BLAME OF COBRA DISASTER.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 256, 6 November 1901, Page 1

BLAME OF COBRA DISASTER.

EXPERTS CONDEMN SENDING CRAFT TO SEA IN HEAVY WEATHER.

London, Sept 21. No naval disaster since the sinking of the Victoria has caused more excitement throughout Great Britain than the loss of the torpedo-boat de-stroj-er Cobra, with sixty-seven lives, Wednesday, off the North Sea coast of England. Expert opinion hero strongly condemns those responsible for sending the Cobra to sea in such tempestuous weather. Lieut. Bosworth Smith, who was in command, suggested a doubt of the advisability of doing so, but was overborne by confident statements made bj r the manager of the Elswick Works, where the Cobra was built, and by Manager Parsons, of the Turbino manufactory, who engined her, that sho had already boen tried with entirely satisfactory results iu much heavier weather. Both Smith and Parsons wont down with the vessel.

Apart from the question of the seaworthiness of these delicately constructed boats, which drive headlong through the waves, socure navigation becomes difficult owing to the impossibility of keeping a proper lookout in the blinding spra} r , or of making nautical observations and calculations under the trying conditions that prevail.

Tho strain upon them may be judged when it is stated that the Cobra, a vessel of -100 tons displacement and constructed of quarter-inch steel, carried machinery of tho same engine-power as 10,000-ton-battlo-ships. As such vessels do not steer properly when driven slowly, the risk must bej taken of forcing them forward at a high rate of speed. It is regarded as an ominous coincidence that tho three British warships named after snakes mot disaster. The Serpent, a torpedo-boat destroyer, was lost with 173 lives in 1890 off Capo Villauo, in Northern Spain ; the Viper, a sister boat to tho • obra, was lost in the fog- off the Channel Islands during manoeuvres this autumn, aud now the Cobra lias gone to tho bottom.