The following remarks I quote from the “British Nautical Magazine,” a journal which certainly cannot be accused of pandering to the views of seamen: “In considering the safety of ships, we should not look to their efficiency in fine, or even moderately rough weather, but they should have a fair margin to meet any contingency. Indeed, the whole subject is one which has a right to be judged alone by a very high standard, as its issues are not ordinary commercial ones, but human lives. The question of the freeboard of ships is at once one of the most important, and one of the most complex subjects connected with naval architecture. It is only just to those who have to encounter the dangers of the sea that the vessel in which they sail shall not be loaded beyond the limit of safety, and, on the other hand, the gain of the owner upon his investment may depend upon that limit being reached. There have been, so far, only three principal proposals for fixing the load-line. First, a certain proportion of the depth of hold, three inches to the foot being about the average, i. e., the ship should have a freeboard at least about one-fourth of her depth of hold. Second, one-eighth of the beam is the minimum freeboard for ships whose length is not more than five times their breadth, and 1/32 of the beam should further be added to the freeboard for each additional breadth—beyond the five times—in the length of the ship, Third, the actual buoyancy of every ship should be calculated, and a percentage of the whole (say 30 per cent.) kept above the load-line, as reserve, or surplus buoyancy. In calculating the buoyancy of a ship, the measurements should be from the underneath side of the cargo deck—add to this the capacity of watertight erections above the deck—and thus the whole cubic content is ascertained. Allowing thirty-five cubic feet to the ton (since a ton of sea-water occupies about thirty-five cubic feet of space) the total capacity of the ship is arrived at, and 30 per cent. of the whole amount should be kept above water as spare buoyancy in an ordinary ship loaded with a general cargo. Were a cargo of less specific gravity than water carried, little or no spare buoyancy would be required, but a maximum would be needed in the case of a heavy cargo where there is necessarily much empty space capable of being rapidly filled by water in the event of a leak. Freeboard has a good deal to do with the stability of a ship, and there is, probably, no department of science of which so many false notions are current, and none in which the terms employed have been so often misunderstood and misapplied. The terms stability and steadiness are popularly looked upon as synonymous, although they really have, in connection with this subject, widely different meanings, so diverse, indeed, that the presence of one in excess implies a want of the other. The word metacentre, too, has proved a stumbling-block to many people, and it is a very common error to suppose that it is the point about which the ship rolls. So far from this being the case, that a ship really does not roll about any fixed axis whatever, it is only in scientific language that she can be said to roll about an axis at all, the axis being an instantaneous one, that is, one which is constantly changing. In the case of ships whose cargoes are badly stowed, so that as the ship rolls the cargo shifts, stability, or righting force, is largely diminished, and there is thus little or no tendency to return to the upright, the ship rolling, as it were, lifelessly about at the mercy of the waves. Water-logged ships afford another illustration of the same state of things, but in these cases the evil is aggravated, as the water moves so freely that a momentum is acquired which holds the ship back even when the waves have a tendency to restore her to the upright. We are not in a position to estimate the proportion of losses at sea which are caused by bad stowage; it is, without doubt, considerable, and when we remember how comparatively small a difference in the disposition of the cargo will affect the behaviour of the ship at sea, we are inclined to think that as many losses may be put down to this cause as to overloading. We must not be understood now to refer to loose, imperfect stowage, though that is the cause of great evil, but to improper disposition of the weight. This can only be remedied by the more general diffusion and appreciation of scientific knowledge; ignorance and carelessness, not greed, are the chief causes of mischief in these cases. So far as the question of stability is concerned, steamers require less freeboard than sailing ships; strong ships less than weak ones, and it is even possible to have a prescribed freeboard, according to rule, and yet such conditions of stowage that the ship would be safer if immersed deeper.”
One of the witnesses for the defence stated that the Alert’s displacement, with everything on board except cargo, was 312 tons, and that her surplus buoyancy was 400 tons. Assuming this statement as correct, then by adding 44 tons—the weight of the cargo said to have been on board during the fatal voyage—I find the total displacement to have been 356 tons. This leaves the surplus buoyancy to be exactly 100 per cent. or half of the whole. If this were really the case, and in addition the ship trimmed heavily by the stern, need there be any wonder why, when the ship rolled her lee bulwarks under water, she was unable to rise to an upright position?
APPLICATION FOR A NEW TRIAL.
“The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket, and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the justice of it.”
—Macklin.
“Law was made for property alone.”
—Macaulay.
The hearing of Messrs. Huddart, Parker and Co.’s appeal commenced on Wednesday, May 8, 1895, in the Supreme Court, Melbourne, before the full court consisting of Chief Justice Madden, Mr. Justice Hodges, and Mr. Justice Hood. The Attorney-General (Mr. Isaacs), Mr. Purves, and Mr. Coldham (instructed by Messrs. Malleson, England, and Stewart) appeared for the defendants in support of the application, and Mr. C. A. Smyth, Mr. Box, and Mr. Williams, for the plaintiff to oppose it.