In the mid-1800s, Samuel Plimsoll (1824-1898), an unemployed British coal merchant, became acquainted with the unjust treatment of the impoverished, particularly with regard to the poor working conditions on British cargo ship s. Nicknamed "coffin ships," British vessels were largely unseaworthy due to their shoddy construction and merchants' tendencies to overload them. Many lives were lost at sea as a result of these factors. Shipowners heavily insured their vessels, and so were indifferent to any loss they might suffer, whether it was a loss of merchandise or human lives. In 1873, Plimsoll expressed his outrage by publishing Our Seamen, a popular book that exposed and heavily criticized the gross injustices of the shipping industry. Primarily as a result of Plimsoll's actions, the Merchant Shipping Act was passed in 1876. The Act mandated strict inspection of all vessels and required the painting of a special mark, called the "Plimsoll mark," on the side of each ship to indicate the depth to which that ship could be loaded. This Plimsoll mark was actually a series of marks. It showed six loading levels that reflected different seasons and locations: tropical fresh water, fresh water, tropical sea water, summer sea water, winter sea water, and winter North Atlantic. Tropical fresh water levels were indicated by the highest line, as a ship could be more heavily loaded in calmer water.
The lowest mark was the North Atlantic mark, which reflected the more dangerous water found in that area. In addition to these loading marks, there was also a circle bisected by a horizontal line with large, capital letters that indicated the registration society with which the ship was associated. The horizontal line on the registration mark also served as an indicator of the summer freeboard, the distance between the uppermost deck considered watertight and the official load line corresponding to summer sea water. The Plimsoll mark prevented shippers from overloading their vessels, considerably decreasing the likelihood of death by drowning for crew members. Other countries soon established similar sets of markings. The United States established the Load Line Act in 1929, imposing strict limits on cargo weights and guidelines on shipping procedures. An international treaty was signed in 1968, incorporating new rules and limits for ship cargo, and reflecting the better design and construction of ships since the creation of the Plimsoll mark.
One of the ironies of the huge shipping losses during Plimsoll's time (nearly 1,000 sailors were drowned every year) was that such losses of life were occurring at a time when cargo ship technology was improving. Iron hulls and steam power made ships more maneuverable and sturdy, while both lighting and buoys also had been improved considerably. A century after Plimsoll's achievements however, the same irony has been allowed to prevail. During one modern 20-year period (1959-1979) when the state of technology should never have allowed such a thing to happen, losses of world shipping had doubled. Further, in the 1980s, a number of disastrous car ferry capsizings and a series of sinkings of giant ore carriers (including the British Derbyshire that disappeared with all hands in the Pacific), revealed a system that had allowed standards like the Plimsoll Mark to be ignored.
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