Willey

This is an appeal from a final decree in admiralty, granting petition of appellee for limitation of liability, as a result of the loss of the steamer South Coast, owned and operated by appellee. The steamer and crew were lost on September 16, .1930; and, no* value having been saved, the claims of appellants were dismissed with prejudice to the institution of any other or further proceedings.

The South Coast was a wooden vessel of *892 301 gross tons, built in San Francisco in 1887, and equipped in 1898 with a steel boiler. She left the port of Crescent City, Cal., bound for Coos Bay, Or., loaded with a cargo of logs consigned to Baker & Co., and, after disappearing in the haze seaward, nothing further was heard from the vessel or those on board. There is no dispute that she was properly officered and manned, with a complement of nineteen officers and men, none of whom, after tifió ill-fated voyage, were ever seen again.

At the time of the loss of the steamer South Coast, and for many years prior thereto, one Stanley Pedder was the secretary and active manager of appellee in charge of the management, operation, and control of its affairs, and Ralph W. Myers wás a director and the…