Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/917

 910 FEDERAL REPORTER. �tion. She was bound by the mie to keep her course. There ■was nothing în the situation to require or to justify any de- parture from that rule on her part. She -was just getting headway, being close hauled on the starboard tack, and the steam-boat going at full speed on her starboard hand was com- ing up to her and sheering more and more towards the Brook- lyn side, so that, as one of the steam-boat's own witnesses says, she sheered off four points from her original course up the river. The steam-boat was acting in open disregard of the state stat- nte and the rules of navigation in thus trying to cross the bows of ihe sloop at full speed when it was at best very doubt- ful whether she could clear her. If it were a case in which the sailing vessel would be justified in departing from her course, the evidence does not show that she was at fault in not doing so. �The burden is on the steam-boat to prove very clearly that the luffing of the sloop would have saved the collision, espe- cially as she herself had made it imminent. And certainly no duty devolved on the sloop to make any movement other than to keep her course until after it became evident to those in charge of her that the steam-boat could herself do nothing to avoid the collision, for till that was evident the sloop must act on the supposition that the steam-boat would perf orm her duty and keep out of the way, and any movement of the sloop other than keeping her course would only cause embarrass- ment to the steam-boat in the performance of this duty. The blowing of a whistle by the steam-boat to the sloop, if she did so before the collision, which is disputed, was an unmeaning signal. She had no right to call on the sloop to give way or change her course. Nor upon the evidence is it shown that if the sloop had luiïed at the last moment it would have «verted the collision. They came together at an angle of about 45 degrees, the steam-boat crossing the sloop's bow diagonally forward at that angle. If the sloop had lufifed immedately before the collision, it is not shown that they would bave cleared each other. It is quite probable, on the evidence, that they would not. The collision was caused wholly by the xeckless navigation of the steam-boat. ����