MYSTERY OF THE SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 29, 4 February 1939, Page 24

MYSTERY OF THE SEA

THE ANGLO-AUSTRALIAN

PROBABLE CAUSE OF LOSS

The Court of Inquiry set up by the [Board of Trade to investigate the loss of the Anglo-Australian, with her crew of 38, had a far from easy task. She was owned by the Nitrate Producers' Steamship Company, Ltd., of which Messrs. Lawther, Latta, and Co., are the managers, a firm with a deserved reputation for sound and careful management, says an English writer. Here was a ship well built, well found, and well looked after, and with a skilled and experienced master in command, which disappeared without leaving a trace, having sent out a final wireless message stating, "Hough weather, all well."

As all hands went down with her, the Court had at its disposal only those who had built her, or had looked after her or had previously served in her. Their testimony was to the effect that she was a British cargo vessel of the very highest type. The Court found that the most probable cause of the loss was the buckling of the shelter deck with subsequent complete fracture from deck to keel.

It ruled out the possibilities that she had hit a mine drifting from the coast of Spain, that there had been a boiler or gas explosion, or that she had collided .with another ship or with submerged wreckage. The suggestion that she had been overwhelmed by phenomenal seas was also rejected because, in .the opinion of the Court, the weather she experienced was not likely to have involved any such casualty. The Court was obviously impressed by the fact that the Greek steamer Mount Kyllene a month later buckled her deck and broke in half amidships in a very short time under weather conditions less severe than those experienced by the Anglo-Australian.

The two halves of the Greek ship remained afloat until her crew were rescued, but it may be that the weather made this impossible in the case of the British ship, if she met with a similar disaster.

Despite the painstaking care of the Court, the loss of the Anglo-Australian must, however, remain a mystery of the se£ and a reminder that man's most wonderful creation—a ship—is a puny toy in conflict with the forces of Nature.