CAPTAIN IN ERROR

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

CAPTAIN IN ERROR

ffLL ASLEEP AT FERRY STEAMER'S WHEEL CERTIFICATE SUSPENDED FOE THREE MONTHS. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) ' AUCKLAND, 10th February. The fact that the master of a ferry iteamer 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, BJtL, presided, and associated with him as assessors were Captain B. E. Smith' and.T. Braidwood. .' Mr. Meredith, who appeared for the Slarino 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. bourse, amongst the hulks between NbYtheote-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 wag caused to t'.<o 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 what had happened.. The question of the master being asleep at his post raised a, serious question, when, a 8 in this ease,,he. was in chargo of a large num■fcier of passengers. It raised the further question of whether or not some.one, 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 been 'broken, it should have been open to the master to have informed the , mate of the position and to have got him to take charge, or to have reported the position to his employers. . James Edward Douglas, master of the Kestrel, gave evidenco on the lines outlined by Mr., Meredith. Prom the .time he last saw the hulks until he 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 Bleep occasioned by iilness 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. Ho 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 the mate to keep a look-ont, 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 oft 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 ho 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-coyer tho costs of the in- ■ quiry. The Court thought that during