Michael D.Heath-Caldwell M.Arch.

1888

Belfast News-Letter
Tuesday 17 January 1888

Close Shaves as the Cause of Collisions at Sea.

Rear-Admiral P.H Colomb has written as follows to the Times:-

The only object I have in writing to you on this subject is to get the facts studied, for sure I am that there can be no controversy between any two men who have mastered them. I thank Sir Leopold Heath for his kindness in mentioning my efforts in this direction; but I think it should be stated that I never published a word till I had carefully studied and classified every case of collision which had come before the Admiralty Court in ten years. 

All my subsequent examinations and experiments were absolutely confirmatory of the earlier results and whenever I now examine a collision case I see just the same facts, with which opinion has nothing to do. And those facts are the opposite of Sir Leopold Heath's conclusions. They came to this, that practically there are no collisions in the open sea where one or both ships have not tried to give what was supposed to be "a wide berth" to the other, and that practically there are no collisions where each ship has tried to give the other a "close shave" and very few where even one has tried to give the other a "close shave." 

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