TOFTENES,
Chief Officer of Storstad,
Recalled.
By Mr. Haight:
5853. Mr. Toftenes, did you return to the Storstad last night?
- I did.
5854. Did you succeed in finding any memoranda connected with your deck log?
- Yes.
5855. Have you the memoranda?
- I have them here.
5856. Will you please state whether or not that is the memoranda from which you copied your deck log?
- It is.
5857. Did you write out the account of the collision on any other scraps of paper or in any other book than the official log and the two sheets you have here?
- No.
5858. Have these two sheets ever been translated so far as you know?
- Not that I know of.
5859. Have they ever been submitted to Mr. Griffin or myself or anybody else connected with the case?
- No, they have been in my keeping all the time.
Lord Mersey:
I thought you said you had seen these, Mr. Haight.
Mr. Haight:
Well, my Lord, I saw in his hands some slips of paper when he was on board the ship. And he said something about having made a memorandum, and it occurred to me that possibly the slips of paper I had seen in his hand might be the memorandum.
Lord Mersey:
And in that sense you did see them?
Mr. Haight:
I saw them as I see them now, my Lord.
Lord Mersey:
You did not attempt to read them?
Mr. Haight:
I did not, my Lord.
Lord Mersey:
And I dare say if you had you might not have been any wiser, nor should I.
Mr. Haight:
I assume they were in Norwegian. I would ask that they be marked as an exhibit I think the number is 18.
Lord Mersey:
Yes, let them be marked. Will you just let me see them?
- Yes, my Lord.
(The witness hands the papers marked Exhibit 18 to His Lordship.)
5860. Were these written partly in English and partly in Norwegian?
- No, every word is Norwegian.
5861. Is it?
- Yes.
5862. Let me see it again?
- Yes, my Lord.
5863. Will you please tell me what the word is? (indicating).
(The witness stepped up to the Bench and spoke to Lord Mersey in an undertone, informing him that the word in question was a Norwegian word and giving him the meaning of it, the remarks in detail being inaudible to the reporter.)
Lord Mersey:
You must show these documents to Mr. Aspinall, and consider whether it is worth while translating them. I cannot read them.
Mr. Aspinall:
My Lord, what I have had done is this: as we have an interpreter here, and he tells me that the log is precisely the same language as the scraps of paper, save only in this respect, that we find in the log this: “As the other vessel continued ahead”,and we do not find those words in the scrap. It is not an important matter, I don’t think, but otherwise the two documents are the same. I say it is not an important matter, because in the earlier part of the log there is language which suggests that the Empress was moving ahead at the time of the collision, so it is not in any way inconsistent with what we find in the earlier part of the log.
Mr. Haight:
And the record may show, Mr. Aspinall, that we are agreed that the original scrap and the official language are to all material purposes identical?
Mr. Aspinall:
Yes.
Lord Mersey:
We are talking now about the scrap log?
Mr. Aspinall:
No, my Lord.
Lord Mersey:
Well, I think Mr. Haight was.
Mr. Haight:
Yes, I was, my Lord.
Lord Mersey:
Then you were making a mistake, and Mr. Aspinall was assenting to the mistake.
Mr. Aspinall:
My Lord, I am being very generous.
Mr. Haight:
As I understand it, then, it is not the desire of the court that these two pieces of paper upon which the first officer made his memoranda, should be translated?
Lord Mersey:
What I understand, Mr. Haight, is this: that these scraps of paper which we have not had translated, but which we have marked, agree substantially with the scrap log.
Mr. Haight:
With the official deck log, my Lord. This is the draft originally made on two sheets of paper, in pencil, from which the chief officer subsequently copied his story as it stands to-day in the official deck log.
Lord Mersey:
I don’t understand it yet. I thought the things that were coming from Montreal were the bits of paper upon which this gentleman wrote the movements of the ship when the movements were being actually made, and I find that is not so. These scraps of paper are the scraps of paper upon which he wrote at eight or nine o’clock the next morning, the original of what he afterwards put in the scrap log?
Mr. Haight:
Into the official log.
Lord Mersey:
Very well, and he did put them into the official log.
Mr. Haight:
Yes.
Lord Mersey:
And then I understand Mr. Aspinall and you to say that the substance of these bits of paper contained what you found in the official log?
Mr. Haight:
With the addition of four words. I will ask to have them marked, and I will not have them translated unless it becomes necessary. That is Exhibit No. 18, I think.
By Mr. Newcombe:
5864. You stated that shortly before the collision you gave the order to port?
- Yes, sir.
5865. You say you did not give the order hard-a-port?
- I did not.
5866. When you gave the order to port what did you expect the quartermaster to do with the wheel?
- To put his wheel towards the starboard side.
5867. How far is he going to put it over?
- Until I tell him to steady.
5868. Did you tell him to steady?
- I did not.
5869. Was not he perfectly right in putting the wheel over as far as he did?
- He was.
5870. Lord Mersey: I understand that first he put it over to port and then left it and went away considering that he had executed the order that was given to him and that later on, without any further order, he went to it again and put it hard- a-port.
Mr. Newcombe:
As I understand the evidence, the quartermaster was at the wheel and the third officer was overlooking the steering. After getting the order to port the quartermaster ported so many degrees and the ship, as they say, did not answer. Then the third officer standing there took hold of the spokes and turned the wheel hard over.
Lord Mersey:
That is right, is it not?
Mr. Aspinall:
Yes, sir.
Witness retired.