Merchant Shipping Act 1894

373 Registry of British fishing boat.

(1) This section shall apply to the British Islands, and to all British fishing boats, including those used otherwise than for-profit, and the expression " fishing boat" in this section shall be construed accordingly.

(2) Subject to any exemptions made by the regulations under this section, every fishing boat shall be lettered and numbered and have official papers, and shall for that purpose be entered in the fishing boat register.

(3) If a fishing boat required to be so entered is not so entered, she shall not be entitled to any of the privileges or advantages of a British fishing boat, but all obligations, liabilities, and penalties with reference to that boat, and the punishment of offences committed on board her, or by any persons belonging to her, and the jurisdiction of officers and courts, shall be the same as if the boat were actually so entered.

(4) If a fishing boat required to be entered in the fishing boat register is not so entered, and is used as a fishing boat, the owner and skipper of such boat shall each be liable, for each offence, to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, and the boat may be detained.

(5) Her Majesty, by Order in Council, may make regulations for carrying into effect and enforcing the entry of fishing boats in the fishing boat register, and any convention with a foreign country relative to the registry, lettering, and numbering of fishing boats, which is for the time being in force by virtue of any statute, and may by such regulations—

(a) adopt any existing system of registry or lettering and numbering of boats, and provide for bringing any such system into conformity with the requirements of this Act and of any such convention, and the regulations; and

(b) define the boats or classes of boats to which the regulations or any of them are to apply, and provide for the exemption of any boats or classes of boats from the provisions of this section, and from the regulations or any of them ; and

(c) apply to the entry of fishing boats in the fishing boat register, and to all matters incidental thereto, such (if any) of the enactments contained in this or any other Act relating to the registry of British ships, and with such modifications and alterations as may be found desirable; and

(d) impose fines not exceeding twenty pounds for the breach of any such regulations which cannot be punished by the application of any of those enactments.

(6) Section twenty-six of the [31 & 32 Vict. c. 45.] Sea Fisheries Act, 1868, and sections eleven to fourteen of the [46 & 47 Vict. c. 22.] Sea Fisheries Act, 1883, shall apply in like manner as if those sections referred to this section and an Order in Council made thereunder, in substitution for sections twenty-two to twenty-four of the Sea Fisheries Act, 1868, and any Order in Council made under those sections.

(7) Section one hundred and seventy-six of the [39 & 40 Vict. c. 36.] Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, shall not apply to any fishing boat entered in the fishing boat register in pursuance of this Act.