Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/931

 THE MARY SHAW. 919 �John H. Thomas and A. Sterling, Jr., for libellants. �Charles Marshall and Sebastian Brown, for respondents. �Morris, D. J. These are cross-libels growing eut of a col- lision between the British steam-ship Gulnare, 250 tons, and the schooner Charles Morford, 360 tons, in the Chesapeake bay, near the mouth of the Patapsco river, on March 5, 1881. The Gulnare left Baltimore, bound for the West Indies, on the afternoon of March 5, 1881, and at 7 :30 p. m. was about two-thirds the way down the Craighill channel, when she met the steam-tug Mary Shaw coming up the channel with the schooner Charles Morford in tow. �The case stated by the libel filed by the owners of the Gulnare is that those in charge of her first saw the lights of the tug and tow at the distance of about two miles, and oon- tinued to see both their side lights until they had approached to within about three-fourths of a mile, when they heard one whistle from the tug, indicating that she proposed that the vessels should pass each other on the port side ; that the Gulnare at once responded with one whistle, and ported Bufficiently to shut out the green lights of the tug and schooner, and proceeded, keeping their red lights half a point or more over the steamer' s port bow; that when the tug got within about three lengths of the steamer she blew two whistles and suddenly starboarded her helm, shut out her red light, showed her green light, and crossed the steamer's bow; that the steamer immediately stopped, reversed her sngines, and succeeded in clearing the tug, and, while going astern, endeavored, by starboarding her helm, to tum her head to starboard so as to avoid the schooner, but that the schooner ported her helm when nearly abreast of the steamer, and, being under the press of ail her lower sails, struck the steamer near her port cat-head, and so injured her that it was f ound necessary to have her towed back to Baltimore for repairs. �The case stated by the answer of the owners of the tug is that she was coming up the Craighill channel, having the schooner in tow attached to her by a sixty-f athom hawser, and was near "the western side of the channel, proceeding ai ��� �