EFFORTS have been made from time to time, over a period of years, to pass legislation through Congress that would determine the maximum permissible draft or Plimsoll line to which American seagoing merchant vessels could be loaded. The principal maritime nations of the world have had such laws in effect for many years, binding upon vessels under their respective flags. Hitherto the drafts of American vessels have been limited only at the discretion of the master, by the exigencies of trade, or in some cases by the insistence by insurance underwriters on the observance of the load lines fixed by marine classification societies such as the American Bureau of Shipping or Lloyds Register.
The steadily increasing foreign trade of the United States, recent disasters at sea, and the imminence of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea recently held in London to which delegates of this country were signatory, made obvious the urgent necessity for load-line legislation, which was accordingly passed by Act of Congress and approved March 2,1929. This legislation takes effect September 2, 1930, and establishes load lines for the following vessels: (a) merchant vessels of 250 gross tons or over, loading at or proceeding to sea from any port or place within the United States or its possessions for a foreign voyage by sea, the Great Lakes excepted. (It will be noted that the domestic coastwise trade is apparently excluded from the operation of the law.); (b) merchant vessels of the United States of 250 gross tons or over, loading at or proceeding to sea from any foreign port or place for a voyage by sea, the Great Lakes excepted.
The Secretary of Commerce is, by the law, directed to establish necessary regulations to determine the position of maximum allowable drafts of vessels, due consideration to be given to, and differentials made for, the various types and characters of vessels and the trades in which they are engaged.
Load lines are required to be permanently and conspicuously marked upon vessels.
Penalties for infraction of the law are prescribed as follows:
Leaving port without statutory load line markings—$500.
Leaving port without entering load drafts in log—$100.
Leaving port overloaded—$500.
Leaving port overloaded after issue of detention order—$500 or imprisonment for three months or both.
Unlawfully concealing, removing, altering, defacing or obliterating marks— $1,000 or imprisonment for one year or both.
The law referred to is binding also upon foreign-flag vessels leaving United States ports, provided, however, that if the Secretary of Commerce certifies that the countries to which the vessels belong have promulgated equivalent regulations and if the vessels affected have complied with such regulations and if the countries concerned similarly recognize the load lines established under United States law, such foreign vessels shall be exempted from compliance with the provisions of the act except in respect to liability for the infractions described above.