Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/597

 590 FEDERAL BBPOBTEB. �stantially altered because the wheel had been hove up, the fessel not yet having paid off. The danger of continuing under the port wheel was that it involved the necessity of Crossing the bow of the other vessel again, and her distance was a matter of great unoertainty. �The mate himself testifies that he could not judge of her distance when he first saw the light; she might have been a mile and a-half or three-quarters. He could not say that ehe was more than a mile off. Of course, in the night-time, with nothing but the appearance of the light to determine distance, that element in the problem is very uncertain. And the movement resolved upon by the mate required a considerable space for its safe execution. His vessel must come around and cross the bows of the other at a safe dis- tance from her. Meanwhile both vessels would be covering the space between them at a combined speed, as the wind was of about a mile in five minutes. �The mate, though questioned on the subject, was wholly unable to say in what time his vessel would fall off four points, which is the amount it is claimed she did fall off be- fore he judged that he was clear of the other vessel and gave the order to steady. Nor could he say at what distance his vessel would run in falling off four points under a hard a-port wheel. While, however, the movement attempted must be held to have been an errer, yet it is claimed that it was suc- cessfully accomplished ; that the Star of Scotia came around under her hard-aport wheel till she crossed the bow of the Sansego, and brought the red light of the Sansego at a safe distance on her port bow, and then, the two vessels being ôlear of each other, the Star of Scotia steadied, and the col- lision happened from the Sansego changing her course to leeward, and running across the bows of the Star of Scotia. If this is true, the earlier mistake did not cause the collision. It is, I think, fuUy established by the evidence that the Star of Scotia did bring the red light of the Sansego on her port bow. It was positively sworn to by so many witnesses on the Star of Scotia, as being seen on the port bow after the green light- disappeared, that this point may be considered ����