BY DAMAGE DUE TO COLLISION. 73 



Mr. Reid : — Eight or ten feet below the original waterline. 



The Chairman: — Were they at the side, so there was a longitudinal bulkhead there? 



Mr. Reid : — There was a corresponding bunker on the other side, and then a bulkhead 

 in the center. 



The Chairman: — A watertight bulkhead in the center? 



Mr. Reid : — ^A divisional bulkhead. 



The Chairman: — -Enough to confine the water to one side? 



Mr. Reid: — Yes, and also there was a Seam-pipe channel in there that kept the water 

 from going across rapidly. The water tended to flow from one stokehold into the other 

 through the open doors. 



The Chairman (Admiral Capps) : — Is there any further discussion? This paper 

 deals with a most interesting subject, one that is literally fundamental in all questions relating 

 to safety at sea. I was particularly interested, not only in the subject of the paper, but in the 

 comments of Mr. Reid with respect to the very sad catastrophe on the St. Lawrence. His 

 statement, based upon the facts deduced at the inquiry, I presume, indicates a state of af- 

 fairs which explains in great part the ultimate tragic results of this collision. I have always 

 taken a very deep interest in maintaining the watertight integrity of main transverse bulk- 

 heads, even to the extent of strongly opposing any openings in such bulkheads so long as 

 you could possibly do without them. There have been numerous catastrophes which have 

 resulted directly from openings in main transverse watertight bulkheads, these openings, 

 at the critical moment, not being closed, although all facilities for closing them were pro- 

 vided. So that, wherever possible, one is led to the inevitable conclusion that the really 

 safe bulkhead is the one without openings and with ample structural strength to resist the 

 unusual pressures resulting from damaged condition of the vessel. 



The general question of stability, as suggested by Mr. Linnard, was taken up at the 

 London Conference, but no attempt was made to arrive at detailed and definite conclusions, 

 else we would have been there yet. It was a matter of such intricate technical determina- 

 tion that it is safe to say that no large group of even highly trained professional men 

 could, in any reasonable limit of time, evolve a set of rules which could with any degree 

 of satisfaction be made the basis of specific legal enactment. That was one of the curious 

 features developed in the discussion of this subject. The committee, of which I was a 

 member, was in favor, in the beginning, of trying to develop some general regulations which 

 would at least control the subject and compel the most serious attention thereto on the part 

 of owners. One of the first obstacles we ran against, however, was the rather strong opposi- 

 tion, not of those who owned ships, but of those who designed and built ships, as to the prac- 

 ticability of developing suitable and satisfactory regulations. Incidentally, in the course of 

 the discussion there developed the fact that certain large and well-known passenger vessels, 

 which had important longitudinal subdivisions, which longitudinal subdivisions presumably 

 added very much to the safety of the vessel — in the popular mind, at least — also had in- 

 structions given to the officers in charge that, in the event of accident, these longitudinal bulk- 

 heads should be practically rendered inoperative by opening the watertight doors — and this, 

 through the fear of producing the very result which, according to the testimony of Mr. 



