RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR FREEBOARD. 
By Davin Arnott, Eso., MEMBER. 
[Read at the twenty-eighth general meeting of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, held in New 
York, November 11 and 12, 1920.] 
The important position now held by the United States among the maritime 
nations of the world, as a result of the stupendous building program so expeditiously 
carried out during the last three years, has had the effect of bringing all matters 
relative to and affecting merchant shipping into the limelight, and of these matters 
the load line question is certainly not the least important. 
Although valuable papers, from which the development of Freeboard Rules and 
Regulations can be traced, and which together form a very complete historical 
record of load line legislation in Great Britain, have appeared from time to time in 
the transactions of our kindred society, the Institution of Naval Architects, this 
very important question of freeboard does not seem to have received, at the annual 
meetings of this Society, that degree of attention which it merits, as the only paper 
dealing with the subject to be found in the transactions is one contributed in 1897 
by Mr. Lewis Nixon, entitled “Regulations for Loading Vessels.”’ 
The Load Line Bill, which is at present before the Senate (see Appendix I), 
and which was introduced with a view to bringing the United States into line with 
the other maritime nations in the matter of compulsory load lines for merchant 
shipping, has awakened public interest in this question, and it was considered that 
a short paper giving a brief history of load line legislation in other countries and 
outlining the development of the various rules and regulations with regard to free- 
board might prove of some general and historical value to all who are interested 
in the safety of life and property at sea and at least serve as a basis for discussion 
among the members of this Society. 
The freeboard of a vessel is usually defined as the height of the side above the 
load water-line at the middle of her length measured from the top of the deck at 
side, and marks the limit of loading which is considered consistent with the mainte- 
nance of a proper factor of safety under all conditions of wind and weather. Free- 
board rules and regulations are an endeavor to define this limit, and one can readily 
understand that the problem of fixing a safe load line for a complicated floating 
structure moving through and supported in a constantly varying degree along its 
length by a fluid which is itself in motion, does not lend itself to simple mathe- 
matical treatment. 
There are, however, obvious and essential considerations which must be kept 
in view in determining the proper freeboard for any vessel :— 
(a) The provision of that height of platform which will prevent any undue 
tendency to ship water aboard with consequent deck damage and which will in- 
