1. Shipping — Limitation op Liability pob Sinking op Vessel — Incompetency op Cbew.

Under Rev. St. § 4463 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3045], which requires every steam vessel carrying passengers to have in her service a full complement of licensed officers and full crew sufficient at all times to manage the vessel, as well as by the general maritime law, the crew must not only be sufficient in numbers, but competent for all the duties they may be called on to perform in any exigency that is likely to happen, and unless such a crew is supplied the owners are not entitled, under section 4493 [U. S. Comp. St. 19.01, p. 3058], to a limitation of liability under section 4283 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 2943] for damages to persons and baggage growing out of the loss of the vessel.

If 1. Limitation of liability of shipowners, see note to The Longfellow, 45 C. C. A. 387.

2. Same.

The passenger steamer City, of Rio de Janeiro on her return voyage from Hongkong and intermediate ports struck on a sunken rock outside San Francisco in a fog and darkness, and sank in 20 minutes thereafter, carrying down a large number of her passengers and crew. She carried eleven lifeboats, all of which should have been launched in five minutes, but only three were launched at all, and two of those were swamped by improper handling. The crew were sufficient in number, but were Chinese, and only two were able to understand the language spoken by the officers, who were white men, and they had never been drilled in launching the lifeboats. Held, that the vessel was not manned by an efficient and competent crew, such as it was the duty of the owners to provide; that the insufficiency of the crew was the paramount cause of the damages to persons and baggage; and that such owners were not entitled to a limitation of liability for damages to persons and baggage arising from the sinking of the vessel.