GREYCLIFFE DISASTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19832, 30 December 1927, Page 9

GREYCLIFFE DISASTER.

THE INQUEST RESUMED.

MOVEMENTS OF TAHITI.

EVIDENCE BY CAPTAIN.

WELLINGTON INTERVIEW.

QUESTION OE ACCURACY. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. (Received December 29, 11.15 p.m.) A. and N.Z. SYDNEY. Dec. 29. The inquest on the victims of the Sydney Harbour disaster, in which the ferry boat Greycliffc was sunk by the steamer Tahiti, was continued to-day. Captain B. M. Aldwell, captain of the Tahiti, said the statement ho made to the police in Wellington, New Zealand, 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 Grey cliffs had got out of control. Ho thought the master of the ferry boat did not see the Tahiti. Tn 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.

Statement In Hew Zealand. Iri reply to a further question by the coroner, Captain Aldwell said all the officers of the Tahiti and the pilot were sober at the time, and practically all the Tahiti's officers were teetotallers.

Witness added that when the police boarded his vessel in 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 a statement under com-

pulsion. Captain Aldwell was then taken through his statement sentence by sentence to point, out what he had declared to be inaccuracies. Pie was questioned on several points, and then he admitted that the greater part of the statement was more or less correct.

The judicial inquiry into the disaster was alsr resumed to-day. Architect Examines Wreck. Alexander McPhee Greenlees, naval architect, gave evidence to the effect that he examined the stern portion of the Greycltffe, now beached in the harbour, and also the submerged portion of the wreck The latter examination had been made with the aid of a powerful electric light. He found the ferry boat'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 lead was bent. Witness said lip boarded the Tahiti when she entered harbour last Tuesday, and made tho journey up the harbour. The Tahiti was travelling at' eight knots, but there was no bow wave, merely a disturbance of the surface of the water. He then said the displacement wave of the Tahiti on tho day of the collision would not have had any effect on the position of the Greyoliffe, nor would it have changed the course of the ferry boat. He lidded that he did not think the oncoming vessel would exert any force ahead oi it.

Similarly, the greater the speed of he vessel the smaller the angle of displacement. A stationary vessel would exert a force at right angles to the plates. That angle was gradually reduced in accordance with the power and speed with which a vessel was sent through the water.