Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/539

THE A. P. CBANMILB. 525 �other hand, the master of the schooner, not seeing the ttigs ancf the tow to the windward of him, or on his starboard bow, paid no atten- tion to them, although he had before seen them. They were to the leeward of him, and the wind was, he says, all the while heading him ofi; that is, the wind was getting more to the southward, and he was all the while starboarding and falling off, so as to hold the wind, so that, as he says, he finally got on a course which was parallel to the course of the tugs and their tow. But the difficulty after that was that the schooner was all the time making very great leeway, more than the tugs had any reason to understand she would make, judging from the direction of her heading, Encumbered as they were with their tow, they could not make a change of direction and loca- tion as readily as a steam vessel not so encumbered. This fact was apparent to the schooner, or should have been, and the actual leeway of the schooner was a matter she well knew or was bound to know. For all practical purposes, the eflfect of the leeway, in regard to the legal relations of the tugs and the tow to the schooner, was the same as a direct change of course of the schooner towards the tugs and tow. But the master of the schooner paid no heed to the leeway approach of the schooner towards the tugs and tow, and no lookout on his vessel warned him of it. It was very easy for him to have luffed up into the wind and held the schooner there at a sufiScient distance off to have gone safely by the tugs and tow. Although the stem of the schooner may never have pointed in a direction nearer to the course of the tugs and tow than a Une parallel thereto, she was all the while bearing down on that course sideways, so that if she had not finally ported at all she would have come broadside against their mast. The tugs had no reason to apprehend danger from the schooner until it was too late for them, with the mass and length of their tow, to do anything to avoid the collision. The tugs did all they were bound to do to keep themselves out of the way of the schooner, as her course, existing and probable, reasonably appeared to them. On the other hand, the actual movement of the schooner with respect to the tugs and tow was faulfcy, and caused the collision. The risk of danger from such actual movement, while it ought to have been plainly apparent all the time to those on the schooner, was not a risk that could have been seen on board of the tugs sooner than it was. They had a right to assume that the schooner would take note of their position, and not move down heedlessly and blindly upon them. When finally the tugs saw that there was danger of collision, it does not appear that they could have done anything to prevent it. In ��� �