Merchant Shipping Act 1965

1 Tonnage regulations

(1) The tonnage of any ship to be registered under the principal Act (whether under Part I or Part IV thereof) shall be ascertained in accordance with regulations made by the Board of Trade by statutory instrument; and those regulations shall, as respects anything done after the commencement of this Act, be taken to be the provisions referred to in the principal Act as the tonnage regulations of that Act.

(2) Regulations under this section—

(a) may make different provision for different descriptions of ships or for the same description of ships in different circumstances;

(b) may make any provision thereof dependent on compliance with such conditions, to be evidenced in such manner, as may be specified in the regulations;

(c) may provide for the ascertainment of any space to be taken into account for the purposes of section 85 of the principal Act (payment of dues where goods carried in spaces not forming part of registered tonnage) and may exempt any space from being taken into account for those purposes; and

(d) may prohibit or restrict the carriage of goods or stores in spaces not included in the registered tonnage of a ship and may provide for making the master and the owner each liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds where such a prohibition or restriction is contravened.

(3) Regulations under this section may make provision for assigning to a ship, either instead of or as an alternative to the tonnage ascertained in accordance with the other provisions of the regulations, a lower tonnage applicable where the ship is not loaded to the full depth to which it can be safely loaded, and for indicating on the ship, by such mark as may be specified in the regulations, that such a lower tonnage has been assigned to it and, where it has been assigned to it as an alternative, the depth to which the ship may be loaded for the lower tonnage to be applicable.

(4) Regulations under this section may provide for the measurement and survey of ships to be undertaken, in such circumstances as may be specified in the regulations and notwithstanding sections 6 and 86 of the principal Act, by persons appointed by such organisations as may be authorised in that behalf by the Board of Trade; and so much of section 83 of the principal Act and section 1 of the Merchant Shipping (Mercantile Marine Fund) Act 1898 as requires the payment of fees into the Exchequer shall not apply to fees payable under the said section 83 to persons appointed in pursuance of this subsection.

(5) Regulations under this section may make provision for the alteration (notwithstanding section 82 of the principal Act) of the particulars relating to the registered tonnage of any ship registered before the coming into operation of the regulations.

(6) Regulations under this section may provide for the issue of documents certifying the registered tonnage of any ship or the tonnage which is to be taken for any purpose specified in the regulations as the tonnage of a ship not registered in the United Kingdom.

(7) Any statutory instrument made under this section shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.