The Blame Game on the Sound
A schooner and a steamer collided in the dark of Puget Sound; the court’s decision offers a rare look at the chaos of maritime navigation in 1893.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
United States District Judge Hanford yesterday rendered his decision in the admiralty case of the schooner Marion of Port Blakely against the steamer Harry Lynn of Tacoma. The schooner Marion, a three-masted vessel loaded with 230,000 feet of lumber, was struck by the propeller Harry Lynn on the night of October 21. The steamer overtook the Marion and struck her forward of the main rigging. The side lights of the schooner were not visible to the steamer until it was too late to avoid the collision. The Marion had no lights lit at the binnacle, and no warning was given by sound, despite the crew knowing for fifteen minutes that they were being overtaken. Judge Hanford found the excuse offered by the master of the Marion—that it would be 'too cumbersome' to signal every vessel in the busy Sound—to be 'simply puerile.' However, the Harry Lynn was also found at fault for lacking a proper lookout; the helmsman was distracted, and the master was occupied attending to a sick passenger. Judge Hanford concluded that collisions usually result from mutual faults and ordered the damages to be divided.
“The excuses offered by the captain are simply puerile and merit no further comment.”
Maritime traffic in Puget Sound remains a vital, complicated, and heavily regulated highway. While the technology has shifted from oil-lit binnacles to radar and AIS transponders, the legal principles of 'mutual fault' and the duty to maintain a lookout remain the bedrock of modern admiralty law.
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