Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/261

Rh partly without her slip, and had ît not been for the careless and wilful mismanagement of the City Point the collision might then have been avoided; the City Point was not stopped, but kept right on at a rapid rate of speed, nor did she sheer off, but kept on a straight course, and came into collision with the bows of the Narragansett after she, the Narragansett, had stopped headway and was moving astern; that the collision was caused by the fault of the City Point in being too close to the line of the piers, instead of being out further towards the middle of the river, in neglecting to stop when the Narragansett blew the long whistle, and also when the Naragansett blew, afterwards, one whistle, in that she did not change her course, but continued straight on up the river, in attempting to cross the bows of the Naragansett when she should have passed along-side of the port side and under the stern of the Narragansett, in continuing at a high rate of speed instead of stopping, and in not avoiding the Nargansett when she had her on the star board hand, as the law directs."

Pier 33, at which the Narragansett lay, was a covered pier, with openings in the south side of the shed, so situated that the steam-ship's gangways were always brought against the same points of the side of the pier, and so as to bring her stem about 45 feet inside the end of the pier. The stem of the Naragansett was 45 feet forward of the front windows of her pilot-house. She lay at the pier with her stem towards the river. Pier 32, the next below 33, is a short pier and of no account in this controversy. Pier 31, which is about 210 feet below pier 33, projects into the river about as far as pier 33, It is a covered pier, having a shed upon it which reaches within about 20 feet of the end of the pier, and for a distance of 25 feet back from that point rises to a height of 27 feet and 9 inches above the pier. The height of the captain's eye above the water, as he stands in the pilot-house of the Narragansett, when she is loaded, is about 31 feet. Consequently, at low stages of the tide, the shed on pier 31 effectually shuts out from those in the pilot-house of