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stand if you had a lot of ships in a lock and something went wrong,
you would have accidents detailing all the ships.
But they were not in the locks. I wondered why were there 13
accidents with small ships?
Mr. McAULIFFE. As I remember the day and looking at the
statistics, I believe that at least 11 of those ships were all involved
in the one incident. The Texaco-Kentucky happened, unfortunately,
to collide with a number of small yachts at the Cristobal Yacht
Club. So, each is listed as a separate accident when indeed all were
involved in one unfortunate incident.
Mr. CARNEY. I am not laughing at the incident. I wondered. That
cleared it up rather rapidly.
I was also curious, looking over the list of the accidents, that
there was a ship that went through and had extensive damage, I
would think. I don't know what extensive damage is.
The claims were in excess of $100,000-or $120,000 with both
ships. They were the same ships in a 5-day time period. Would
there be any reason for that? I am going back quite a while to the
Overseas New York. They were both in the locks. One was on the
25th of October and the other on the 30th of October.
Mr. McAULIFFE. The Overseas New York did have a rash of acci-
dents, accidents of the type of its hull coming in contact with some
portion of a lock's walls; and in each case cited in these reports, an
investigation was conducted while the ship was still in canal
waters; and then the ship master, on behalf of the shipowner, made
the decision to continue the voyage to deliver his product. He was
delivering Alaskan oil or picking up Alaskan oil, as the case may
be.
You have spotted something that we have found, and that is that
accidents which do not necessarily disable a ship can be-under
today's conditions-extremely costly, several hundreds of thou-
sands of dollars, for what would appear to be a minor denting of a
hull, for example.
But nevertheless, that is what we face. In many cases, I would
say in most cases, the ship is entirely sea worthy and is allowed to
proceed to sea; then an assessment of the full damage is made the
first time that the ship is pulled up in drydock and thoroughly in-
spected.
Of course, divers will go under while the ship is still in canal
waters to be absolutely sure that the ship is seaworthy and that
both the canal and the owner are satisfied on that point.
Mr. CARNEY. If I can sum this up in a few words, there was the
accident, the delay of 5 days was basically because we kept the ship
there to investigate and it moved on and maybe was in another
lock when it had another accident?
Mr. McAULIFFE. No; it was making repeated transits through the
canal from one side to the other, delivering or loading oil, you see.
Mr. CARNEY. The larger ships, the one that could go through the
canal to a larger ship?
Mr. McAULIFFE. That is right.
Mr. CARNEY. I understand.
Mr. McAULIFFE. However, for example, if an accident to a ship
occurs today and requires an investigation, then our normal proce-
dure is to start the investigation the following day. That permits