BY DAMAGE DUE TO COLLISION. 71 



comfortable, now on the Atlantic, in which the stability leaves a great deal to be desired; 

 and without mentioning names I am sure that many of you are now aware that there is in 

 this country a large passenger boat now in dock, a vessel which originally cost over half a 

 million dollars, and considerable more, and intended to carry hundreds of passengers, a brand 

 new ship, which is now being cut up and widened by two feet on each side — at least, that is 

 what I heard — in order to get the stability into shape. That brings up this consideration : 

 How does it come that a ship of that importance, on which so many people are going to be 

 voyaging and risking their lives, can be built by a first-class firm and then have to be rad- 

 ically reconstructed in order to get the stability put right ? My impression is that the naval 

 architect is not getting his share in the design that he ought to have. We are all aware 

 that between the shipowner and the shipbuilder there is always a friendly antagonism — 

 sometimes not so friendly. The shipowner wants to get the most out of a given expendi- 

 ture for a given sized ship, and the shipbuilder wants to get the most satisfactory result 

 without putting any more money into the construction of the ship than the price at which 

 he contracted to build it. It is remarkable, when you look at the present Atlantic liners of 

 the latest type, to see the enormous height of the superstructure, the living rooms, the smoke 

 rooms, etc., which have offset, and very often more than offset, the advantages gained by 

 great beam in proportion to the length of the ship. When you are voyaging in one of 

 these very large vessels in every kind of comfort and suddenly, as has happened in my own 

 experience and without any warning, but due to some minor condition, the vessel takes a 

 very heavy lurch and lies right down and stops there for several hours, you begin to realize 

 that, in the antagonism between the shipbuilder and the shipowner, the shipowner has prob- 

 ably come out best, so far as the accommodations and superstructure are concerned. I do 

 not want to elaborate on that, but I am sure you are all familiar with some of 

 these conditions. 



This paper by Mr. Gatewood deals with a proposed ship which he assumes to have 

 been bilged in one compartment, and then he prognosticates what would happen. It is a 

 very remarkable thing, and I think it shows Mr. Gatewood's ability in a remarkable way in 

 this matter, if you put alongside this comparatively small ship the actual facts in the loss 

 of the Empress of Ireland on the St. Lawrence River this year — if you do that you will 

 find that you can run a parallel right through the two cases. I was called upon this sum- 

 mer to investigate that catastrophe in connection with the inquiry at Quebec, and if you 

 will give me a minute or two I will mention a few facts connected with it, partly because 

 there is a good deal of misconception as to what actually occurred on that ship, and partly 

 because it deals with several matters connected with safety of life at sea, to which I think 

 emphasis has not yet sufficiently been given. 



It is considered by a number of people, and published in the press, that the Empress of 

 Ireland was struck by the collier Storstad a glancing blow, with high speed on the part of 

 the Storstad. Now what happened and what was demonstrated and proved by the court 

 was this : That the Storstad struck the Empress of Ireland a blow which did not glance at 

 all ; that the speed of the Storstad was comparatively slow, probably not more than four or 

 five knots ; and that the Empress of Ireland was also in motion, contributing somewhat to 

 the force of the blow, and that no bulkheads on the Empress of Ireland were destroyed. 

 There is a difference of opinion about that, but I think I am right in saying that it could be 

 easily shown that the Storstad did not destroy any of the bulkheads of the Empress of 

 Ireland. What it did was to cut a hole about 8 to 10 feet wide right from the bilge of the 



