Big Blame, Small Penalty

When the Lamport & Holt liner Vestris backed away from her Hoboken pier one Saturday afternoon last November and went wallowing out of New York harbor bound for South America, her Plimsoll line was 7 1/2 in. under water. In her hold were 300 tons too much. A "tender" ship anyway, she lacked buoyancy to weather a middling storm at sea the next day. Her hatches were not properly battened down, her ash ejectors leaked, her pumps were inefficient. Shipping water, she listed to starboard. Her skipper, Capt. William J. Carey, waited six hours too long before he sent out an SOS. In abandoning ship, passengers and crew, lacking instruction, became confused in getting into lifeboats. The "Women-and-Children-First" rule was misapplied. Lifeboats were wrongly lowered from the weather (high) side instead of the lee (low) side. Hence 250 miles off the Virginia Capes the sea gulped down the Vestris and 112 men-women-and-children.

Such were the findings last week of the court of inquiry set up by the British Board of Trade to solve this marine disaster. Its investigations had lasted 40 days, a record for British maritime investigation.* It established causes and culpability.

With overloading as the prime cause of the Vestris sinking, the Board rested chief blame upon Sanderson & Son, U. S. agents for Lamport & Holt. For his failure to take steps to prevent overloading, David Cook, a British citizen and vice president of Sanderson & Son, was assessed $2,430 by the Board of Trade to help cover its inquiry cost. Two of his assistants were found guilty of negligence in lesser degree. Said Mr. Cook: "The inquiry was very searching, eminently fair and complete. . . . We will have to accept the report."

Overloading had not been discovered by U. S. investigators because of a conspiracy between the agents and the ship's officers. Chief Officer Frank W. Johnson of the Vestris testified in London that he had made a false loading entry in the ship's log.

Though the Board found that Lamport & Holt was "not guilty of wrongful act or default," it fastened upon the steamship company the blame for the delayed wireless distress signal because Capt. Carey had instructions from his company as follows:

''In case of a serious disaster happening to a vessel of this line, the master must in the first instance carefully consider the actual amount of peril there may be for the lives in his care and then judge whether he is not justified in FIGHTING HIS OWN WAY TO THE NEAREST PORT UNAIDED. His ability to succeed in this will always be considered as a matter of high recommendation for him as a master."

Commented the Board: "This part of the instructions is highly undesirable and should be cancelled."

*Previous record: 37 days on the Titanic.