Citation Numbers: 18 How. Pr. 136
Judges: Nelson
Filed Date: 9/15/1859
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 2/17/2022
The libel in this case was filed by the owner of the schooner John C. Wells against the schooner Ann Caroline, to recover damages for a collision occurring in the month of February, 1854, on the eastern shore of Delaware Bay. The two vessels were beating up the bay in company with several other vessels, in a channel about a mile wide, between Crow Shoal and the Jersey shore. The wind was N. N.W., about five or six knot breezethe tide flood, setting up the bay. The John C. Wells was close-hauled on her larboard tack, which was her long tack from Crow Shoal to the Jersey shore; the Ann Caroline close-hauled on her starboard tack on the opposite course from the Jersey shore to Crow Shoal.
The main ground upon which the defence of the Ann Caro-Ene is placed is, that she was on the starboard or privileged tack, and that it was the duty of the Wells to give way and pass to her right. The controlling question in the case is, whether or not the Wells was to the windward, and so far above the course of the Caroline, before the two vessels came together, as to forbid the application of this settled rule of navigation, that when two vessels are approaching each other on opposite tacks, both having the wind free, the one on the larboard tack shall give way and pass to the right. On looking into the proofs in the case, which are very voluminous, it will be found that the testimony of the master and hands on board of the respective vessels, as' usual, is contradictory— those of the Wells claiming that the course of the Caroline was to the leeward and southerly of that of their vessel, while those on the Caroline insist that her course was to windward of the Wells.
If the case stood upon the testimony of these witnesses, we should regard it as so far conflicting and doubtful as to lead us not to interfere with the decree of the court below dismissing the libel. But there are four witnesses, masters and hands upon other vessels, engaged at the same time in beating up this channel, and who were on the same tack with the Wells, but to the leeward and a little to her stern, who witnessed the collision and the course of the vessels previous to the accident,