Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/799

792 FEDERAL REPORTER. �command, protect her. Thus the tug had the right to land the barge at Irvington, but was bound to do so in a mode whieh should be safe for the canal-boat; at least to this extent, that she should not be brought thereby into any posi- tion of peril into which it was inconsistent with the exercise of ordinary oare on the part of the tug to bring her. �It is obvions that it was not absolutely necessarj to keep the canal-boat along-side while landing the barge. She could bave been anchored till the barge was landed, and perhaps she could bave been safely cast off in the river before round- ing to without being anchored The simple question, there- fore, is whether it involved so much danger of injury to the canal-boat to bring her broadside to the wind and sea that the master of the tug failed to exercise ordinary care and the proper skill of a tug-boat pilot in doing so. �The evidence is somewhat conflicting as to the violence and strength of the wind, and as to how high the sea was. In that broad part of the river the wind bas considerable effect in raising a sea, but I think the evidence of the injury actually done to the boat is entitled to very considerable weight upon this question. While it oannot, of course, be held, as an absolute rule, that pilota should always foresee what does take place as the resuit of the action of the wind and sea on the boats in their charge, yet, in the absence of anything to show that what bas happened was something extraordinary, and not to be anticipated as the resuit of the causes open to their observation, and with which they are bound to be famil- iar, they must ordinarily be held to bave been able to antici- pate those effects. �In this case there was no sudden squall, no increase in the force of the wind or sea, but a state of wind and sea which the pilot of the tug knew from the start, and which he was, or should have been, competent to measure the force of in its eiïect on the light boat by his side. And in this case, I think, it may properly be held that he should have foreseen, and, therefore, have guarded against, this particular danger. It is no answer to say that the libellant, the owner and master of the canal-boat, did not object to proceeding after be knew the ����