The History of Freeboard and Load Lines, Essay Example

Freeboard and Load Lines are nautical terms; they refer to safety measures on a ship or vessel. A freeboard is the distance measured from the waterline to the deck of a fully loaded ship (Britannica.com). It represents the safety margin showing to what depth a ship can be loaded until, varying in certain conditions. For example- the type of cargo, the weather conditions, or what season it is of the year. The freeboard of a commercial ship is measured between the lowest point of the upmost deck, on its side, and the waterline. This should not be lower than the freeboard marked on the Load Line Certificate issued to that particular ship. The purpose of the load line is to make sure that a ship has a sufficient freeboard (Wikipedia.org). They are painted on the side of a ship, showing how safely the ship can rest in the water.

Load Lines are also sometimes referred to as Plimsoll lines after a 19th century politician named Samuel Plimsoll (Jones). All commercial ships have a load line symbol painted on the side of the ship, it is the legal mark pre-determined for a ship’s safety in loading cargo in a vessel. This was invented by Plimsoll (Wikipedia.org). This symbol is required to be permanently marked, so that if ever the paint wears off, it still remains visible. The exact location of where the load line should be, has to be calculated by a Classification Society to make it easy to determine if a ship is overloaded or not.

The load line can vary from different waters and specific temperatures. This is because temperature affects the buoyancy of a ship, warm water being less dense than cold water. Also, the level of salinity in a body of water can affect it as well, fresh water being less dense than salty seawater. Due to all these different factors, a number of lines will make up the load or plimsoll line, these are; a tropical fresh water line, a fresh water line, a tropical seawater line, a summer temperate seawater line, a winter temperate seawater line and a winter north Atlantic line. There are different ways to find out the varying information on international load line zones such as a ships atlas, a set of port guides and specialist maritime load line maps; these can be obtained from port information specialists, and every ship has to undergo a checking for legal and safety reasons (Jones).

The “Plimsoll Mark”, or the load line is a circle with a horizontal line going through it, additional markings making the loading limit depending on the seas, temperature, etc. have been added throughout the years (Wikipedia.org). Letters on the side symbolize which classification society the ship was surveyed under.

There are Maritime laws which date back to hundreds of years and play an important role in keeping a ship’s crew and passengers safe at sea. It dates back to when merchants who travelled by sea began transporting goods, they realized the importance of the safety of loading their ship correctly, and that they should not overload to avoid unwanted accidents costing them their goods (NMM). If a ship is overloaded, even if it does not sink on the doc, it could be roughed up in deep seas and high waters in the middle of its journey, causing the crew to lose their cargo. Even though most merchants knew this, some ship owners become tempted to overload their vessel because of the large profit they could make by selling their goods abroad. Nowadays, most ships when lost at sea would not cause the owner much financially because he can claim back insurance money for the sunken cargo (NMM).

“Evidence of early maritime legislation governing the loading of ships dates back to 2500BC, originating in Crete” – (qtd. Jones). Throughout the middle ages and as well as in the Roman Empire, these types of legislations were common. Earlier ships from Venice were marked in this sort of way, the symbol they used was a cross, which represented salvation as far back as the 12^th Century (NMM). The city of Genoa also marked their ships, although with three horizontal bars instead of a cross, but their custom died out after some time.

It was during the time of the industrial revolution when shipping trade grew at a rapid pace as well as the construction and powering of ships. A lot of vessels were lost during this time because of no safety standards in the new designs of ships (Jones). In the 19^th Century, Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping introduced loading recommendations. It was recommended that freeboards would act as a function of the depth of the hold. This came to be known as “Lloyd’s Rule” and was extensively used until the 1880s. This only governed shipping underwritten by the company, and was not a compulsory law (Jones).

Many ships were lost during the years 1873-74, due to overloading. This was around the coastline of United Kingdom where 411 ships sank, costing a total of 508 lives. It was because of overloading and poor repair which made ships so dangerous that they were called “coffin ships” during the time (NMM). Even then, the issues on overloading a ship were not fully understood by ship owners to be a dangerous practice (Jones).

In the year 1866, a British steamship called the SS London sank in the Bay of Biscay on January 11. The ship, which was travelling from Gravesend in England to Melbourne, Australia began taking in water on January 10. The ship was greatly overloaded with cargo, also carrying a total of 239 passengers, making it very unseaworthy especially with its long travel, change of seas as well as seasons. There were only 19 survivors who managed to escape on a lifeboat, the death total was 230.

It was the sinking of the SS London which brought the attention of the dangers of “coffin ships” in Britain, it was then when Plimsoll started his campaign on not overloading ships to prevent from further disasters because of the highly publicized incident. This disaster was the reason the Plimsoll line was established because is stimulated the parliament to take some action. Although it was only finalized years after.

There were different attempts that were made over the years to ensure a ship’s safety in loading cargo, like that of Lloyd’s Register, although there was never a law or a compulsory system to protect the ships and their owners. It was not until Plimsoll came around that steps were taken to limit the increasing number of lost ships and cargo due to overloading, he had a complete understanding on why this was happening. It was in 1870 when Plimsoll, who was a coal merchant at that time, became interested in the subject after attending a meeting concerning the importance of not overloading ships (NMM).

In between all of these accomplishments by Plimsoll, he faced much opposition, mostly by small vessel owners who saw the limit as potential money loss. Despite many defeats in parliament, Plimsoll continued his fight to ensure the safety of all seafarers. A Royal commission on unseaworthy vessels was established in 1872 and the United Kingdom Merchant Shipping act made the load line compulsory during 1878 (Wikipedia.org). Plimsoll became so famous that songs were made about him (NMM). The positioning of the load line was not made universal until 1894, and foreign ships were not required to have a load line until 1904 if visiting British ports.

Over time, technology changed along with ship design, and this required new regulations to ensure shipping safety. This opened up the opportunity for the 1966 Load Lines Convention to set out new rules governing the calculation of freeboards. This convention was amended in 2003 and is still in force until this day (Jones). Along with all the important changes made to ships during the time of Plimsoll, many lives of crew members as well as the cargo in the vessels were preserved.

Works Cited

“Freeboard.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Web. 17 Sep. 2010.

Jones, Andy. “Load Line Usage and History.” SubmitYOURArticle.com. Web. 17 Sept. 2010.

“Load Lines : Ships, Seafarers & Life at Sea : Sea & Ships Fact Files : Sea & Ships.” National  Maritime Museum: Sea, Ships, Time and the Stars : NMM. NMM Learning Team, 4 Dec. Web. 17 Sept. 2010.

“Waterline.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 17 Sept. 2010.