Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/923

BtJNGB ». STEAMSHIP UTOPIA. 915 �would be a maneuver on the part of the bark so absurd aa to be proved only by a very great weight of concurring testi- mony. �The steamer, by putting her -wbeel hard a-starboad, virtually admitted that it was too danger eus to keep on across the bows of the bark -while she was going to leeward, and this move- ment of the master of the steamer Btrongly confirma the judg- ment of the master of the bark that if both the vessels h ad kept on the bark would have been struck on the starboard aide. If, as may be properly assumed, the situation was so urgent, as the master of the steamer understood it, as to re- quire him to put his wheel hard a-port ^hen he first saw the bark, the danger of collision must have been many times greaterwhen,to escape a collision by persevering in that course, he changed his wheel to hard a-starboard. The vessels were much nearer together, and the swing of the steamer to star- board had to be broken before she would begin to swing to port. If the vessels were very near together, as seems to have been the case, the tendency of the movement was to bring the steamer directly down on the bark. �Many other parts of the testimony bave been commented on by the counsel as bearing upon the disputed questions of fact. It would prolong this opinion too much to notice them in detail. They have ail been considered with care in reach- ing the foregoing conclusions. �The f ault was clearly on the part of the steamer. With a fog so thick that vessels could only be dimly seen at a quarter of a mile, she was running at a speed of over 11 knots an hour. This was not that moderate rate of speed which the rules of navigation require. This was the primary and chief cause of the collision. When the vessels first sighted each other each made a mistake in respect to the other. The bark took the steamer to be a sailing vessel, and the steamer mistook the course the bark was on. This mistake of the steamer cannot, in itself, be accounted as a fault. But the steamer was iu fault, considering her immoderate speed and the near- ness of the bark, and the indistinctness with which she could be seen, in not at once stopping. By mereiy slowing, iustead ��� �