The year 1974 has seen a miscellany of collision cases decided in the English Courts. The collisions have been traced to a variety of causes: ships navigating on the wrong side of the channel; the failure to keep a proper look-out; using an out-of-date chaft; a “dead ship” moving too fast for her tugs to hold her; the inability of an officer-of-the-watch to recognise a crossing situation; and the failure of a stand-on vessel to keep her speed.

Generally, collision cases are concerned entirely with matters of fact and are of more interest to the mariner than to the lawyer: but if the year 1974 is to be remembered by the practitioner it will be for the Court of Appeal’s interpretation of Rule 25 (a) of the Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea in the course of their Lordships’ delineation of the mid-channel of Harwich harbour.

The cases are considered seriatim from the Reports.

The Merchant Shipping Act 1894 provides in s. 503 that the owners of a ship, British or foreign, being sued before English Courts in respect of loss or damage may, where there is no fault or privity on their part, limit their liability where, inter alia, “the loss or damage is caused through the act or omission of any person … in the navigation or management of the ship”.

This rule is unique to shipowners; it “sets shipping apart from all other branches of industry and commerce”.1

Thus claimants against a shipowner who has obtained a decree of limitation may receive but a proportion of their claim. So it was in The Oldekerk,2 which case concerns a collision in the Nieuw Maas at Rotterdam between three ships: the Oldekerk, the Anvers, and the Perija. Each ship alleged that the other two ships were liable for the damage resulting from the collision.

The owners of the Oldekerk, faced with damage claims of £600,000, admitted liability for 50 per cent of the damage and promptly limited their liability under the Act to some £200,000. Thereafter, the owners of the Oldekerk withdrew from the action; for even if they were later found liable for 100 per cent of the damages they could be made to pay no more than the £200,000 limitation sum. This was small comfort to the owners of the other two ships who stood to recover only one-third of their claims if the Oldekerk were found 100 per cent to blame. Therefore, in addition to claiming against the Oldekerk, the owners of the Anvers and the Perija claimed against each other as being partly to blame for the collision.