FINDING ON FACT

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 150, 21 December 1929, Page 9

FINDING ON FACT

The general manager of the. Unioa Steam Ship Co., Ltd., has been advised to-day that Mr. Justice Halse Bogers, of the Admiralty Court, Sydney, has delivered judgment in the case of the Sydney Ferries, htd.., v. the Union Steam Ship Co. of N.Z., a claim for £30,000 damages, the result of a col-: lision between the defendant company'! steamer Tahiti and the plaintiff company's steamer Greycliffe, in .Sydney Harbour on 3rd November, 1927, by which over 30 lives were lost and over 60 persons were injured, all passengers on board thel ferry steamer.

As stated, the Judge found that Sydney Perries Ltd., the plaintiffs, were en. titled-to recover two-fifths of their loss.:

The Judge, in his findings on the facts as distinct from the law, said that the action of the Tahiti created a danger zone. No harm wonld have resulted, had the Greyclifce not turned; but she did turn, and the pilot of the. Tahiti failed to grasp the situation immediately. Then there was no escape. The Tahiti, aware of. the presence of the Greycliffe ahead on her starboard bow, made two slight alterations of her course to port to keep the Greycliffe at an angle of safety. If the Greycliffe -had maintained her course, there would have been no collision. The Greycliffe changed her course without warning at an angle of about'4s degrees. The Greycliffe changed her course without any observation of the master as to whether his altered course would bring him across the course of any other vessel.

The Court "also found that the Tahiti at all relevant Cimes was in charge of the pilot in accordance with statutory; requirements, and her owners had -n<r choice as to the pilot employed. The' pilot must have known that he was exceeding the regulation speed, but he had a clear view of the Greycliffe and assumed that the Greycliffe would pursue a parallel course and not change it without warning. The captain of' the ferry boat acted on the assumption that no vessel was in his immediate proximity astern, and made a change of course greater than was necessary to take him to his destination and greater than the overtaking vessel might reasonably expect, thus turning the potential danger created by the Tahiti into an actual danger.

The Judge also said that no satis-, factory explanation had been given the. Couri as to why the Greyeliffo changed her course as she did.

On the evidence the Court must reject the theory of interaction. Therefore, he could not find the admitted change of course of the Greycliffe iru involuntary.