MARINE INQUIRY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 52, 28 January 1933, Page 5

MARINE INQUIRY

RECENT ACCIDENT AT NAPIER. Per Press Association. NAPIER, Jan. 27. The marine inquiry into the disaster at the inner entrance to Napier Harbour on December 28, when tire launch Doris, containing 31 watersiders, collided with the Richardson Company’s Te Atu, and sank with the loss of ten lives, was continued to-day.' Arne Angen, a deckhand on the Tu Atu, stated that the launch appeared to change its course when within a few yards of the Tu Atu. He saw the light on the port side, and next instant the launch was overturned oil the starboard side. The Tu Atu did not appear to change her course. The launch was struck only a glancing blow. Witness thought that it completely overturned. Richard Blundell, master of the tug Kuru, said that early on the night of the disaster, Mentzer, the launch helmsman, appeared to be the worse for liquor. William Frank Bunce, Harbour Board nightwatchman, in giving evidence, said lie did not put up the “channel closed” signal when the

Tu Atu went out, as she did not block it. Launches had frequently passed the Tu Atu in the channel. Alfred Witington,- a watersider who was on the Doris, said he saw the Tu Atu when she was almost on the launch which had not changed her course just prior to the collision. Jeffrey Ronald Jones, another watersider who was on the Doris, said that when he saw the lights of the Tu Atu he thought them to be those of the Koau stuck in the channel. The Doris appeared to pull in toward the eastern pier and he thought they would graze it as they passed. When he first saw the Tu Atu the Doris was a little on her port bow. The sitting was adjourned till to-te-morrow.