Death of a Supertanker (19 page)

Foley completed his evidence with an account of what had happened between the Captain’s arrival and his own relief by the third officer.

Kahn said he had no further questions. Ohlsson and Goodbody reserved cross-examination for a later stage and the witness stood down. After a brief consultation with counsel for the enquiry, the Chairman adjourned the proceedings until the following morning.

It was close to five o’clock when George Foley and his wife left the courtroom with Arnold Kahn to drive back to their hotel in Cape Town.

The enquiry was fully reported in the Cape Town press and interest in its proceedings grew steadily. It was therefore not surprising that at the resumption on the morning of the third day ‘C’ court was full to overflowing.

The low hum of conversation ceased when the clerk of the court called for order and everyone stood. Moments later the Chairman and Assessors entered the courtroom and took their places on the dais.

When Ohlsson asked that Freeman Jarrett – the man he was defending – be called there was a ripple of excitement. In
pre-trial
accounts of the disaster and in stories gleaned from interviews with crewmen, the media had inferred that the chief officer, the man on watch when the ship ran aground, would be the principal defendant. It had been freely rumoured in Cape Town that he and the Captain were at loggerheads about the latter’s absence from the bridge; and it was common gossip that Jarrett and Foley were doing their best to saddle each other with responsibility for the disaster. These elements of drama had not been overlooked. Finally, the story of how Jarrett had rescued Cadet Price from the sea off Durban, and later risked his life in the gale in an abortive attempt to save Malim and a crewman, had been prominently featured in the newspapers.

Thus all eyes were on the tall man in the fawn suit who got up from the big table in front of the dais and walked quickly to the witness box. The livid scar on his forehead was a reminder if any were needed of the failed but gallant rescue attempt and added rather than detracted from the manly looks and strong features.

The preliminaries of oath taking and statement verification having been completed, Ohlsson began his examination by asking Jarrett to narrate events on the bridge of
Ocean
Mammoth
from the time he took over the watch at 0400 on 29 October, until the stranding just over an hour and a half later.

Speaking in a firm voice, his manner composed and assured.
the chief officer embarked on his story and it seemed to those in court that the Chairman and Assessors listened with particular attention and sympathy to what he was saying.

He had begun by stressing the difficulty of reconstructing accurately such a complex series of events – compressed as they had been into a short space of time – without the relevant chart, the missing pages from the logbooks and the course-recorder trace; but he would, he said, do his best. At that point Ohlsson interrupted. ‘When did you last see the chart and the other items you’ve just mentioned?’

‘A few minutes before we stranded. When I went to the chart-room and found the second officer there.’ Jarrett hesitated, looked for a moment at Foley who sat slumped in a chair at Kahn’s side, before turning back to Ohlsson.

‘What was the second officer doing?’

‘Working on the chart, I presume. He was leaning over it with a pencil and had parallel rulers in his hand.’

‘Did he have an eraser?’

‘There is always an eraser on the chart-table.’

‘Were you surprised to find him there – in his watch below?’

‘Yes. To be perfectly frank, I was astonished.’

‘And you never saw that chart or the missing pages of the
logbooks
and the course-recorder trace again?’

Goodbody was on his feet. ‘Objection, Your Worship. My Learned Friend is leading the witness.’

‘You must not lead the witness, Mr Ohlsson.’ The Chairman frowned.

‘I’m sorry, Your Worship. An oversight.’ He turned back to Jarrett. ‘Did you ever see that chart or the missing pages of the logbooks and the course-recorder trace again?’

‘No. There was no opportunity. The ship struck minutes after that. The Captain came to the bridge, ordered fire stations, and I had to leave the bridge to go to my station.’

‘Leaving the Captain and the second officer there?’

‘That is correct.’

Ohlsson began another question when the Chairman said, ‘Mr Ohlsson, I suggest you deal with events in their chronological order. This switching about confuses the court. No doubt you will have an opportunity in due course to bring the defendant to what happened
after
the stranding.’

Ohlsson’s sharp nose swung from his client to the Chairman. ‘I
am sorry, Your Worship, I wanted to emphasize the extent to which my client is handicapped by the absence of those
documents
.’ He sighed audibly before looking again at Jarrett. ‘You were about to tell the court what happened after you had taken over the watch.’

Jarrett went on to tell of the various alterations of course necessary – first for the big ship ahead then, successively, for the two trawlers on the starboard bow – his account according closely with the evidence of the previous witnesses. He dwelt on the difficulties created by the advent of fog so soon after altering course for the big ship.

Ohlsson again interrupted. ‘When your ship encountered that fog what did you do?’

‘I called the standby man, Cavalho, and put him on bridge lookout. Then I phoned the engineroom and told the second engineer of the fog and we put the engines to “manoeuvring speed”. That was at 0430. I remember the time because he and I agreed it. Next I tried the auto-switch on the pneumatic siren – the forward one used for fog signals – but there was no response. I phoned Mr Benson at once and asked him to have someone attend to it. He asked me not to use the steam whistle aft because it would disturb those sleeping. I told him I would not. I reported the fog to the Captain by telephone. Told him of the steps I had taken and mentioned the trouble with the siren. He agreed with the decision not to use the steam whistle. He then asked me about traffic in the vicinity and the state of the weather generally, and I gave him the necessary information.’

‘Was that the end of the conversation?’

Jarrett frowned, his expression a mixture of worry and embarrassment. ‘No. The Captain said that he had a bad
headache.
’ Jarretťs voice dropped. ‘He said he’d taken some
painkillers
so that he could sleep – and wouldn’t be coming up. He asked me to keep a sharp eye on things and to let him know if I wanted him on the bridge at any time. I said I was sorry to hear of his trouble – that I was sure that a good sleep would help – I told him not to worry – I said we should be out of the fog before the end of the watch.’

Ohlsson’s small eyes darted towards the Chairman and Assessors.

Goodbody passed a slip of paper to Crutchley. He’d scrawled
on it:
Here
it
comes.

Ohlsson turned back to Jarrett. ‘Were you surprised the Captain did not come up?’

Jarrett hesitated. ‘Yes. To be frank, I
was
surprised.’

Ohlsson apologized for the interruption and asked Jarrett to go on with his story.

The chief officer said that no sooner was he ready to alter course back to port to regain the former course line – after altering for the big ship which had now passed safely to port – when radar showed a small vessel on the starboard bow to be a potential hazard. Under the Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, he was required to give way and pass astern of the vessel. To do this he had to alter once more to starboard and, because it was a trawler, make a long detour astern of it. In response to a question by Ohlsson he said he knew from the fog signal that it was a trawler with her gear in the water. During this time Jackson the electrician had arrived on the bridge to check the auto-siren circuit. When the trawler was clear he’d altered back to port, to a course of 258° which would have taken the ship to a position at least five miles off Cape Agulhas.
Ocean
Mammoth
had been on that course for some time – probably about seven minutes – when radar showed another small vessel coming out from the direction of Struys Bay. It was about five miles away on the starboard bow and was not then on a collision course. He’d gone to the chart-room to fix
Ocean
Mammoth
’s position, only to find that the Decca Navigator was not functioning. That was at about 0510. He had immediately phoned the radio officer and asked him to come up and attend to it. Jarrett said he’d then gone to the wheelhouse and again checked by radar on the small vessel on the starboard bow. It had been steering a south-easterly course when first detected, but now it had begun to alter round to the south-west. This put it on
a collision course. Once again he had given way by altering to starboard to pass astern of it. Worried about the ship’s position now that it could no longer be fixed by Decca Navigator, he had taken a DF bearing on the radio beacon at Cape Agulhas and at the same time obtained readings of 34/36 fathoms from the echo-sounder. From this data he estimated the ship to be in a position just over seven miles south-east of the lighthouse. He had plotted that position on the chart and written the time of observation – 0515 – against it. It confirmed his
impression that he had ample searoom in spite of the alterations of course he’d been obliged to make.

In due course the second trawler had passed ahead of
Ocean
Mammoth
– at about twenty minutes or so past five, he thought – and he’d ordered port wheel to bring the ship back to the southeast once more – that was towards its former course line. He went to the radar to check the DF position he’d obtained at 0515 and found that both radar displays were dead. The radio operator was then in the chartroom working on the Decca Navigator, and he told him to leave it and attend to the radar which was the more urgent priority. Feeny had then begun to check out the radar circuits.

Not long after that he’d gone to the chartroom and found Foley there. Feeny had by then gone down to fetch a technical manual. Jarrett said his altercation with Foley had followed and soon afterwards the ship struck.

‘When you took over the bridge at 0400, what course did the second officer hand over to you?’ asked Ohlsson.

‘Two-six-seven degrees.’

‘What figures were pencilled against the course line on the chart when you took over?’

‘Two-six-seven degrees.’

‘And the figures on the course-to-steer indicator?’

‘Two-six-seven degrees.’

‘Had you known that the course on the chart was in fact two-
five
-seven degrees when you took over, would it have made any difference to your judgement during the next hour and a half?’

‘A great deal. We were making good twelve/thirteen knots. A ten-degree error in course over an hour and a half’s steaming at that speed would have put the ship three and a half to four miles closer inshore, even if there’d been no changes of course. As it was with the various alterations to starboard and the current setting inshore, the error was magnified and in the end disastrous.’

‘Do you consider that the error of ten degrees was responsible for the loss of this great ship and the lives of some of its crewmen?’

Jarrett nodded slowly. ‘Basically, yes. Of course failure of the electronic navigation aids at a critical juncture was a contributory factor – but only contributory. Had the correct course been given me, even their failure would not have been disastrous
because we would have had considerably more searoom. At least several miles more.’

It was 12.45 p.m. and the Chairman adjourned the enquiry.

Captain Crutchley felt that those present that morning were likely to have left the courtroom feeling that Jarrett had acquitted himself well. His lucid, unfaltering account of events during the early hours of 29 October left the impression that he had been confronted with an incredibly difficult situation: the fog, Foley’s error in handing over the course, the absence of the Captain from the bridge, the three ships – hidden by fog – for which he had to take avoiding action, the failure of electronic systems at a critical juncture, and Foley’s mysterious presence in the
chart-room
shortly before the ship struck – all this compressed into an hour and a half.

Crutchley was sure that Jarrett had won the sympathy of the court. He was almost sure that the chief officer’s story of the telephone conversation was a fabrication. Yet there was still that nagging doubt – could Grundewald’s capsules have obliterated the recollection? Foley had denied handing over a course of 267° and yet when Crutchley had looked at the chart and deck logbook shortly after the stranding he’d seen the figures 267° in Foley’s neat hand against the course line. He’d also seen the 0515 position on the chart – the position which Jarrett said he’d obtained by means of a DF bearing of the Agulhas radio beacon and echo soundings. Much of Jarrett’s evidence had been corroborated in advance by Fernandez, Cavalho and the other witnesses.

So was the man lying about the telephone conversation or was he giving an honest account of what had happened? Of course Jarrett had been negligent. To a seaman, that stood out a mile. Long before the Decca Navigator or the radar units had failed he could have fixed the ship’s position; indeed, with radar right up to within ten minutes of the ship’s stranding. Why then had he not done so? With this in mind Crutchley had passed a note to Goodbody suggesting the chief officer be questioned on the point. Goodbody had read it, nodded understandingly and put it in his pocket.

Crutchley had hoped he would be discussing the morning’s proceedings with Goodbody over lunch, but to his dismay the
barrister said he had to discuss certain matters with Lourens in the recess and would not be lunching at the Palace Hotel. He’d added, ‘But don’t worry, my dear Captain. Things are not going at all badly. Indeed, it may not be necessary to call you as a witness.’