THE AUSTRAL ENQUIRY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4861, 28 November 1883, Page 4

THE AUSTRAL ENQUIRY.

The Wreck Commissioner and four experienced nautioal assessors spent a week in prosecuting a searching examination into the causes of the aooident to the Austral in Sydney harbour in laat November. A great many witnesses were examined, including Oaptain Murdooh, the master, and hiß officers, the ohief engineer and second engineer, the ship's corpeoter, Mr Francis Elger, naval architeot, Mr Martell, ohief surveyor at Lloyd's, and others/lnd their evidence fills many columns of the Times. Ihe evidence was ° oonoluded on Oot. 2, and the Commissioner, after hearing the various counsel engaged in the oase, delivered judgment as oabied on Oot. 6. Oaptain Murdooh, who was submitted to a moat aearohing and protracted examination, eaid he attributed the sinking of the ship to her capsizing. It was to him a myatery. Hia belief waa that she went over from want of stability. When the ship waß built as a oellular-bottomed chip it was intended she shonld be fit to go to eea without any waterballast or dead weight. Being given to understand that faot, he thought that with nearly 2000 tons of weight ho waa justified in pumping out the water-ballast to raise the ship to take ooal. If the ship had been coaled with the baskets she brought out thore would have been no oocasion to empty the ballasttanks. Mr Elgar, a member of the Institute of Naval Architects, who had inolined the Austral on August 6 last, submitted elaborate calculations that he had made in regard to her stability. He attributed the sinking to continuing coaling on the one side till the ports came into the water. Had a watoh been kept and the collier taken round when the ports were a foot from the water the acoident would have been impossible. Ihe Austral was from hie calculations a vessel possessed of sufficient stability for all seagoing purposes. Mr Martell, the chief aurvejor at Lloyd's, oonsidored that the Austral ought not to have oome to grief with the most ordinary oare. On behalf of the ohief offioer it was contended by his counsel that the real oause of the ahip going over was the tanks being pumped out. Counsel for the ohief engineer alleged that the oauses of the catastrophe were the non-shifting of the collier when the tanks were empty, and the coalports open. In pumping out tho tanks and opening the ports the engineer had merely obeyed the captain, while the non-shifting of a oollier waß a deck officer's deroliction of duty. On bohalf of the owners it was urged that the vessel was perfectly etable and seaworthy — a Bplendid Bhip, able, wiih her tankß filled, to have positive stability in ull circumBtanoes. The captain's counsel attriouted the sinking of the Austral to a series of small mistakes, the first being committed by the Board of Trade, who hid failed to calculate the stability of the veßael. If the man Morris had called the ohief engineer as directed whon the collier came alongside, tho catastrophe would not nave happened, but he fell aeleep. Wilson, the donkeyman, who was on watob, also fell asleep, and Lownian, the dook hand, also failed in his duty. If the chief officer had Btopped on deck, or the engineer had been called, the catastrophe would not have happoned. The remarks of the counsel for the Board of Trade bore muoh more heavily upon the ohief officer and ohief engineer than upon the oaptain.