Merchant Shipping (Safety Convention) Act 1949

29 Exemption of certain ships from certain provisions of this Act

(1) Nothing in this Act—

(a) prohibiting or preventing a ship from proceeding to sea unless there are in force in relation to the ship, or are produced, the appropriate certificates issued by the Minister under this Act or the appropriate accepted Safety Convention certificates;

(b) conferring powers on a surveyor of ships for the purpose of verifying the existence, validity or correctness of any Safety Convention certificate or that the conditions on which any such certificate was issued are complied with;

(c) requiring information about a ship's stability to be carried on- board;

(d) imposing a penalty for the contravention of any rules relating to openings in ships' hulls and watertight bulkheads,

shall, unless in the case of information about a ship's stability the Minister otherwise orders, apply to any troopship, pleasure yacht or fishing vessel, or to any ship of less than five hundred tons gross tonnage other than a passenger steamer or to any ship not propelled by mechanical means.

(2) Nothing in the preceding subsection shall affect the exemption conferred by section seven hundred and forty-one of the principal Act on ships belonging to His Majesty.

(3) Notwithstanding that any provision of this Act is expressed to apply to ships not registered in the United Kingdom while they are within any port in the United Kingdom, that provision shall not apply to a ship that would not be within any such port but for stress of weather or any other circumstance that neither the master nor the owner nor the charterer (if any) of the ship could have prevented or forestalled.