Merchant Shipping (Safety and Load Line Conventions) Act 1932

19 Wireless telegraphy provisions applicable to ships holding Convention certificate.

(1) Where a valid Safety Convention certificate is produced in respect of a Safety Convention ship not registered in the United Kingdom, being a passenger steamer or being a ship of sixteen hundred tons gross tonnage or upwards, then—

(a) if the certificate shows that the ship is wholly exempt from the provisions of the Safety Convention relating to wireless telegraphy, the ship shall be exempt from the provisions of the Merchant Shipping (Wireless Telegraphy) Act, 1919;

(b) if the certificate shows that the ship is not wholly exempt from the said provisions of the Safety Convention, the following provisions of this section shall apply to the ship in lieu of the provisions of the said Act.

(2) A surveyor of ships may inspect the ship for the purpose of seeing that the wireless telegraph installation and the number of certified operators and watchers carried on the ship correspond substantially with the particulars stated in the certificate.

(3) If it appears to the surveyor that the ship cannot proceed to sea without danger to the passengers or crew owing to the fact that the wireless telegraph installation or the number of operators or watchers does not correspond substantially with the said particulars, the surveyor shall give to the master notice in writing pointing out the deficiency and also pointing out what, in his opinion, is requisite to remedy the deficiency.

(4) Every notice so given shall be communicated in manner directed by the Board of Trade to the chief officer of customs of any port at which the ship may seek to obtain a clearance or transire and to the consular officer for the country to which the ship belongs at or nearest to the port where the ship is for the time being, and a clearance or transire shall not be granted to the ship, and the ship shall be detained, until a certificate under the hand of a surveyor of ships is produced to the effect that the deficiency has been remedied.