477531-1938-Merchant-Shipping-Load-Line-Convention-Hong-Kong-No-1-Order-1938 — Page 3

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THE HONG KONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, OCTOBER 21, 1938.

Submersion of load

line.

Miscellane- ous offences in relation to marks.

(2) No British load line ship registered in Hong Kong, being a ship constructed before the first day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, shall proceed to sea unless--

(a) the ship has been surveyed and marked in accordance with paragraphs (a), (c) and (d) of the last foregoing subsection; and

(b) the ship complies with the conditions of assignment in principle and also in detail, so far as, in the opinion of the Governor, is reasonable and practicable having regard to the efficiency of the protection of openings, the guard rails, the freeing ports and the means of access to the crew's quarters provided by the arrangements, fittings and appliances existing on the ship at the time when she is first surveyed under this section; and

(c) the load lines are either in the position required by paragraph (e) of the last foregoing subsection or in the position required by the tables used by the Board of Trade on the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and six, for fixing the position of load lines, subject to such modifications of those tables and of the application thereof, approved by the Board of Trade under section four hundred and thirty- eight of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, as were in force immediately before the fifth day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty.

(3) If any ship proceeds or attempts to proceed to sea in con- travention of this section, the master or owner thereof shall for each offence be liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds.

(4) Any ship attempting to proceed to sea without being surveyed and marked as required by this section may be detained until she bas been so surveyed and marked, and any ship which does not comply with the conditions of assignment to the extent required in her case by this section shall be deemed to be unsafe for the purpose of sub- section (5) of section seventeen of the Merchant Shipping Ordinance, 1899.

44.-(1) A British load line ship registered in Hong Kong shall not be so loaded as to submerge in salt water, when the ship has no list, the appropriate load line on each side of the ship, that is to say, the load line indicating or purporting to indicate the maximum depth to which the ship is for the time being entitled under the load line rules to be loaded.

(2) If any such ship is loaded in contravention of this section, the owner, master, agent, charterer or compradore of the ship shall for each offence be liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds and to such additional fine, not exceeding the amount hereinafter specified, as the court thinks fit to impose having regard to the extent to which the earning capacity of the ship was, or would have been, increased by reason of the submersion.

(3) The said additional fine shall not exceed one hundred pounds for every inch or fraction of an inch by which the appropriate load line on each side of the ship was submerged, or would have been sub- merged if the ship had been in salt water and had had no list.

(4) In any proceedings against an owner, master, agent, charterer or compradore in respect of a contravention of this section, it shall be a good defence to prove that the contravention was due solely to deviation or delay, being deviation or delay caused solely by stress of weather or other circumstances which neither the master nor the owner nor the agent, charterer or compradore (if any) could have prevented or forestalled.

(5) Without prejudice to any proceedings under the foregoing provisions of this section, any ship which is loaded in contravention of this section may be detained until she ceases to be so loaded.

45. If

(a) the owner or master of a British load line ship registered in Hong Kong, which has been marked in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this Part of this Act, fails without reasonable cause to keep the ship so marked; or

(b) any person conceals, removes, alters, defaces or obliterates, or suffers any person under his control to conceal, remove, alter, deface or obliterate any mark placed on any such ship in accordance with the foregoing provisions of this Part of this Act, except with the authority of a person entitled under the load line rules to authorise the alteration of the mark or except for the purpose of escaping capture by an enemy;