Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/798

WHITB ». STEAM-TDG liATEEONE. 791 �could, by the maneuver suggested, have been avoided while they were thas lying in this most exposed position, and that, therefore, the time they lay broadside to the wind and sea could bave been shortened; but it is by no means clear on the proofs that this mere lengthening of the time they were in that position waa the cause of the injury. Though the en- gine stopped, -while they were in this position, to deaden the headway of the loaded barge, the stoppage was very brief, and they did not lose their headway entirely while the engins was thus stopped. The real question, however, I think, ia whether the tug is chargeable with negligence in bringing the canal-boat into that position at ail. If the position itself involved this danger of injury, it did so equally whether the position was maintained half a minute or two minutes. If the position did not itself involve the danger, if eontinued for the shortest time necessary for rounding to, it hardly seems to me that there was any negligence in rounding to as the tug did, with the slight delay made on this occasion. That this was the proper and usual way of landing the barge on the ebb-tide is not disputed. But the question is whether, under existing circumstances of wind and sea, the tug ought to bave exposed the canal-boat, being light, to the peril' involved in thus being brought broadside to the wind and sea. �The libellant cannot complain that the tug took another boat in tow. The canal-boat did not engage the exclusive use of the tug. Nor can the libellant, bacause he was to be towed to Hoboken, complain that the tug stopped at Irvington to leave the other boat. Parties who take their places in a tow with other boats do so on the understanding that those other boats are to be, or may be, left on the way. But while the right of the tug to land the barge at Irvington cannot be disputed, and the necessary delay and deviation from her own voyage, necessary therefor, must be submitted to by the canal-boat, yet it cannot be claimed that in the performance of its duty to another boat, in bringing her to her intermedi- ate landing, the tug can rightfuUy subject the canal-boat to any extraordinary danger of navigation, or bring her into any peril from which the tug cannot, by the use of means at its ����