THE ENPRESS DISASTER

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8784, 14 July 1914, Page 6

THE ENPRESS DISASTER

The Court’s finding is that, after all, the cause cf-tho great disaster was very small. An. officer not in charge of the Storstad lost his head when the engines wore reversed, took the wheel from the quartermaster, and turned it over before the reversed engines had stopped the ship’s way. Apart from the question of discipline, the mistake was one to which the men on the bridge are always liable. When backing off. a wharf it sometimes happens that they order the change of holm before the right moment. In this case tho ship chanced to he so near the Empress that the wrong turn given to the ship’s head —her way not being stopped by the reversing engines—took her on to the Empress instead, as was intended, and would have happened, had the helm been moved after the ship had gathered sternway, going clear. It is a case almost analogous to tho case of a pointsman,’ unconsciously opening the points for a train when he is. intending to shut them. The Court, however, added what was virtually a very significant rider to its verdict, saying that the Empress’s captain ought to, have profited by tho width of the channel. If he had, the Court seems to have meant, when he sighted the other ship, given her a wider berth hy going across to the other side of the channel nothing would have happened. This is practically a censure: virtually saying to the captain that when in the close neighbourhood of the Storstad he had done everything that was right and proper, but that he had no business to be where he was, but ought to have taken care to be further.off. Wo have it borne in on us then, that a very simple thing sank tho big ship and destroyed 1000 lives, and’ that the adoption of an equally simple thing would have avoided the disaster altogether. The combination of facts deepens the tragedy considerably. We can only hop© that in similar circumstances shipmasters will always prefer the certainty of safety wherever there is room to change direction, to the rigid maintenance of their proper course*