£100,000 LOST IN A SECOND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14835, 11 November 1911, Page 2 (Supplement)

£100,000 LOST IN A SECOND.

COST OF THE OLYMPIC COLLISION, A biu, of costs ounting to more than £100,000 has been incurred in consequence of the collision between H.M.S. Hawke and the White Star liner Olympic.

- When a cruiser which has cost the nation more than £400,000 to build and a great liner whose floating value probably exceeds £2,000,000 meet in collision and are both damaged, tho bill is an enormous one to both sides.

Not only are there the heavy costs of replacing the Hawke's crumpled bows and of repairing the hole in the side. of the Olympic, which . together will amount' to. more than £50,000, but there is the heavy! daily expense of demurrage and of transferring 2000 passengers, who have paid in fares and expenses something like £40,000, ! to other boats.

Some of the expenses incurred during tin second when the warship and the liner met will approximate as follows :— ■ :vfSjS

Cost of cloaking and repairing Olympic ... £23,000 , Incidental expenses ■ ■ 10,000.Ooet of repairing' H.M.S. Hawke r and loss of services 30,03). Oast of special trains ... ... 300 ■ Cost of bousing and entertaining held-up ..... passengers .MjWOT^ lioes to passengers and crew of liner •..."f.iUMCO

When the White Star Company offered: three days' pay ; to . the , members 'fe{ the Olympic's crew, who were being paid off, the men claimed that as the vessel was not a wreck they were entitled, under the Merchant, Shipping Act. to wages for the full voyage. . The matter will possibly form the sub- ■ ject of litigation, when a definition of th? term wreck will be asked for. A ruling on this point would be of considerable importance to the shipping world." 1 ■( ■< A naval court of inquiry into the collision has been opened ' at. Portsmouth.' No public report of the proceedings ' will be made, but a record of the investigation ' ; will be forwarded to the Admiralty-