8 Wreck, salvage and distress
1 The following enactments and instruments shall have effect as if any reference therein, in whatever terms, to ships, vessels or boats, or activities or places connected therewith, included a reference to hovercraft, or activities or places connected with hovercraft, namely—
(a) Sections 510 to 516, 518 to 537 and 544 to 571 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1894;
(b) Section 72 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1906;
(c) Sections 6 and 7 of the Maritime Conventions Act 1911;
(d) Section 24 of the Merchant Shipping (Safety and Load Line Conventions) Act 1932;
(e) Section 8 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947;
(f) The Merchant Shipping (Navigational Warnings) Rules 1965;
(1965 I, p. 2560).
(g) The Merchant Shipping (Signals of Distress) Rules 1965.
(1965 II, p. 4526).
In relation to the above enactments, as so applied, the expression “wreck” (save and except in so far as relates to the claims of any Admiral, Vice-Admiral, Lord of the Manor, heritable proprietor duly infeft, or any person other than Her Majesty and Her Royal Successors to unclaimed wreck for his own use) shall include any hovercraft or any part thereof or cargo thereof found sunk, stranded or abandoned in or on any navigable water, or on or over the foreshore, or place where the tide normally ebbs or flows.
2 (a) Sections 56 and 57 of the Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act, 1847 as incorporated with any local or special Act, whenever passed, and the provisions relating to the same subject matters as those sections of any local or special Act for the time being in force, shall apply in relation to hovercraft as those provisions apply to vessels, and the expressions “wreck” and “vessel” in those sections shall be deemed to include wreckage of or from hovercraft, and hovercraft, respectively;
(b) In the application in relation to hovercraft of the provisions of the said sections, the expressions “owner” shall mean the owner of the hovercraft at the time it was wrecked or laid by or neglected.
3 Any services rendered in assisting, or in saving life from, or in saving the cargo or apparel of, hovercraft in, on or over navigable water or on or over the foreshore or place where the tide normally ebbs and flows shall be deemed to be salvage services in all cases in which they would have been salvage services if they had been rendered in relation to a vessel; and where salvage services are rendered by hovercraft to any property or person, the owner and crew of the hovercraft shall be entitled to the same reward for those services as they would have been entitled to if the hovercraft had been a vessel.
The foregoing provisions of this sub-section shall have effect notwithstanding that the hovercraft concerned is not registered in the United Kingdom and notwithstanding that the services in question are rendered elsewhere than within the limits of the territorial waters adjacent to any part of Her Majesty's dominions.