage was caused to the hulk, but there was considerable damage^ to the ferry boat. A serious feature was that the Kestrel had a large number of passengers aboard, and there were present all the elements of a possible tragedy. The master said he had gone to sleep, and that it was not until he was on top of 'the first hulk that he realised ivhat had happened. The question of the master being asleep at his post raised a serious question, when, as in this ease, he was in charge of a large number of passengers. It raised the further question of whether or not someone, possibly the mate, could not have prevented the possibility of the master going to sleep unnoticed. The master's excuse was that he was over-fatigued by illness in his family, and had not been able to get his proper amount of sleep. Even assuming that his rest had beeir, broken, it should have 'been open to the master to have informed the mate of the position and to have got Mm to take charge, or to have reported the positionto his employers. James Edward Douglas, master of the Kestrel, gave evidence on the lines outlined by Mr. Meredith. From the time. he last saw the hulks until lie woke up he estimated that from two to two and a half minutes had elapsed. He accounted for having gone to sleep by being run down through loss of sleep occasioned by illness in his family. He had a bottle of beer on the morning of the collision, but that was' all he had. It was not the custom for the mate to keep a look-out,, unless the master told him to do so. He did not ask his employers to relieve him because it would have meant a double shift for someone else. He had since resigned his position of his own accord. He supposed he would have been relieved if he had asked. This was his first accident.

A medical certificate was put in by counsel for the master.

Thomas Finley Leathart, mate of the Kestrel, said that so far as he knew there was no obligation on tho mate to keep a look-out, nor had mates any instructions to do so, except in fog or in thick weather. If anything happened to the master, there was no one to see if anything went wrong. After casting off he went to make a cup of tea in the mate's cabin, and he was there when the collision occurred.

The Court held that the cause of the collision was , that the master of the Kestrel, while in charge and steering, fell asleep owing to his -tired condition arising from home circumstances, thus allowing the vessel to go off her course and collide with the hulk. The Court considered the master at fault in not recognising that he was. unfit for duty and reporting that'fact to the owners. His certificate would be suspended for three months, and a fine of £5 imposed to help to cover the costs of the inquiry. The Court thought that during the night trips of ferry steamers the mate should be required to keep a look-out.