MATATUA COLLISION

Evening Star, Issue 18809, 6 December 1924, Page 4

MATATUA COLLISION

AN APPEAL DISMISSED. Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, December 4. (Received December 6, at 10 a.m.) The Court of Appeal dismissed, with costs, the appeal by the owners of the American Merchant from tho judgment in the Matatua case. Lord Justice Bankes said the gyroscopic compass, which had been called as a silent witness' in the case, was shown rot to be an accurate record of what had occurred.—Router. [fo connection with the collision in March last between the Matatua and the American Merchant, Sir Henry Duke (chairman of the Court of Inquiry) found that tho American Merchant alone was blameworthy. His Lordship said he accepted the evidence of the Matatua’s pilot that when tho vessels wore in a position to pass safely port to port the American Merchant deviated from her course. It was not tho function of the court to ascertain why the American Merchant, having been in a position of safety, suddenly came into a position of peril, and collided with the Matatua. There was no contributing cause on the part of the Matatua.]