Deck Cargoes.

Evening Star, Issue 7634, 9 June 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

Deck Cargoes.

Among the many causes which, in former" times, led to loss of life at sea, the carrying of deck cargoes was not the feast conspicuous. So grave did the scandal become' at lest that the Legislature took cognisance of it in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1876*, and since then the evil has been grea’Sly diminished. It still occasionally occurs, however, in spite of the heavy penalties awaiting detection ; the delinquents usually being, it appears from a case just heard at Liverpool, the charterers anti not the captains. In this instance a steamer bound* from America to England carried ofl deck--6,468 cubic feet of oak logs and states’,, weighing in the aggregate sixty-four ton?The skipper objected strenuously on the ground of grave danger to the ship should she encounter stormy weather. He was, however, overruled by the charterer, and the vessel put to sea for a winter voyage across the Atlantic which might easily have proved her last. Luckily, good fortune favored iier, and she arrived in safety, wooden mountain and all. But her unseaworthy condition came to the notice of the Board of Trade, with the result that the captain was prosecuted and fined LIO for breaking the law. The Bench could have inflicted a penalty of ten times the amount, and we do not quite see why they refrained. It was shown that the freight charge for the deck cargo amounted to* about L6O, and even, therefore, if the charterer paid the captain’s fine, there would be a profit of some LSO as a reward for setting the law at defiance. It is no> excuse, whatever, for a skipper to plead compulsion ; he has both the right and the power to refuse to do anything calculated to endanger the safety of his ship and crew, and if he elects to run the risk, he deserves the heaviest punishment prescribed by the law.