GREYCLIFFE DISASTER

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 31 December 1927, Page 5

GREYCLIFFE DISASTER

MORE EXPERT EVIDENCE.

THEORY OF INTERACTION. SOME CAUSTIC COMMENT. BY CABER-PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. SYDNEY, Dec. 30. The judicial inquiry into the Greyeliffe disaster was continued to-day. John Thompson, a naval expert, continuing his evidence, said he had been listening carefully to see if there was any evidence that the •Greycliffe turned to starboard, but there was no evidence that she did.

Jn reply to the suggestion by Mr Jus. tice Campbell that all the observers were otherwise occupied, witness said “yes.” He supposed that the'Greycliffe would ultimately have turned to starboard.

In reply to a further question by council, Thompson said that in his opinion the forces of both suction and repulsion operated when the Tahiti and the Greycliffo came together.

In answer to cross-examination, witness said his deductions regarding the operation of the interaction did not necessarily fail if the speeds he estimated were found to be incorrect. lie added that there was no doubt that the two vessels had been steering pactically parallel courses just before the collision. He was of opinion that the angle of the vessel at the point of ecntact was very slight.

Replying to a question regarding the evidence of the Tahiti’s engineers as to the engines not being properly warmed up at the time of the collision, Thompson said if the engines of the Tahiti took from ten o’clock in the morning to 4.30 in the afternoon to warm up, they should be thrown overboard and the engineers with them. He then criticised the engineers. He said he had listend to their evidence, “and if they cannot, as they said,, say what number of revolutions their engines were doing going out of the harbour that afternoon, they did not know their jobs and were not fit to be engineers on a liner like the Tahiti. ’ ’ DANGER OF INTERACTION.

In reply to a further question, witness said "that with the large type vessels coming into Sydney Harbour now the interaction could take place in almost any part of the harbour. It was quite possible that many mishaps which occurred opposite Bradley’s Head had been due to interaction, although they had been attributed to other causes.

James Kidd, engineer and works manager of the Sydney Ferries, Limited, gave evidence that he had no record of any repairs made to the steering gear of the Greycliffe during the month of October.

Captain Barnes, who was in charge of the Greycliffe on the day of the disaster, recalled, gave evidence that he felt a wave strike the vessel just before the collision, but that in a statement previously made to the police he made no reference to the wave.

Robert Kave, a naval employee, stated that two or three weeks before the disaster, he went to the Circular Quay wharf to travel to Garden Island by the Watson’s Bay ferry. That day he travelled by the Greycliffe. After the vessel had gone 200 or 300 yards from the wharf she came back to the wharf and remained there about twenty minutes. He saw the master of the Greycliffe stand on the wharf for a few seconds looking at the stern of the vessel and then go towards the ferry office. The master returned in about 20 minutes with another man. The two conversed while looking at the stern. He overheard part of the conversation. The ferry left the wharf and went backwards and forwards to swing round, and finally left the wharf with the other end first.

Francis Ludeck, superintendent of the Watson’s Bay ferry service, gave evidence that the master of the Greycliffe informed him on August 5 that he thought the rudder .pin was broken, and that he had gone out from the wharf and found the rudder would not answer. The ferry was then docked and a new rudder pin fitted, when it was found the old one, was broken. Frank Baker, ship’s draughtsman at Garden Island, deposed that on the speed calculations he worked nut the speed which the Tahiti would have reached at the point of impact at 13.1 knots. '

The court then adjourned till Tuesday. The coroner’s inquiry into the tragedy was adjourned till January 9.