Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/596

 MIEOOVICH r. BABK BTAR OF SÛOTIA. 589 �ment. As the learned counsel for the claimants -r ell suggests, he could not, on seeing the red ligbt, know how close to the wind she was lying ; and if it happened that she was a fore- aiid-aft schooner, which could lie within four and a-half points of the wind, as it well might be, it would be hazardous to attempt to cross her bows. �The only certain mode of avoiding her, if she was sailing 80 close to the wind, and bound, as she was, to keep her course, was to port. But when, immediately upon heaving his wheel up, be discovered the green light, and tbereby as- certained that he had already crossed her bows, and that if, close hauled she was seven points from the wind, and if not close hauled she was going off to leeward upon a N. W. by N. course, the situation was altered, and he was bound to act upon the more exact information thus acquired. The bear- ing of the light showed him that the courses of the two ves- sels diverged about two points, and that he had already passed the point at which their courses intersected, It seems to me, therefore, that in this new situation the obvious course of safety was to let his vessel corne immediately up to the wind again, and keep his original course by the wind. It is objected to his doing so that it would bave shown to the other vessel that his course was vacillating and coçif used ; that it would bave misled and conf used the other vessel as to his intended movement. The a.rgument is, I tbink> un- Bound. He was still showing his green light to the other ves- sel, and had just begun to pay off to port. The testimony shows clearly that for quite an appreciable length of time afterwards he had not paid off sufficiently to show his red light, and there was ample time to heave the wheel down, and bring his vessel back to the wind, without showing his red light. This would bave been more especially easy, as no change had been made in the sails on porting. The mate admitted in his testimony that if he had not seen the red light, and had first seen the green light, when the lookout an- swered his bail, which was the instant that he observed that the red had changed to green, he would not have ported, but would have kept on his course. The situation wa8 not sub- ����