THE RECENT COLLISON.

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 8990, 15 May 1890, Page 5

THE RECENT COLLISON.

(FROM OUR OWN COURESP- NDEST.)

Westport, May 14.

' In connection with the Kawatiri and Southern Cross collision, Captain Apstein informs me that the Kawatiri was lying a quarter of a mile to the leeward of the Southern Cross, and her anchors held firmly till the Southern Cross came down upon her and then both vessels drifted a short distance. Captain Apstein and the second mate were on the bridge when they noticed the Cross’ -lights nearing them. Captain -Apstein at once blew bis whistle and gave orders to get up steam, and seat the m&idowa to prepare to slip the cable. Three minutes elapsed before steam could be got up, and by this time the Cross was ujron them. vTho Kawatiri people are positive that their steamer did not move from her anchorage at all until interfered with by the other steamer. It was impossible for her to bear down on the Cross in the teeth of the wind and sea. It would appear that those aboard the Cross did not observe their predicament until warned by the Kawatiri’s whistle, and they evidently then imagined the latter was in the same position as themselves. The steward of the Southern Cross, who unceremoniously parted company with his vessel and joined the Kawatiri, performed a gigantic leap from bridge to bridge, variously estimated in distance up to 20ft. His reason for preferring tho Kawatiri to his own boat in the emergency does not appear, but there is some excuse for his anxiety to move somewhere in the f ict that he had a previous experience of a wreck, having been tho last ma|i to leave the ill-fated Koranni on the occasion cf her foundering in the French Pass.