Charles R. McCormick Lumber Co. of Delaware v. Hubble Towing Co.

At about 10:30 a. m., on August 29, 1928, the steam schooner Wahkeena, a wooden vessel, loaded with a cargo of more than one million feet of lumber, sailed from Aberdeen, *837 Grays Harbor, Wash., bound for San Pedro, Cal.

Outside the harbor, but inside the bar proper, the schooner, having encountered a dense fog, struck broadside upon the south jetty, which is constructed of rock and projects out into the navigable channel. The port side of the Wahkeena was on or against the jetty, and she was held fast there by.the force of the tide from 1:11 p. m. to about 5 p. m.

All efforts of the master of the stricken schooner to pull her off or away from the jetty were unsuccessful. Because of a swell, she began pounding upon the jetty. The tide, with an unusually strong ebb, was running southerly across the jetty.

The Wahkeena then blew distress whistles and sent radio messages requesting assistance. One of the radiograms reached the vessel’s agents, the Grays Harbor Stevedore Company. An employee of that company requested Frank P. Hubbell, the president and manager of the appellee, to send a tug to the Wahkeena. Hubbell suggested that, in view of the fact that the John Cudahy, one of…