In modern shipping today many casualties have resulted in the loss of ships due to capsize caused by bulk cargoes of lead concentrates. The Waratah was said to have loaded 1,000 tons of concentrates but in actual fact she loaded 1,500 tons. On her second voyage to Australia she off loaded cargo at Adelaide then took in 1,000 tons of concentrates which she carried to Sydney and back to Adelaide for stability reasons. At Adelaide she took in 500 tons more for the voyage back to England but there is no record of it on the manifest. The Board of Trade must have known something of it because the Solicitor for the Board of Trade Mr. Robert Ellis Cuncliffe who was gathering all the evidence for the inquiry wrote to the Adelaide agents asking if a further 500 tons had been shipped. That was the only mention of it ever heard, there is no proof that the agents answered his request which strongly smells like conspiracy, it would appear that the 500 tons did not exist. However I am in possession of documents that prove beyond doubt the concentrates were loaded into number two lower hold.
Mr Robert Ellis Cuncliffe Board of Trade Solicitor.
The cargo of lead concentrates may look dry when being loaded but it contains moisture in between the particles and if the moisture content is to high it can be dangerous. Once the ship is underway agitation takes place due to engine vibration, the ships motions rolling and pitching along with wave impact against the ships hull. The result is the compacting of the lead particles, this in turn leads to a closing up of the space between the particles. The moisture or water content rises sharply and presses the particles apart, this then produces the cargo to move from a solid state to a liquid one and forms a fluid on the surface of the cargo. Once it has reached this stage the cargo will flow to one side of the ship on a roll one way but may not return fully with a roll the other way. This could well lead to a dangerous list and possibly a sudden capsizing of the ship. The possibility of the cargo becoming liquefied is more so when the ship runs in heavy weather and high sea at full speed. Whether or not much attention was paid in 1909 to the nature of lead concentrates is not known. Today a certificate must be produced by the shipper to the master of the ship to satisfy him the cargo is of a low moisture content. There is today a danger that this type of cargo loaded in third world countries that the certificates may look genuine but may not be authenticated (falsified) which to the unsuspecting master could well cost him his ship.
Dry concentrates Liquefied concentrates.
Partially capsized M.V. Hope July 2013 south of Phuket, four seamen lost their lives.
