TAMAHAE INQUIRY REPORT

Northern Advocate, 10 December 1936, Page 6

TAMAHAE INQUIRY REPORT

OWNER-MASTER AT FAULT

[Special to "Northern Advocate.”! WELLINGTON, This Day.

“We consider the ship foundered through Mr Jones’ neglect, and lack of seamanship, and he is to be strongly reprimanded for his neglect. He is probably quite a useful man as an engineer, but is unsuited to command a ship. We return his ticket to him, but as a mark of the Court’s displeasure, he is ordered to pay £lO 10/ towards the costs of the Crown in this ‘investigation. We have ttaktn into consideration the fact that he has suffered a heavy financial loss in the sinking of the ship.” So runs the report of the Marine Court of Inquiry into the foundering of the auxiliary scow Tamahae in the Hauraki Gulf after rrfidnight on September; 25. The report was released fcy the Minister of Marine, and was prepared by Mr Wyvern Wilson, S.M., Captain F. G. Shirley, Captain J. M. McKinnon, Messrs W. R. Messenger ad B. J. L. Lukes. . < The owner-master of the Tamahae, Captain R. H. Jones, was represented at the hearing by Mr A. Moody; Mr Foden, Wellington, appeared for the Marine Department; Mr Goulding, for the Scow Masters’ Association; and Mr Walsh, Wellington, for the Federated Seamen’s Union of New Zealand.

“Coffin Ship” Suggestion Untrue

The report stated that when the ship was at sea on September 25 on her voyage from Mangawai to Auckland,, water gradually entered through boiej, caused! through the breaking of several stanchions when te ship was damaged by a heavy sea on the Mangawai "fear. The engineer in charge was at fault in not havig made a proper inspection of the.vessel after she had received the injury, and before; he again put to sa. Suggestions (that she was at one time left derelict, and that she was a casualty “coffin ship” were quite untrue, the report stated, and the whole of the evidence pointed to her having been a well-found and staunch little vessel and a good sea boat. The Court considered, however, that she was quite unseaworthy when she left Mangawai, and that her condition should have been apparent to the engineer in charge. The vessel was inadequately manned. Two oth- j er men comprising the crew were inexperienced. Indeed, a young man at the wheel for the last two hours before she sank had had only a few hours’ (experience, qnd, in consequence, did not notice-that the vessel was becoming water-logged. At the time the vessel was manned in accordance with the law for the Shipping and Seamen’s Act, by section 199, permits of a vessel under ■Six tons burden being commanded by a duly certificated engineer.

A Recommendation,

1 The Court realised that there were many men of wide experience in seamanship, who held no more than an engineer’s, ticket now in charge of a small vessel and who were quite competent in command, but the Court thought that the law required amendment so as to. ensure that an engineer before he took charge of a trading vessel of under six tons should have been approved of .by a competent authority, - such as the Superintendent of Mercantile Marj ine. It was recommended that the i law should be amended so as to grant j this protection to seamen. | “Several suggestions were put to [us by Mr Walsh on behalf of the Seamen’s Union, for our consideration and recommendation to Ithe Minister,” the report adds. “They may be answered generally. There is nothing to lead us into supposing that any further conditions and regulations of the running of scows or small ships are required. There is, in fact, no evil calling for remedy. “We would like, however, to respectfully suggest for the consideration of the Minister that, with the great increase in the use of marine power motor engines, both within and beyond harbour limits, the time has arrived when it should be made compulsory for every person who drives a boat fitted with a motor en-

gine to hold a personal certificate of fitness so to do. Such is the law for vehicles on the land and in the

air, and it seems true in principle that it should be so on the water. Certificates might well be issued by the port authorities in the case of small craft.”