86 F. 697 | 2d Cir. | 1898
(after stating the facts). Each side charges faults against the other, which the district judge did not sustain; and in some of his conclusions we are not able to concur. Discussion of these branches of the case, however, may be omitted here, since we find sufficient in the record to sustain the decrees below against both vessels.
The first question to be considered is as to the alleged fault of the tug and tow in navigating in that locality at that time in the way in which they did. The libel of the Whitney charges fault, “in that the Sliamokin was being towed at too rapid a rate of speed in such a fog; in that those on said barge [and on the International] took no measures to indicate that she was being towed by said tug.” The language of this charge, interpreted with absolute literalism, may be held to cover a contention that the speed of the fleet should have been reduced to zero; i. e. that it should have anchored, although the ordinary and natural import of such language is not so extensive. Still, there has been no “surprise,” nor has the fleet been embarrassed in giving its testimony, or lost any of its witnesses by relying on the more natural construction of the libel. The testimony of the Whitney bearing on its contention was introduced early in the case. There was abundant opportunity to auswer it, and it was answered. The district court has found the fleet in fault for not anchoring, and it would seem hypercritical to reverse because the phraseology of the libel does not charge in clearer language the particular fault as to which evidence was introduced by both sides, and full argument had both in the district court and here.
The ojfinion of the district judge says:
“Considerable testimony was given * * * to the effect that navigation in dense fog in Vineyard Sound, and particularly around Pollock Hip Lightship, was highly dangerous, and that the tug and tow might easily have anchored in a safe place before reaching iho lightship. Though there was some contradiction in the evidence on this latter point, I am persuaded from the affirmative testimony, as well as by consulting Hie chart, that the tug would have found no difficulty whatever in anchoring in a perfectly safe place had she desired to do so, before rounding Pollock Kip Lightship.”
The first of these propositions is hardly disputed. Certainly, all the witnesses agree that, by reason of the shoals, the, eccentricities of the tide, the narrowness of the channel in places, and its changes of course, the stretch from south of Shovelful to the Whistling buoy, beyond Pollock Rip Slew, is, during a thick fog, an extreme ly dangerous piece of water to pick one’s way through; “in a dense fog or a dark night, as dangerous as any place between New York, ■and Portland,” says one of the witnesses. And, as to the second
In view of the testimony, we are not prepared to say that the towing hawsers used by this flotilla were too long, nor that it is improper navigation to tow the barges “tandem,” or to tow more than one at a time. That there cannot, even under the most favorable circumstances, be the same control exercised over such a flotilla as over a vessel moving under her own power, is self-evident. So, too, is the proposition that, the longer a vessel or a flotilla is, the more space she will require to maneuver in. Still, it is not for the courts to forbid the use of public waterways by long tows, howevey great a menace they may be to navigation, when the authorities whose function it is to regulate navigation in such waterways allow them. We had the question of towing on a long hawser through Hell Gate before us in The Josephine B., 7 C. C. A. 498, 58 Fed. 813, and held that, in the absence of any special regulations on the subject, the practice, which was shown to be a common one, was not to be condemned on the evidence there adduced. The court of appeals in the First circuit had the question of a single tow on a long hawser, and used this language: “It is beyond the province of the courts to condemn a practice so notorious and so long-continued that it must be presumed to be known to congress and to the supervising inspectors, and yet has not been condemned by either of them.” The Berkshire, 21 C. C. A. 169, 74 Fed. 906. .But there is a wide difference between condemning such a practice altogether and holding those who indulge in it to a degree of care commensurate with the increased risk which their indulgence in such practice entails. “While,” as said in The Berkshire, “we cannot condemn a tow of the character of that in this case as.absolutely unlawful, yet we must hold tugs which navigate this coast with such long and essentially hazardous fleets to the use of the extremest care in the interests of common safety.” The Gladiator, 25 C. C. A. 32, 79 Fed. 446.
In the case at bar the entire flotilla was about a quarter of a mile in length. After rounding the lightship, and getting into the jaws of the slew, it would have to run for nearly a mile through a channel no wider than its own length, and in which the irregular and uncertain .tides, as one witness expresses it, “follow the sun in a continual move, not running in any direct direction all the time.” And in that narrow channel the chances were that other vessels westward bound would be encountered, for a heavy coast-wise traffic passes through it. The tug would, of course, be unable to check the motion of any of its tows, or to give them, or some one of them, any sudden movement to port or starboard; and yet the tug might be exposed to a different tidal action from that which was affecting the last barge in tow. It is manifest that even in broad daylight careful steering by the whole flotilla might be required to make the passage in safety. Before they reached Pollock Hip Lightship, however, the situation, even on the statement of the Shamokin’s own witnesses, was very far removed from broad daylight. No one on the International, the Hercules, or the
The decrees appealed from are therefore affirmed, but, as both sides appealed, and no modification is made in the decrees, without interest or costs to either side.