Reference......
Mrs Swift
MAED
LOCALISATION OF MERCHANT SHIPPING LAWS: HONG KONG
Ladequately
1.
I enclose the five sets of regulations sent from Hồng Kong; I shall for brevity refer to each by the letter (a), (b), (c), etc. allocated to each by Mr Clark in his letter. You should check with Mr Alexander of DTo for his comments.
2. Document (a).
Reg. 2: the definition of 'tropical storm' and paragraph (2) should be combined as they appear in the UK Regs., else paragraph (2) be taken not to be part of the said definition and the word 'such' in it be taken to refer to some other definition or provision.
Reg. 3: para. (2)(b) UK regs. requires the master to do this in person; I would suggest that this should also be required here, as it is clearly aimed at avoiding dangerous situations arising from poor knowledge of English.
Schedule, para. 2. Sub-para. (j) of the UK text is missing. Giving the true course and speed of the ship would appear to be precisely the sort of information stations would need.
3.
Document (b).
The date of the Regulations should be altered to 1987. This also applies to (c), (d) and (e).
Reg. 3 (c): Is 'waters of Hong Kong'a term of art in HK law? If its meaning is not clearly derived from existing HK law, it will be ncessary to specify either 'beyond the internal waters of HK' or, as appropriate, 'beyond the outward limit of the territorial sea of HK',
I think it is necessary to have a Reg. 3 bis, equivalent to UK Reg. 3.
•
Reg. 4: paras. (1) (b) and (c) should start with 'which' Para. (1)(b) at present excludes charts not published by the Royal Navy Hydrographer, but I take it that Hong Kong vessels sometimes ply waters/covered only by other charts. I suggest that the equivalent of UK Reg. 4(c)(ii) be inserted here.
Reg. 6: I suggest 'intends to' should be inserted between 'which' and 'operates' in the first line of para. (b) and 'operates' should become singular; otherwise the case of a
ship intending to operate exclusively in internal waters but forced beyong those waters by weather or such would not be covered. For 'river trade limits' I am reading 'internal waters', but I suspect that those limits might go beyond such waters. Is this a term of art in HK law, so that it can appear here without definition? Finally, would it be appropriate to add 'and schedlue l' after 'regulation 5' in the penultimate sentence?
CODE 18-77
AWO Ltd. 7/84