1. In order to prevent, if possible, disasters such as that into which we have been enquiring, we think that in foggy weather it would be desirable to close all watertight doors and port holes below the top of the watertight bulkheads, and to keep them closed until the fog has completely cleared. We think also that wherever practicable all watertight doors and port holes below the above level should be closed at sunset and kept closed until sunrise.
Precautions of the kind suggested would have the effect of securing the floatability of the ship in accordance with the intentions of the designer, whereas neglect of such precautions may lead to the foundering of a vessel which would otherwise have remained afloat.
2. The rapidity with which the vessel foundered after the collision made the life saving appliances on board of little use. Most, if not all of the passengers were in bed when the vessel was struck, and there was an interval of only about fifteen minutes between the collision and the foundering. The list which the vessel took to starboard was so sudden and so great that the lifeboats on the port side were rendered useless almost at once. Some of them were indeed worse than useless for they broke adrift and injured people as they clattered down the sloping deck. Of those on the starboard side only six were launched, although the best was done in the short time available to get them into the water. These circumstances lead us to suggest that it might be desirable to consider whether rafts could not be placed in such a position on the upper deck that they would float automatically on the water as the ship sank. Such rafts would doubtless have to be attached to the deck in such a way as to prevent them from getting adrift in bad weather; but the attachments might be of a simple kind which could be loosened in a very short time.
3. It has not been suggested during our inquiry that the catastrophe was in any way attributable to the arrangements made by the Canadian Government for the navigation of the St. Lawrence, nor have we any reason to suppose that those arrangements are in any way unsatisfactory; but we suggest that it might be worth while for the Government to consider whether it may not be desirable and practicable to arrange for the picking up and dropping of pilots to be done at different points so that incoming and outgoing ships may, so far as is possible, be relieved of the necessity of crossing one another.
(Sgd.) MERSEY,
E. McLEOD, C.J.,
A. B. ROUTHIER.
We concur
(Sgd.) W. E. CABORNE,
L. A. DEMERS,
J. J. WELCH,
P. C. W. HOWE.
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