Greycliffe disaster

[2] Greycliffe left Circular Quay, Sydney's main ferry terminus, at 4.15pm on Thursday 3 November 1927, with 120 passengers on board, including many schoolchildren returning home.

On roughly the same course, however, was the liner operated by the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand's outward-bound transpacific Royal Mail Ship, the 7,585-ton RMS Tahiti, three times the length of Greycliffe.

At about half-way between Garden Island and Bradleys Head, Tahiti's bows struck Greycliffe midships on her port side.

Several days later, smashed hull sections were towed to Whiting Beach near Taronga Zoo and divers looked for missing bodies.

Most witnesses, including other ferry captains, agreed that Tahiti was going too fast and that Greycliffe, inexplicably, had turned sharp left into her path.

He claimed that a few minutes from Garden Island, he felt the ferry pull to port, which he blamed on a problem with the steering mechanism for which he compensated.

[5] The pilot on board Tahiti, Sydneysider Thomas Carson, said he saw the ferry swing left towards the ship, and he ordered the engines astern and changed course.

[5] A Marine Court of Inquiry, formal Inquest, and Admiralty Court of Inquiry gradually shifted blame for the disaster from Tahiti′s pilot, Captain Thomas Carson, to the ferry master, William Barnes, and the probable failure of Greycliffe′s steering gear that allowed her to swing off course and into the path of the liner.

[5] The coronial inquest and the Admiralty Court dismissed the bow theory and accepted that, even though the Tahiti was going too fast, the collision wouldn't have occurred had not the Greycliffe turned into its path.

A verdict was handed down by the final court of appeal in 1931, which concluded that while both captains were guilty of contributory negligence, the "Greycliffe′s navigator" was twice as culpable as Carson.