On the final day of the Court of Marine Inquiry Mr. Dickinson said in his summing up the following," the Court does not accept as authentic the loose accounts of the colonial deponents of the boats rotten and useless state, but it does appear that they were not all in a satisfactory seaworthy condition on the first voyage, for in an account rendered by Messrs, Lund to Messrs, Barclay Curle on May 5th 1909, appears an item "Labour to make boats good and watertight on the saloon deck (caused by unseasoned wood shrinking at the butts and seams. The Emigration officer, captain Clarke reports unfavourably on these boats."
Captain Clarke was the man responsible for inspecting the Waratah prior to her first voyage and issued a certificate to state that the ship was a suitable emigrant ship. When it came to the lifeboats he had two boats put down into the water and rowed around by seaman. These two boats had been selected by captain Bidwell marine superintendent for Lund's. It was apparent that this was enough to satisfy captain Clarke and presumably he didn't bother to check the rest being as they were new boats. It was only after the first trip that Clarke was made aware of their condition, At the inquiry Clarke was absolved of his neglect to inspect all the boats and the blame was shifted to Bidwell.
The above picture is an example of a lifeboat dried out and the cracks in the seams can be seen, this a clinker built boat, planks or strakes overlapping similar to a weatherboard house, this type of planking on a wide beam boat had a dampening effect on rolling. On the stem can be seen carved are the boats dimensions along with number of persons capacity.
To make the planks and frames swell up and make the boat watertight some officers filled the boats up with salt water but this usually resulted in the weight of the water snapping the ribs and planks or strakes. Mr. Owen the chief officer took the lazy way out by having the boats covered in thick white paint in the hope this would prevent the timbers from shrinking in the tropics. One easy solution would have been when washing down the decks, to give the timbers a good soaking each day both inside and out, the water inside would have easily drained off through the two drain plugs at either end of the boat. Another solution was to take the opportunity at each port to put boats down in the water allowing them to swell up until the ship was ready to leave. Boat drills on board the Waratah were practically useless and amounted to nothing more than a muster of hands to each boat and have their names crossed off. Covers on the boats where never taken off and the crew were never instructed on parts of the boat or practice at swinging them out.
To make the planks and frames swell up and make the boat watertight some officers filled the boats up with salt water but this usually resulted in the weight of the water snapping the ribs and planks or strakes. Mr. Owen the chief officer took the lazy way out by having the boats covered in thick white paint in the hope this would prevent the timbers from shrinking in the tropics. One easy solution would have been when washing down the decks, to give the timbers a good soaking each day both inside and out, the water inside would have easily drained off through the two drain plugs at either end of the boat. Another solution was to take the opportunity at each port to put boats down in the water allowing them to swell up until the ship was ready to leave. Boat drills on board the Waratah were practically useless and amounted to nothing more than a muster of hands to each boat and have their names crossed off. Covers on the boats where never taken off and the crew were never instructed on parts of the boat or practice at swinging them out.
Life saving equipment was not taken seriously by all accounts and the three life rafts on board were lashed down next to the funnel to make way on the boat deck for strolling passengers. This resulted
in the timbers warping severely due to the heat from the funnel.
Life raft.
Mass production of lifeboats for the Titanic.
I can understand the comment from the Solicitors office of the Board of Trade when it said that the Waratah was badly managed by the Lund company.
I can understand the comment from the Solicitors office of the Board of Trade when it said that the Waratah was badly managed by the Lund company.
