Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/796

 WHITE V. STBAM-TUG IjAVEEGKB. 789 �two miles, the tug began to head towards the eastern bank, and ■when about opposite the dock at Irvington, and at a distance variously estimated by the witnesses from 300 to 900 feet from the dock, she began to round to in order to land the barge, the tide being then the first of the ebb. �The libel alleges that the "tug rounded to broadside to the sea and wind, bringing the libellant's boat into the trough of the sea, where the tug and oanal-boat lay for several minutes, the tug pounding against the broadside of libel- lant's boat with such violence as to break in two a large tim- ber or log, used in the construction of the canal-boat, at about the center of the boat, and doing other injury." The negligence of the tug is specified as follows : "That the said damage was caused by the want of skill and care of those navigating the said steam-tug ; among other things, in placing the said boat broadside to the wind and sea, and in the trough of the sea, and there permitting the said vessels to pound until the said damage was caused." �The answer sets up no affirmative defence. It contains a general deniai, except as to the taking of the canal-boat in tow from Nyack to Hoboken. The libellant's boat was a tim- ber-built boat, the sides being constructed of timbers 14 inches wide and 4 inches thick, securely bolted together by bolts running from top to bottom. I think it is proved that the boat was in good and seaworthy condition when taken in tow, and that while they were rounding to at Irvington one of these timbers on her starboard side, a little above her light water- line, was so pressed in by contact with the tug or her fenders that it was broken or cracked across the width of the timber, and that that timber and the one immediately below it were sprung out of place so as to cause her to leak. The libellant has had the injury partially repaired by pressing the timbers out, and by calking and patching, but the boat still leaks from this injury. I think, also, it is proved that this injury was caused by the jumping up and down of the canal-boat with the sea, and her thumping against the side of the tug while they were exposed to the sea in rounding to, and were broad- side to the wind and sea. There is no other adequate caïuse ����