75 F. 683 | E.D.N.Y | 1896
This is an action brought by the owner of the canal boat May E. Coffey to recover of the owners of the steamboat dock at Great Neck for injuries done to libelant’s boat, while engaged in discharging a cargo of coal at the dock, hy getting upon some rocks that lay in the dock. The Great Neck dock is a single wharf, built out from a rocky shore, for the use of a steamboat which lands there daily. At the end of the wharf there is good water. On the south side, some 70 feet from the end of the dock, '(here is a derrick used for discharging coal from canal boats which occasionally discharge coal onto cars (hat come on the wharf under the derrick. At high tide there is plenty of water for loaded canal boats in the berth under the derrick. The method of using the dock for discharging coal is shown to be, to place the canal boat under this derrick on a rising tide; to haul the boat away when tbe tide falls, returning again at high water. Alongside of the south side of this wharf, stones which had fallen out from the crib extended out from tbe lower side of the wharf some five feet or more, and were under water at high tide. The libelant’s boat came to the wharf on tbe 5th of September, 1895, for the purpose of discharging cargo. She at iirst made fast to the end of the wharf. The same «‘veiling she dropped away from the wharf, to the eastward, to allow (he steamboat to make a landing at the end of the wharf, and hauled in again to the end of the wharf. The next morning she again dropped to eastward to allow the steamboat to make her landing, and at high water on the 5th she hauled in under the derrick, where part of her caigo was then discharged. In shifting her position as the tide fell, she got caught on the rocks along the westerly side of the wharf, but from there she came off tbe same night on the rising tide wiihout injury. The next morning she hauled in under the derrick again on a rising tide, and resumed the discharge. At about 1 o'clock, when in the same berth under the derrick, she was winded around to discharge from the other end. She discharged till 3:30 p. m., and then, when the tide began to turn, she got on stones from which it was impossible to remove her, and by which she was cons idera bly injured.
If is proved (bat the master was well iuformed as to the nature of the bottom at that berth. He says himself that he examined the bottom before be hauled in there the first time. He had been on the