THE MAORI’S STABILITY.

Evening Star, Issue 18717, 20 August 1924, Page 6

THE MAORI’S STABILITY.

The memorandum on the Maori’s stability, prepared by the Marine Department after an investigation, and road by the Minister of Marine in the House yesterday, slated; “Prior to the conversion of the vessel from coal-burning to oil-burning no complaints were made.” The department was apparently referring to complaints made in Parliament or through newspapers, or else its memory was short. From the first day of the Maori’s introduction to thc ( ferry service her particular motion was a cause of concern to no small proportion of her passengers, who would shake their heads solemnly, murmuring “Never again” as they recalled their experience of her novel movements, and did not conceal their apprehensions that on any trip she might be expected to turn turtle. The Maori has been running for seventeen years since then without any mishap between the two islands, with those nervous souls—no longer nervous—included at intervals among her passengers. Their first forebodings were remembered only as a joke, when they had not been long forgotten, till a revival of distrust was caused by a new character given to the vessel’s motion fairly recently by the substitution of oil for coal, making a change in her ballast. That conversion happened to be followed by some particularly rough trips of the Maori, and no ship, as her owners and the Marine Department have united in pointing out, can be a place of comfort for passengers when it is fighting to carry out a timetable against heavy weather. In view of fears expressed, however, lest the rollingpropensity of the vessel in such circumstances might be an indication of something wanting in her margin of stability, the department was wise in making the investigation it has done and the company in giving every assistance to it. The results of that inquiry, made by expert officers, are most reassuring. The department finds that the general effect, of conversion from coal-burning to oil-burning and its load distribution has been to make the Maori a “stiffer” ship. That is not inconsistent with her being a less steady and a more uncomfortable ship when heavy seas are met with, but that increased liveliness, with the discomfort which it causes, the department reports, has no bearing on the question of the ship’s stability or safety; as the head office of tlie Union Company has explained the matter, it stands rather for an addition of safety. Arrangements have now been made for a modified distribution of the permanent loading, which will increase the case and feeling of security of passengers in rough weather without affecting one way or another the stability, which is a first consideration. The owners of the Maori produce technical data to show that, so far from being a tender ship, she has a large margin of safety, their claim being that she will challenge comparison in this respect with any vessel afloat. The main point is that, after what is represented as having been a complete investigation M the whole matter, the Marine Department/' has no fault to find with the Maori. It would be too much to expect that future passengers crossing the strait in her when it is most stormy will sleep quietly in their bunks, but they can be free from the worst apprehensions while they lie awake in them. They can add something to the reflection of an earlier traveller: “We are as near heaven by sea as by land”— “and not necessarily nearer.”