THE WRECK OF THE CHEVIOT.

Evening Star, Issue 7362, 7 November 1887, Page 4

THE WRECK OF THE CHEVIOT.

Captain Strickland, now of the Ozone, and formerly of the Cheviot, experienced several accidents in the latter, but still he speaks most highly of her quality as a sea-going steamer, and attributes the different accidents sho has met with to a " run of bad luck." Captain Strickland ia about thirty-four years of age, and obtained his certificate in London. He was in command of the Cheviot for two years and one month—from September, 1885, to October, 1887—and twice during that period she broke a shaft; conseqaently it might be imagined he would have something to say about the alleged unseaworthiness of the steamer, but on the contrary he speaks in the highest terms of her, notwithstanding the accounts that have appeared, and says that had he not obtained the command of the Ozone he would have been happy to remain in her. He spoke in reply to a series of questions, and, put in narrative form, his remarks were as follows:—Twice during his command was he compelled to bring the steamer back to port under canvas, through the shaft breaking. Both times he was near the Otway when the accidents happened, and had plenty of room to get sail on. When Mr Campbell, the Government Engineer of South Australia, reported against the maohinery of the vessel, he (Captain Striokland) did not believe the report; and as the, chief engineer of the steamer (Dooner, one of the drowned) said the maohinery was good, he would have trusted himself to the opinion of the chief engineer, in whom he had implioit confidence. He looked upon it in the light that if it was good enough for Dooner it was good enough for him. Dooner was with him eighteen months in the steamer. Of course he could not speak personally about maohinery, as he was not an expert, but ho accepted the opinion of the chief engineer against that of the Adelaide official, against whom the owners of the steamer issued a writ on account of his report on the steamer. -Besides the accidents to the shaft whilst ho Was

in charge of the steamer, something went wrong with one of the 'cylinder*. When the shafts broke there was a very heavy sea and head wind, and on the last occasion he went to Adelaide in her it was ju*t such a night as Wednesday night. When he was in trouble he had plenty of room to handle the steamer, but on this occasion he imagined she mußt have been right in the midst of the Rip. He repeated that he looked upon all the accidents to the steamer as a run of bad luck.

' We have had very dirty weather for the past six weeks," s*id one of the pilots, "but Wednesday night Was the dirtiest of the lot by a good bit. If any men in Victoria should know when weather on the coast of this Colony is dirty, they are the pilots, and when they assert, as a couple of their number did yesterday, that the weather on Wednesday night was so boisterous that no sane seaman would have ventured outside the Heads, the public may take it for granted that the wisest plan a captain could have adopted would have been to have dropped anchor off Qucenscliff for the night. The pilots declare that the wind was blowing too fiercely and the sea was running too high to justify any captain (who thought for a moment of the Bafety of his passengers) venturing into the open ocean. " But" —and hero they stato a fact which the public have had thrust on them too often of late—" captains of coasting steamers are too frightened to detain their vessels ten minutes, and they think it better to risk their vessels and their passengers in the most tempestuous weather rather than chance the vrauish- | ment of dismissal for delaying the trip of the ! steamer by even a-i hour through stress of weather," These statements are emphasised by the fact that the captains of the steamers Southern Cross (for Hobart) and Wairarapa (for New Zealand) found the weather so rough that they preferred staying inside the Heads to venturing into the tempest. Mr Marioit, one of tbu saved, said: "Just before the steamer went r. diore a young gentleman passenger named Pitchforth was playing the piano. After sho struck, he continued to do so. and we thought that ho did not realise the dangerous position We wefe in. When wo ru-<hed oil deck after the vessel broke up amidships, we missed him and gave him up for lost. Early in the morning, however, a coo-e-e was heard in the saloon, and on breaking into it from the deck, we found that the young man had been an involuntary prisoner during the weary night, and I can well understand what his feelings must have been, hearing the waves beating over and around the vessel, and each moment threatening her destruction." Mr Pitchforth told an interviewer:—" It is true that I was playing the piano, even after the vessel struck, but I did so in order to reassure the passengers and prevent any thing like a panic occurring. I did spend a strange time of it in the saloon, but somehow or other I never lost hope of ultimate deliverance." The Cheviot was valued by her owners at L 20.000 to L 25.000, and was only insured to the extent of LIO.OOO. The insurance was distributed among the following companies : —The Commercial Union, the Australian Alliance, the Southern, the Derwent and Tamar, tho Colonial Mutual, Melbourne Lloyd's, atd the Australasian Lloyd's. The difa<tcr has been the cause of yet another death to the already long list. It appears that when a relation of one of the passengers was breaking the news to the deceased's widow, who resides in Melbourne, that her husband was drowned, she became so excited that she dropped dead instantly.