KAPONGA WRECK

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 141, 16 June 1932, Page 12

KAPONGA WRECK

SIGNAL FROM KALINGO

INQUIRY CONCLUDES

DECISION NEXT WEEK

With the calling of Captain J. Benton, of the Kalingo, and Mr. C. E. Carter, the third officer, to give- evidence relating -to the signal, made by that ship when she touched the. Greymouth bar just prior to the Kaponga's ill-fated attempt to cross, the nautical inquiry into 'tho wreck was concluded to-day. The President of the Court, Mr. E. Page, S.M., announced that the decision would be given next Thursday. Captain Benton said that his ship touched the bar as she went out shortly before the Kaponga. Witness felt only one Jump, but after they got away tho chief engineer and the chief officer told him that they had felt a second very slight bump. When the ship touched witness ordered the third officer to blow the whistle. The whistle made some sound, but not its usual shriek.. There was a sound of rushing steam for about ten seconds. The sound could have been quite easily heard from the signal station. In any case the noise of the whistle was not usually heard when a ship- signalled she Sad touched. The signal usually consisted merely of steam coming from the whistle. He had arranged , with Captain Gray, of the Kaponga, to signal if he touched. Captain Benton said that he had been trading in and out; of Greym'outh forthirty odd. years, and he had touched ou the bar many times. Counsel for* the Marine Department: You. say, captain, that for the man at the signal station there could be no mistaking steam rising from the whistle and steam from the exhaust" Witness: "2STot for a seafaring man.".. ■ ■ . ■■' °

Mr.-Page: "It didn't occur to you, Captain, that that incomplete whistle of yours might have been mistaken on shore '

Witness: <flt aid not, Sir." None of the old hands on shore would dream of waiting for the sound, he said. . Mr. Page: "Three. people on shore saw the signal—the harbourmaster, the signalman, and an officer on the Kaponga—and they all concluded it was your steam blowing off?" Captain Benton said that he could bring many witnesses to say that they all knew that the Kalingo had touched. If he had blown his whistle a second time he thought it would have been taken ashore as a signal that he had touched twice.

The third officer corroborated Captain Benton's evidence. He considered that he had blown the -whistle longer than ten seconds, and although it did not make the regulation blast, it made a noise which there could be no mistaking.