"A salvage service is a service which is voluntarily rendered to a vessel needing assistance, and is designed to relieve her from some distress or danger, either present or to be reasonably apprehended. A towage service is one which is rendered for the mere purpose of expediting her voyage, without reference to any circumstances of danger."
In the case of the Emily B. Souder, 15 Blatch. 185, Fed. Cas. No. 4,458, Chief Justice Waite stated the law upon this point as follows:
"It is well settled that, if there is not actual or probable danger, and the employment is simply for the purpose of expediting the voyage, such service is towage and not salvage."
Under the plain and well-settled rule declared in the foregoing cases, whether a particular service was one of salvage or towage is always a question of fact to be ascertained from a consideration of the circumstances under which the court shall find the service was rendered; and, unless the evidence shows that the vessel towed was thereby assisted in getting safely away from some actual or apprehended peril, the case is not one in which salvage has been earned.
In the Reward, 1 W. Rob. 174, a distinguished English judge laid it down that,
Mere towage service is confined to vessels that have received no injury or damage; and mere towage reward is payable in those cases only where the vessel receiving the service is in the same condition she would ordinarily be in without having encountered any damage or accident.
7. Distribution of Salvage Award.—
The rule of the admiralty is that all who materially contribute to the rescue are entitled to share in the award. Thus the master and crew of the salving vessel are entitled to participate with the owner, according to their individual exertions and success. The owner should not appropriate the whole unless the crew were especially employed for the work. The court will frequently divide the amount between the owner and the crew and apportion the share of the latter in proportion to their wages. The principal element in determining the owner's share is the value of the ship and the risk to which it was exposed. Under special circumstances the cargo-owner may also participate.
Where the salving vessel is a steamer the owners' share of the salvage is larger and that of the crew proportionately smaller than if she were a sailing vessel or other craft because of the superior efficiency of a steamer in salvage work. Credit and compensation for the superior character of the salving vessel must go to her owners. In Transportation Co. v. Pearsall, 90 Fed. 435, there is a discussion of salvage distribution. In that case three tugs, all belonging to the same owner, had salved a steamer which had gone ashore. The owner of the tugs affected a settlement with the owners of the steamer and received $13,000 in full of all demands. A libel in personam against the master and owner of the tugs was brought by the engineer and fireman of the third, each claiming a share of the $13,000. The court decided that the owner of the tugs was entitled to two-thirds of the salvage award, and ordered the remaining one-third to be distributed among the masters and crews of the tugs proportionately, awarding the engineer $500 and the other libellants $200 apiece, these awards being in proportion to their wages. The court remarked that under the rule once prevailing in admiralty the owners of the salving vessel could not receive more than one-third of the award unless there were unusual circumstances of peril to the salving vessel, that that rule had been modified in the direction of greater liberality to steamships, citing cases in which the share of the salving vessel had been fixed at three-fourths and even four-fifths. The Court said:
An examination of the cases will show that there is no fixed rule with regard to the proportion in the salvage award allotted to the owners of the salving vessel. Most frequently salvage services are rendered upon a voyage, in the absence of the owners, and when the salving vessel is under the charge of, and is controlled by, the master and crew. As salvage is awarded for the encouragement of promptness, energy, efficiency, and heroic endeavor in saving life and property in peril, the claims of the master and crew who exhibited these qualities must meet the most favorable consideration. At the same time an allowance is made for the owners whose property has been imperiled. But when the owners direct the service, or when the peril encountered is chiefly that of the salving vessel, with no proportionate peril to the crew, an award to the owners is more liberal.