JUDGMENT IN THE SABAH AND MARY CASE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2056, 25 September 1880, Page 3

JUDGMENT IN THE SABAH AND MARY CASE.

Last night Mr Caleb Whitefoord, R.M., before leaving in the steamer for Kaikonra, delivered in open Court the following judgment respecting the inquiry into the loss of the ketch Sarah and Mary—“ That the loss or damage appears by the evidence to have been caused by the vessel parting her cable whilst anchored off Motuara Island, near the entrance to Queen Charlotte’s Sound, and drifting ashore and subsequently taking fire. That with reference to the parting of the cable, which occurred at a shackle, the evidence of Captain Dunsford, Lloyd’s surveyor, is that the cable was of more than usual strength, and the evidence given has not satisfied me that either the wind or sea was sufficiently strong to account for the cable parting if it had been properly secured. According to the evidence of the master the night was fine and calm, the wind being occasionally equally, but not sufficiently so to cause any apprehension of danger, or any precaution being taken. The fact elicited in the evidence that the crew, consisting of five men, with their effects and some provisions, found no difficulty or danger in leaving the vessel shortly after she struck, in a thirteen foot boat, and rowing to a landing dace about a mile and a half away, and after anding the effects and one of the men returning to the vessel, then running out a kedge, and subsequently returning to the landing place, shows conclusively there could not have been much sea on. According to the master’s evidence, he had undertaken to keep the anchor watch on the night in question until midnight, which he did according to his own account, by going to sleep in the cabin. He apparently thought it necessary to give the vessel some more chain about 10 p.m., less than an hour before the vessel was wrecked, and then turned iu again, and went to sleep, from which he was aroused by one of the crew, who had discovered the vessel was drifting ashore. From his own evidence alone on this point he was guilty of gross neglect in not keeping an anchor watch in an open anchorage. Ido not consider that any satisfactory evidence has been given to account for the origin of the fire, and I consider the whole of the evidence given'by the master and mate to be thoroughly untrustworthy and unreliable. In reference to costs, the Magistrate said that they must be paid by the master. They amounted to £33 19s. As to counsels’ fee, he did not think that any but the Orown Solicitor’s fee could be included. Had ho the power he would order the counsel of the underwriters, Mr H. N. Nalder, his full fee, as had it not been for the evidence be brought out in his cross-examination of the witnesses, the Court might have found some difficulty in getting at the facts.