Where a large steamer was coming down Long Island Sound on a
foggy morning with a speed of sixteen or seventeen miles per hour
in the direct track of the coasting trade, and ran down a vessel
which was lying at anchor, the weather being perfectly calm, the
steamer was grossly in fault.
The vessel at anchor cannot be considered in fault for omitting
to have horns blown or empty barrels beaten. The usage that this is
done in such a case is not established, and moreover it is doubtful
whether such a precaution would have been of any service.
The case is stated in the opinion of the Court.
The district court decreed that the collision was caused by the
fault, want of precaution, and blamable conduct of the persons on
board of and managing each of the vessels, and ordered the damages
to be borne in equal moieties by them. Both parties
Page 59 U. S. 90
appealed to the circuit court. MR. JUSTICE NELSON reversed the
decree of the district court and ordered that the libellants should
recover against
The Bay State the sum of $6,411, with
interest from the 8th of October, 1849, and costs in both
courts.
An appeal from this decree brought the case up to this
Court.
MR. JUSTICE NELSON delivered the opinion of the Court.
The collision occurred on Long Island Sound, off Watch Hill
light, on the Connecticut shore, between the schooner
Oriana and the steamer
Bay state, on the 13th of
August, 1847, when the former was run down and sunk. The schooner
was laden with coal and on her way to New Bedford. The steamer was
engaged in one of her usual trips from Fall River, through the
Sound to the City of New York. On the morning of the accident, the
weather was thick and foggy and so dark that a vessel could not be
seen over two or three hundred feet off, and the wind at a dead
calm. The schooner lay helpless on the water.
The steamer is a large vessel, some sixteen hundred tons burden,
with powerful engines and of great speed, and was coming down the
Sound at the time at the rate of sixteen or seventeen miles the
hour. The hands on board the schooner heard the noise of her
paddle-wheels before she appeared in sight; she was within less
than her length when they could first discern her, and she had
approached within that distance of the schooner before that vessel
was discerned by the hands on board the steamer.
The place where this collision occurred is in the direct track
of the coasting trade between the Eastern states New York and
Pennsylvania, and where the waters are greatly frequented by
vessels engaged in it.
We agree that it is not for this Court to lay down any fixed and
inflexible rule as it respects the rate of speed of steam vessels
navigating these waters. This must depend upon the circumstances
attending each particular case. These may justify a rate deemed
prudent navigation at one time, that would be wholly unjustifiable
at another. But we feel no difficulty in
Page 59 U. S. 91
saying that, in a case circumstanced as the present one, a fog
so dense that the most vigilant lookout would be unable to discern
a vessel at a distance of more than sixty or one hundred yards --
navigation at the time waters frequented with sailing vessels -- a
rate of sixteen or seventeen miles the hour is altogether
inadmissible as prudent or reasonably safe navigation. According to
the testimony of the pilot, it would take four or five minutes to
stop
The Bay State at this rate of speed; at a reduced
rate, it would of course take a proportionably less time. This, in
addition to the better opportunity for each vessel approaching to
adopt the proper maneuver to avoid the collision, should admonish
those engaged in navigating vessels of this description of the
propriety, if not necessity, of slacking their speed in thick
weather, and especially in a track where other watercraft are
usually to be met.
Some of the officers on board this steamer, as is apparent from
the evidence, were laboring under a very imperfect appreciation of
their whole duty as regarded her proper navigation.
A passenger on board, who witnessed the collision, was struck
with the impropriety of the rate of speed, and asked why they ran
so fast in a fog, and was answered that it was necessary in order
to enable them to keep their reckoning in going from place to
place. And we learn also from the testimony of the pilot and some
others that they make no difference in the rate of speed in
consequence of a fog; that they go slow when making land, or a
light, or in narrow passages, and when sounding the lead, as if the
only precautions they were bound to observe in the navigation were
as it respected the safety of their own vessel.
We will only repeat what we said in the case of
Newton
v. Stebbins, 10 How. 606:
"That it may be matter of convenience that steam vessels should
proceed with great rapidity, but the law will not justify them in
proceeding with such rapidity if the property and lives of other
persons are thereby endangered."
We are all satisfied that this vessel was grossly in fault on
account of the rate of speed with which she was moving under the
circumstances at the time of the collision.
The remaining question is whether or not the schooner was also
in fault. And this, in the present case, depends upon another --
namely whether she omitted any precautionary measures which she was
bound to observe under the circumstances, such as beating empty
casks or blowing a fog horn, with a view to give notice to vessels
approaching, of her position.
A good many witnesses have been examined as to the usage of
vessels navigating the Sound in respect to the blowing of horns,
beating of empty barrels, and the like, in thick and foggy
Page 59 U. S. 92
weather, but on looking carefully into the testimony it will be
found that no such general or established usage has been
proved.
The evidence of most of the experienced masters who have been
examined goes to disproved the prevalence of any such usage. The
practice is occasionally resorted to in the navigation of the
Sound, but with what advantage or security against accidents does
not distinctly appear. Without much more evidence of the usage and
of its utility in preventing collisions than is shown in this case,
we cannot say that the omission to comply with it is of itself
chargeable as a fault against the schooner. It may well be that the
use of these means should be entitled to consideration upon a nice
question of proper vigilance and caution in a case of collision
between two vessels, like any other precautionary measure that
might tend to prevent its occurrence. Beyond this, we do not think
the evidence as disclosed in the case would justify us in carrying
the effect of the omission.
Besides, we are not satisfied, upon the evidence, that the
precautionary measure of blowing horns or ringing a fog bell would
have been of any avail under the circumstances of this case. The
witnesses on the part of the steamer agree that the noise of the
motion of the vessel in the water is so great that it could be
heard at a much further distance than their own fog bell, and
several of them consider the bell useless for this reason; and one
of them states expressly that he did not recollect ever hearing a
horn while on a steamboat when she was under way, but had after she
stopped. A horn, it is said by some of the witnesses, cannot be
heard, at the furthest, over a mile and a half, and if so it
certainly could not be heard anything like that distance, if at
all, on board a steamboat in motion. The steamer, as we have seen,
was moving at a rate of more than a mile in four minutes, and
taking into view the size of
The Bay state, with her
powerful engines, together with this rate of speed, it is quite
apparent that if a horn could have been heard at all, it could not,
upon any reasonable conclusion, in time to have materially
influenced the result.
We are satisfied the decree of the court below is right, and
should be
Affirmed.