49 F. 479 | 2d Cir. | 1892
This is an appeal from a decree dismissing the libel. The libelant seeks to recover for the injuries received by the steam-boat Francos in a collision, with a car-float then in tow of the steam-tug Titan, which took place August 11, 1889, in the daytime, in the East river, off pier 3 a distance of 300 or 400 feet. The Titan, having two car-floats in tow, — one lashed on either Side, — had rounded the Battery from the North river, and was proceeding to Forty-Fifth street, in the East river. 'She was proceeding slowly, at a distance of between 200 and 300 feet from the piers, and was about opposite pier 2, when she discovered the Frances. The Frances was bound for pier 26, Nprth river. She had been making for the New York side of the river, and was, when about opposite pier 9 or 10, a little further out from the piers than the Titan, intending to round the Battery at a distance of about two or three hundred feet away. She was going at a speed, with the tide, of about 12 knots. Just before the collision the
We' think there was no fault on the part of the Titan. When her wheel was put to port the vessels were approaching each other end on, or nearly so; and, under the eighteenth rule of navigation, it was the duty of the vessels to pass each other port to port. The Frances, however, desired to pass starboard to starboard. At the time her proposition to do so. was made, and assented to on the part of the Titan, the vessels were sufficiently far apart to permit of their passing starboard to starboard if each of them had governed her own movements properly. The Titan did all that she could to co-operate; but the Frances, not anticipating the sheer of the Titan, did not at first alter her course sufficiently to port to make allowance for it, and, when she altered- her course still more to port, it was too late. We think the Frances, in attempting to depart from the statutory rule, took the risk of her ability to pass safely on the starboard hand of the Titan. Of course, by assenting to the proposition of the Frances for a departure, the Titan undertook, on her part, to do nothing unnecessarily to embarrass thp maneuver of the Frances. She fulfilled her obligation; and although, had it not been for her sheer to starboard, there would not have been a col lision, she was not in fault for the sheer, because she did everything v? her power to counteract it. . The decree is affirmed.