Merchant Shipping (Safety and Load Line Conventions) Act 1932

Life-Saving Appliances.

4 Rules for life-saving appliances to implement Chapter III of Safety Convention.

The rules for life-saving appliances applicable to passenger steamers plying on international voyages shall include such requirements as appear to the Board of Trade to implement the provisions of Chapter III of the Safety Convention and the Regulations referred to therein (except in so far as the said provisions are otherwise implemented by the Merchant Shipping Acts):

Provided that—

(a) the Board may, on such conditions as they think fit, exempt any steamer constructed before the first day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-one, from any such requirement, if and to the extent that they are satisfied that that requirement is either impracticable or unreasonable in the case of that steamer;

(b) the Board may, as respects passenger steamers plying on any international coasting voyage, modify any such requirement, if and to the extent that they are satisfied that the risks incurred by steamers plying on that voyage are such as to make it unreasonable or unnecessary for such steamers to comply with that requirement;

(c) the Board may, as respects passenger steamers engaged in any passenger trade in which they are employed in the carriage of large numbers of unberthed passengers, if they are satisfied that it is impracticable for steamers so engaged to comply with the said requirements, modify the said requirements in such manner as may appear to them to be necessary or expedient for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of sub-paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of paragraph 5 of Article twelve of the Safety Convention;

(d) the Board may, as respects any passenger steamer plying on short international voyages, make such modifications of the said requirements as appear to them to be authorised by the provisions of the Safety Convention contained in sub-paragraph (b) of paragraph 2 of Article thirteen, paragraph (4) of Regulation XXXVI, paragraph (11) of Regulation XXXVII, paragraph (2) of Regulation XXXVIII, and Regulation XXXIX.

5 Amendments of Merchant Shipping Acts as to lifesaving appliances.

(1) The power of the Board of Trade under section four hundred and twenty-seven of the principal Act to make rules for life-saving appliances shall include power to make rules with respect to all or any of the following matters, namely :—

(a) the marking of boats, lifeboats, life-rafts and buoyant apparatus so as to show the dimensions thereof and the number of persons authorised to be carried thereon;

(b) the manning of boats and lifeboats and the qualifications and certificates of lifeboat men;

(c) the provision to be made for mustering the passengers and crew and for embarking them in the boats and lifeboats (including provision as to the lighting of, and as to the means of ingress to, and egress from, different parts of the ship);

(d) the practising of boat drills;

(e) the assignment of specific duties to each member of the crew in the event of emergency;

(f) the methods to be adopted and the appliances to be carried for the prevention, detection and extinction of fire.

(2) Subsection (1) of section four hundred and thirty of the principal Act (which imposes penalties for failure to comply with the rules for life-saving appliances) shall be amended by inserting after paragraph (d) thereof the following paragraph:—

“(e) if any provision of the rules for life-saving appliances applicable to the ship is contravened or not complied with.”

(3) The following section shall be substituted for section four hundred and thirty-one of the principal Act:—

“431 (1) A surveyor of ships may inspect any ship for the purpose of seeing that the rules for life-saving appliances have been complied with in her case, and for the purpose of any such inspection shall have all the powers of a Board of Trade Inspector under this Act.

(2) If the surveyor finds that the rules for life-saving appliances have not been complied with, he shall give written notice to the owner or master stating in what respect the said rules have not been complied with, and what, in his opinion, is required to rectify the matter.

(3) 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 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 matter has been rectified.”

(4) Subsection (4) of section two hundred and seventy-two of the principal Act (which relates to the statements to be made in the declaration of survey made by an engineer surveyor) shall be amended by substituting in paragraph (c) thereof the words " appliances for the prevention, detection and extinction of fire " for the words " fire hose ", and subsection (2) of section two hundred and eighty-five of the principal Act shall cease to have effect.

(5) Subsection (1) of section nine of the [6 Edw. 7. c. 48.] Merchant Shipping Act, 1906, (which requires the master of every British ship to enter in the official log book a statement of every occasion on which boat drill is practised on board the ship) shall be amended by inserting at the end thereof the words " and if, in the case of a passenger " steamer, boat drill is not practised on board the ship " in any week, the master shall enter a statement of " the reasons why boat drill was not practised in that " week."