Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/646

632 FEDERAL REPORTER. �where they would be if she was sailing on the course given by the chart. The wind was about a seven-knot breeze. The schooner was going at the rate of about seven miles an hour and the steamer four. �Each vessel saw the other a considerable time before the collision, and when they were certainly more than a mile apart. The reg- ulation lights were properly set and burning on both vessels. Before the collision the steamer put her wheel to port, and soon after hard a-port. Under the operation of this helm shc fell off to the eastward several points. Not long after the steamer began to fall off, the schooner put her wheel hard a-starboard, which carried her also off to the eastward. In the collision the schooner struck the steamer, which was 280 feet long, about midships. The cutwater of the schooner was bent by the blow from starboard to port, and her star- board bow, to a point 10 feet back from the stem, was so much broken that she filled and sank in less than au hour. The port bow of the schooner was not injured at all, except, perhaps, directly at the stem. �So far there is no dispute. The issue between the parties may be thus stated: The schooner claims to have been sailing for a half hour before the collision on a course S. by E. ^ E. Before that time her course had been S. by W. ^ W. About a quarter of an hour before the collision the lookout of the schooner saw and reported the mast-head light of the steamer bearing about one point over the starboard bow. Not long afterwards the green light of the steamer appeared in the same direction. These lights continued in sight without any material change of bearing untii the vessels got within three or four hundred yards of each other, when suddenly the steamer went off to the eastward, exhibited her red light, and started directly across the bow of the schooner. No change was at first made in the course of the schooner on this account, but when the bow of the steamer came opposite that of the schooner, the wheel of the schooner was put hard a-starboard, and she too fell off some- what to the eastward before the vessels came together. The change of course by the schooner, it is claimed, was because the steamer had, by her unskilful movements, made a collision inevitable, and such a change was necessary in order to avoid more disastrous con- sequences. �On the part of the steamer it is claimed that she was going up the bay on a course N. ^ W., when her pilot on the bridge and look- ing through a glass saw the sails of the schooner almost directly ahead and some miles away. Not long afterwards the red light of the schooner appeared, bearing somewhat less than a point over the port ��� �