Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/264

 256 FEDERAL REPORTER. �the speed of about two and a lialf miles an hour. It was a clearday, a working breeze blowing, and no other vessels moving in the vicinity. The sohoonei* passed the two tugs in safety to the westward. Just about as she passed the Sammie, in order to avoid running into the canal beats, she hove her wheel down; but as she swung, one of the towing hawsers caught under her tuck and threw her off from the wind again, so that she ran head on into the libellant's boat, causing her to sink instantly. �This act'on is brought against the sehooner and both the tugs to recover the loss thus oaused to the libellant, and the question to be determined is, whose fault was it that caused the collision ? No fault on the part of the canal boat is pre- tended. No fault on the part of the Sammie lias been shown, for she was not the leading boat and was subject to the movements of the tug ahead. The direction of the tow was with the Nichols alone. The only question, therefore, is whether the collision was caused by the fault of the Nichols or the fault of the sehooner, or by the faults of both. �If this were the case of a sailing vessel and a steam vessel its disposition would be easy enough, for it would be con- troUed by the rule which compels a steam yessel to keep out of the way of a sailing vessel. But it is not such a case. Here the collision was between a sehooner and a canal boat, the former moving by her sails, the latter being fastened in a tow composed of 17 canal beats and being puUed along by two steamboats. If the sailing vessel and the canal boat are to be deemed the two colliding forces, the rule governing steam vessels is applicable to neither. If, on the other hand, the 17 canal boats and tugs fastened together, as they were, are to be deemed a single vessel, so far as the application of the sailing rules are concerned, fchen such combined vessel cannot, as I conceive, be deemed to be a "steam vessel under steam," within the meaning of the sailing rules prescribed by the statutes of the United States. �The provision of rule 20, (old art. 15, § 4233, Eev. St.) that a steam vessel shall keep out of the way of a sailing vessel, if intended to apply to any steam vessel having a tow, ��� �