Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/359

THE FBANK G. FOVVLEE. 845 �cuors^— -yet it appears to me that this defect in the equipment of the canal-boat, if it was one, was fully supplied by her being fumished with an anchor by the salvors. That anehor was at least as heavy as anchors usually carried by canal-boats having anchors, and there is no rule of law nor any usage shown requiring a canal-boat to have more than one anchor. At the time she got across the channel she was properly equipped with an anchor. The fact that before that she had none is therefore immaterial. Her drifting into Guilford harbor, being rescued by salvors, and being temporarily anchored there, in a dangerous place, were all natural and probable conse- quences of her being cast adrift on the sound. If, therefore, the tug is found responsible for so casting her adrift, she is liable to these subsequent damages. �It is charged, also, by the olaimant that the canal-boat's want of an anchor, while they were under the lee of Duck island, in some way was the cause of the damage which she suffered, or contributed to it. It IB argued that the tug had an anchor which would hold herself, and that this was all she was bound to have ; that if the canal-boat had had an anchor sufiBcient to hold her, there would have been a saving of fuel, and both vessels could have lain there safely at anchor till the Btorm abated. Even if the canal-boat had had such an anchor, there would have been no saving of fuel, unless the tug, while lying there at anchor, had let her steam run down or her fires go out. But the situation was such that it would neither have been safe nor pru- dent for the tug to do this. For the time being the position was safe, but with a change of wind to the southerly, which certainly was pos- sible at any time, the island would cease to afford a lee ; nor would it be prudent, with a strong current setting on shore and a storm raging outside, to have trusted tug or canal-boat to even apparently good anchorage without the means of aid by steam in case the ground tackle should prove insufficient. For these reasons I think that the want of an anchor on the canal-boat, at that time and place, neither caused nor contributed to the running down of the tug's fuel, nor to the subsequent disaster, if that disaster was caused by the tug being compelled to leave her shelter by want of fuel. On the other hand it is claimed, on the part of the libellant, that the want of a proper anchor and ground-tackle on the tug, to hold both tug and canal-boat, was a fault on the part of the tug which caused or contributed to the subsequent disaster. I think there is as little basis for this claim as for the claim that it was the want of an anchor on the canal-boat ��� �