GREYCLIFFE DISASTER

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 30 December 1927, Page 5

GREYCLIFFE DISASTER

EXPERTS GIVE EVIDENCE.

THE WRECK EXAMINED. TECHNICAL DEDUCTIONS MADE. BY CABLE-TRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT SYDNEY, Dee. 29. The judicial inquiry into the Groycliffe disaster was continued today. Alexander McPhee Greenlees, a naval architect, gave evidence that lie examined the stern portion of the Greycliffe, now beached in the harbour, and the submerged portion of the wreck. The latter examination had been made with the aid of a poweiful electric light. He found the ferry’s rudder to port slightly, with the pin in. The rudder could not be turned to starboard with the pin in its present position. The wire pull for lifting or dropping the pin had carried away and the tube iead_ was bent. , . Witness said he boarded the Tahiti when she entered the harbour last Tuesday, and made the journey up the harbour. The Tahiti was travelling eight knots, but there was no bow wave, merely a disturbance on the surface of the water. Greenlees then explained that the displacement wave of the Tahiti on the day of the collision would not have had any effect on the position of the Greycliffe, nor would it have changed the course of the ferry. He added that lie did not think the oncoming vessel would exert any force ahead ol it. Similarly the greater the speed of the vessel the smaller the angle of displacement. A stationary vessel would exert a force at right angles to the plates, and that angle was gradually reduced in accordance with the powei and the speed with which the vessel was sent through the water. In the Coroner’s Court the inquest on the Greycliffe victims was continued, Captain Aldwell giving evidence. He -said the statement he made to the police in Wellington was not, untrue, but it was. taken down wrongly. The currents in Sydney harbour would have no appreciable effect on a steamer the size of the Tahiti. There was nothing to indicate just prior to the collision that the Greycliffe had become out of control. He thought the master of the ferry did not see the Tahiti.

THE OBTAINING OF STATEMENTS. In reply to a question by the coroner Captain Aldwell said the Tahiti left port after the collision under the instructions of the manager of the Union Steam Ship Company. It had not struck him at the time that in the interests of justice the ship should have been delayed in port until statements had been obtained from the passengers and crew. Personally, he could not have given any more definite information then than now. In reply to a further question by the coroner, who said) it was not intended to be offensive, Cantain Aldwell said all the officers and the pilot were sober at the time, and practically all the Tahiti’s officers were teetotallers. Witness continued that when the police lxiarded his vessel at, Wellington they asked him to make a statement. He* replied that he did not feel like making one. They adopted a threatening attitude, and* he made the statement under compulsion. Witness was then taken through the statement, sentence by sentence, to point out- what he declared to be inaccuracies. Captain Aklwell was questioned on several points, and then admitted that the greater part of the statement was more or less correct. John Thompson, a member of the Institute of Naval Architects, Marine Engineers and Mechanical Engineers, London, said he had given particular attention to the forces exerted by moving vessels. He then illustrated to the court, by the aid of diagrams, the premises upon which, lie proposed to base his technral evidence. Counsel asked that the court should examine the bow of the Tahiti before the vessel departed for New Zealand. Justice Campbell said he had' already done so. RECONSTRUCTION OF DISASTER. Thompson then produced a diagram showing certain patches of the painting on the bows of the Tahiti. He said the marks indicated that they had been caused by the belting iron of the Greycliffe, and the" wood of the sponson. Witness, by the aid of diagrams, then sought to reconstruct the' disaster and relative circumstances immediately prior to it by; a process of deduction. He showed that, assuming the Tahiti commenced the voyage at 4.10 o’clock, the average speed from the time she left the wharf was 8.4 knots hourly. By the same process of deduction witness showed that, in his opinion, at 4.27 o’clock the Greycliffe was travelling about nine knots. Taking that speed and the relative positions of the ships at 4.27 into consideration, he was of the opinion that, assuming the Tahiti was doing only eight knots, the bow of the Tahiti must have been 200 to 300 feet ahead of the Greycliffe, and the latter, instead of being an overtaken ship, was an overtaking ship- . . Having regard, to the actual positions of the vessels at the time of the impact, he was compelled to conclude that the speed of the Tahiti at that moment was 13;} knots. In another series of calculations Thompson made deductions based primarily on the assumption that the Tahiti* at 4.20 o’clock was doing six knots, and at or about 4.29} o’clock eight knots. This, he said, would, bring the point of impact 1470 feet west from where it actually happened.

Taking the statements of the two captains, lie could' not correlate' the position of the two vessels, nor could he reconcile* the statements with the positions of the wreck. To do so the Tahiti would have been travelling not more than four knots. From the indents on the how of the Tahiti lie did not think the first blow had been struck at an angle exceeding 10 degrees. Had the blow been a direct one the iron band round tbe ferry’s sponsion would have been cut through. Instead, it had been forced down by the first glancing blow, and then the second blow cut into the tsponson.

The oncoming Tahiti in shallow water, he said, would exert hydraulic pressure ahead. In deep sea water the oncoming vessel exerts pressure' outward, downward arid forward. In shallow water the pressure is outward and forward only. It was therefore more marked in shallow water because the pressure, which was lost in the depth in deep water, was exerted more fully in shallow water. The forward pressure would have the effect of paralysing the helm action of the vessel being overtaken by the oncoming ship, especially a large one. The effect of this forward pressure would be felt first at the stern of the overtaken vessel.