Load-Line

The depth to which a ship will sink in salt water when leaded. Every British ship must be marked on each side ships, and pleasure yachts, also ships employed exclusively In trading in any river or inland water wholly or partly in any British possession, and tugs and passenger steamers plying in smooth water or In excursion limits are excepted. This mark is called Pllmsoll’s Mark or Line, from Samuel Pllmsoli, by whose efforts the passage of an act of parliament to prevent overloading was procured. The law applies to foreign ships while within any port of the United Kingdom, other than such as come into any such port to which they are not bound and for any purpose other than embarking or landing passengers or taking in or discharging cargo or taking in bunker coal. There must also be a mark on each side amidships indicating the position of each deck above water.

This word indicates the depth to which a ship is loaded so as to sink in salt-water. Section 6 of the merchant shipping act of 1876 (38 & 39 Vict, ch. 88) prescribes that every owner of a British ship, before entering his ship outwards from any port in the United Kingdom, shall mark, in white or yellow on a inches in length, drawn through its centre, and the centre of this disk is to indicate the maximum load-line in salt-water to which the owner intends to load the sliip for that voyage. Mozley ^ W.