INTERESTING JUDGMENT

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 101, 1 May 1914, Page 7

INTERESTING JUDGMENT

TO OWNERS OF FISHING

LAUNCHES.

A judgment of particular interest to tne owners of registered fishing launches was given at Auckland on Tuesday by Mr Frazer, S.M., in a -case against James Carroll, master of the fishing launch Hero, who was charged that on Sunday, January 18, ■being master of a steamship under the Shipping and Seamen's Act, he took the steamship on an excursion without tine.boat haying a certificate of survey. It was admitted that the launch was a registered fishing boat, and that on the date in question defendant took a parby of friends on a fishing 'excursion to Waiheke, the party subscribing 150s to pay for benzine. After traversing- the contention of the prosecution that the boat, being registered as a fishing boat and was - incidentally exempted from the necessity of a survey certificate, could not change her status to that of a pleasure boat so long as registration subsisted. His Worship held that while a registered fishing boat of less than ton tons is .regarded as a fishing boat for the purposes-of the Fisheries Act, so long as her registration subsists, no matter for whati purpose she may be> used, still She may temporarily be divested of that status for the purposes of the Shipping and Seamen's Act and become a pleasure boat, and be entitled to t/he exemption allowed to pleasure yachts by the latter Act ro long as she retains that character. To hold otherwise would be equivalent to, ruling tibat the owner of a registered fishing launch is, for no apparent reason, debarred from the privilege of ontertaining his relatives and friends, winch is granted freely to the owner •of a si malar vessel which is not so registered. V The information was dismissed.