RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR FREEBOARD. 123 
loaded to their proper freeboard. The opinion was also expressed that freeboard 
was not so vital a question in the United States as in some other countries, owing to 
the limited draught of harbors and the extensive use in the coasting trade of hurri- 
cane deck vessels with sides high out of the water. 
It is interesting to note that as long ago as the year 1874 ae enterprising 
builders and shipowners of the Great Lakes district met in council at Buffalo and 
not only came to the conclusion that the marking of a load line on both ocean- 
going and lake vessels was desirable, but after mature deliberation formulated 
rules for freeboard and drew up a set of construction rules for wooden vessels in 
which a laudable endeavor was made to assess the dimensions of the various tim- 
bers entering into the structure with some regard to the strength required instead 
of tabulating scantlings on the basis of the vessel’s tonnage, as was the practice 
of the time, the moulding of the floor timbers, for example, being fixed by the 
length of the floors and the load draught. 
The freeboard rules recommended by the Buffalo convention were intended 
to apply only to vessels of the highest class. Figs. 2 and 2a, Plates 55 and 56, show 
in diagrammatic form the resulting freeboards for ocean-going, lake and spar deck 
vessels as compared with the freeboards recommended by the 1885 British Load 
Line Committee. It is evident from the curves that these rules could not have 
been applied economically outside of the comparatively narrow range of dimensions 
and type of vessel in existence at that time, and it is doubtful if spar deck vessels 
were ever limited to the draughts corresponding to the freeboards as derived from 
the rules. An example showing the method of determining the freeboards is 
given in Appendix IV. 
The first legislation in Great Britain dealing with the loading of vessels was the 
Merchant Shipping Act of 1871, which contained the provision that seagoing vessels 
must have draught marks at the stem and stern, and required that the load draught 
of a vessel should be recorded before leaving port. The law was useful in that 
after this date reliable evidence with regard to load draught was available when 
investigating the losses of ships at sea. Although a Royal Commission, appointed 
as a result of the popular agitation led by Mr. Samuel Plimsoll, reported that the 
enforcement of any standard freeboard regulations would be disadvantageous if 
not impossible, the continued interest of the public forced the passing of the Mer- 
chant Shipping Act of 1873, which provided for the detention by the Board of 
Trade of overloaded and improperly laden vessels. The Merchant Shipping Act 
of 1875 required owners of foreign going vessels to mark a circular disc on the sides 
at the maximum draught, to record the amount of this freeboard before clearing 
at the custom house and to insert this record in the agreement with the crew; the 
Act of 1876 made these requirements compulsory for all British vessels, except 
small coasting vessels under 80 gross tons, fishing boats and yachts. 
It should be noted here that, although an owner was compelled by the fore- 
going legislation to mark load lines on his vessels, the position of the load line, as 
indicated by the disc, was entirely a matter of personal opinion and could be altered 
from voyage to voyage. The officers of the Board of Trade had power to detain 
