HMAS Voyager (D04)

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See also: List of disasters in Australia by death toll

The second HMAS Voyager (D-04) was a Daring class destroyer laid down by the Cockatoo Docks and Engineering Company Limited at Sydney in New South Wales on 10 October 1949, launched on 1 May 1952 by Dame Pattie Menzies, wife of the Prime Minister, and commissioned on 12 February 1957. Voyager collided with the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne twenty miles south-east of Jervis Bay on the New South Wales coast on the night of 10 February 1964. She was cut in two by the impact and sank with the loss of 81 of her crew and one civilian dockyard employee.

The original inquiry into the disaster found that the Melbourne was at fault, but later inquiries found that the skipper of the Voyager was drunk while on duty, but this is a controversial finding.

In the book In Harm's Way naval historian Tom Frame presented evidence that the primary causes of the disaster were errors and incorrect procedures on the Voyager's bridge leading to a critical misunderstanding of a signal from Melbourne. Frame demonstrated that, especially given the difficulty of determining an aircraft carrier's relative aspect from another ship in the dark, the only guide to the reality of the situation was by observing the navigation lights showing from each ship. The bridge officers on both ships saw the lights they expected to see based upon their own interpretations of what was supposed to occur.

It has been calculated that from the time that Voyager made the fatal turn across Melbourne's bows there was a period of only about 90 seconds during which it would have been physically possible to avoid collision. It was not until after this period had expired that officers on either ship became aware of the impending danger and by then it was too late to take evasive action. Melbourne's captain ordered her engines to "full astern" but although this meant a small reduction in collision speed, it was not enough to stop approximately 20,000 tons in time. Some criticism was made of Melbourne's failure not to try and turn away from Voyager but Frame detailed calculations which showed that at best she may have cut Voyager in half slightly further aft than she did, or if she had turned away Voyager would have struck Melbourne some distance astern of the bows putting the carrier in danger itself.

[edit] References

Frame, Tom. (2005). The cruel legacy : the HMAS Vovager tragedy (1st ed.). Crows Nest, N.S.W. : Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-74114-421-3
Frame, Tom. (1992). Where fate calls : the HMAS Voyager tragedy Sydney : Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-54968-8.