STRANDING. In Maritime Law. The run ning of a ship or other vessel on shore; it is either accidental or voluntary.
Accidental stranding takes place where the ship is driven on shore by the winds and waves and remains stationary for some time.
Voluntary stranding takes place where the ship is run on shore either to preserve her from a worse fate or for some fraudu lent purpose. Marsh. Ins. b. 1, c. 12, s. 1.
It is of great consequence to define accu rately what shall be deemed a stranding; but this is no easy matter. In one case, a ship having run on some wooden piles, four feet under water, erected in Wisbeach river, about nine yards from shore, which were placed there to keep up the banks of the river, and having remained on these piles until they were cut away, was considered by Lord Kenyon to have been stranded; Marsh. Ins. b. 7, s. 3. In another case, a ship arrived in the river Thames, and upon coming up to the pool, which was full of vessels, one brig ran foul of her bow and another vessel of her stern, in consequence of which she was driven aground, and con tinued in that situation an hour, during which period several other vessels ran foul of her. As to this, Lord Kenyon told the jury that, unskilled as he was in nautical af fairs, he thought he could safely pronounce to be no stranding; 1 Camp. 131; 3 id. 431;
4 Maule & S. 503 ; 5 B. & Ald. 225; 4 B. & C. 736. See PERILS OF THE SEA.
When a vessel takes the ground in the or dinary course of navigation, from a natural deficiency of water, or from the ebb 9f the tide, it is not a stranding ; 11 C. B. 876; Pot ter v. Ins. Co., 2 Sumn. 197, Fed. Cas. No. 11,339. But where a ship was fastened at the pier of a dock basin against the advice of the master, and when the tide ebbed, took the ground and fell over on her side, in con sequence of which, when the tide rose, she filled with water, it was held to be a strand ing; 4 M. & S. 77.
It may be said, in general terms, that in order to constitute a stranding, the ship must be in the course of prosecuting her voyage when the loss occurs ; there must be a settling down on the obstructing object; and the vessel must take the ground by rea son of extraordinary casualty, and not from one of the ordinary incidents of a voyage. Am. Ins. § 297, 318. And see Strong v. Ins. Co., 31 N. Y. 106, 88 Am. Dec. 242; Lake v. Ins. Co., 13 Ohio 66, 42 Am. Dec. 188.