Oil Transfer Corporation, as Owner of the M/v Otco Bayway, Libelant-Appellant v. Atlantic Tankers, Ltd., as Owner of the Atlantic Prince

The two tankers involved in this litigation collided in the Kill van Kull, one of the busier waterways in the New York Harbor area, at about 4:45 A.M. on January 6, 1959. It was a cold night with the temperature at about 10° above zero, Fahrenheit.

The Oteo Bay way was adrift broadside in the ship-channel. She was ice-encrusted, the ice in some places being as much as two feet thick. Her anchors were frozen forward, her capstans and windlasses, the deck claw holding the anchor chain and the hawser pipe were all ice-encrusted. It was planned that she would dock at Constable Hook, but,…