Merchant Shipping Act 1894

427 Rules as to life-saving appliances.

(1) The Board of Trade may make rules (in this Act called rules for life-saving appliances) with respect to all or any of the following matters; namely,—

(a) The arranging of British ships into classes, having regard to the services in which they are employed, to the nature and duration of the voyage, and to the number of persons carried;

(b) The number and description of the boats, life-boats, life-rafts, life-jackets, and life-buoys to be carried by British ships, according to the class in which they are arranged, and the mode of their construction, also the equipments to be carried by the boats and rafts, and the methods to be provided to get the boats and other life-saving appliances into the water which methods may include oil for use in stormy weather; and

(c) The quantity, quality, and description of buoyant apparatus to be carried on board British ships carrying passengers, either in addition to or in substitution for boats, life-boats, life-rafts, life-jackets, and life-buoys.

(2) All such rules shall be laid before Parliament so soon as may be after they are made, and shall not come into operation until they have lain for forty days before both Houses of Parliament during the session of Parliament; and on coining into operation shall have effect as if enacted in this Act.

(3) Rules under this section shall not apply to any fishing boat for the time being entered in the fishing boat register under Part IV. of this Act.