COLLISION BETWEEN THE ROTORUA AND CLEMATIS.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1973, 21 June 1880, Page 3

COLLISION BETWEEN THE ROTORUA AND CLEMATIS.

On Saturday forenoon Captain Joss and Mr Barbour, a shipwright, made a preliminary survey of the ketch Clematis to ascertain the nature of the damage she sustained when in collision with the steamship Rotorua on Friday. Tha steamer appears to have struck the vessel very nearly amidships a-tern, or just a little on the port quarter, and it is reported the damage extends all the way from tho fore part of the mizzen rigging to amidships. The mizzen gaff was carried away, the mizzen sail split, a portion of the bulwarks smashed and the steering gear, with about seven or eight of the staneheons, and a part of tho covering board. It appears most unaccountable that tho steamer should have run down upon tho vessel a 3 stated in broad and open daylight, nor does it lessen tho inexplicableness of the collision the fact that Captain Tozer, of the Botorua, is one of the moßt careful men in the Union Company's service. As the saying goes, there is " a screw loose somewhere," and undoubted carelessness of a culpable natxiro, but until the statements of all the witnesses and persons concerned are to batd it would be folly to attempt to point to the censurable individual. The rule that the steamer shall give way to the sailing vessel is largely relied upon, of course, by the master of the Clematis as exonerating him, and, in fact, he takes upon himself no blame whatever for bringing about the collision. He states that he was close hauled at the timj heading just his course, about four miles outside the heads, and bound to Wellington, when the Botorua ran down upon him. The steamer vra3 also bound to Wellington, and consequently

was steering the same course as the ketch. The master of the latter says he saw her approaching him and shouted out loudly but to no purpose, and that when the collision occurrei, somebody on board the steamer sang out that it served him right, he Bhould have kept out of the road. As may naturally bo supposed would be the case, there were, he says, a good many people on the forecastle head of the steamer, and on the bridge, they doubtless having rushed there to learn the cause of the stoppage, and the unusual shouting. It was between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, the weather at tho time bains very fine and clear. The Clematis is a strong little ve3tel of 69 tons and is owned by Messrs Duncan and Sims, of Picton. At the time of the accident she was loaded with potatoes on a charter to Messrs Black, Davies and Co., and was, as stated, bound to Wellington. Captain Johnson is well-known as a master out of this port, having been foryeard in charge of Mr Jenkins's Elizabeth Curie, which vessel in fact he had left just previous to getting the Clematis, and this was his first trip in the ketch. The Clematis will be remembered as having been unlucky some time since, when she was found afloat bottom up off the coast, and brought into this port and refitted. The ins and outs of that misfortune were buried with her unfortunate crew, all of whom were drowned.