Opinion ID: 200824
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Acceptable seamanship standard

Text: 118 Once the Coast Guard engages in aid or rescue efforts, the United States, like its private counterparts, will be liable only where there is a failure to carry out the rescue mission or aid in accordance with standards of acceptable seamanship. Sandra & Dennis Fishing, 372 F.2d at 197. That means that [w]hatever may be the limits of this principle with respect to volunteered salvage, we believe that if the Coast Guard accepts a mission it should conduct its share of the proceeding with acceptable seamanship. Id. (internal citation omitted). 119 Thus, once the Coast Guard begins providing rescue assistance to a distressed vessel or persons, its authority under § 88 is bounded by the duty of acceptable seamanship it owes to the vessel owner or distressed persons. Whatever else may be said about the limits of the statute, § 88 cannot be construed in a manner which would vitiate the Coast Guard's duty of acceptable seamanship when carrying out volunteer salvage services to distressed vessels or persons. 120 Therefore we are presented with the relatively straightforward question of whether the Coast Guard's forced evacuation order was consistent with principles of acceptable seamanship. I conclude it was not. Had a private salvor coercively compelled the master and crew to quit salvage efforts and abandon the NORTHERN VOYAGER, there is no question but that the case would have proceeded to trial to determine whether the salvor's actions affirmatively worsened the condition of the vessel. Here, the Coast Guard, acting in its capacity as a private salvor, violated numerous principles of acceptable seamanship by compelling the master to abandon the NORTHERN VOYAGER and wrongfully depriving him of the opportunity to halt further flooding of the vessel and await commercial salvage assistance. 121