"Shipping articles" redirects here. For transported articles, see Cargo. For containers, see Shipping container.
The ship's articles (shipping articles, more formally the ship's articles of agreement) is the set of documents that constitute the contract between the seafarer and the captain (master) of a vessel.[1][2] They specify the name of the ship, the conditions of employment (including the size and ratings of the intended complement), seafarer's compensation (shares or payments), the nature of the voyage(s) and duration,[3] and the regulations to be observed aboard ship and in port, including punishable offenses and punishments.[4][5][6][7] Traditionally, each seafarer is required to sign the articles, and the articles include for each seafarer, their rating, the place and the day of signing on and the place and the date of signing off of the ship.[8][9]
^In interpreting the Act, the words "nature of the voyage" must have such a rational construction as to answer the main and leading purpose for which they were framed, namely, to give the mariner a fair intimation of the nature of the service in which he was about to engage himself, when he signed the ship's articles.Boyd 1876, p. 128
^Boyd, Alexander Charles (1876). The Merchant Shipping Laws: Being a Consolidation of All the Merchant Shipping and Passenger Acts from 1854 to 1876. London: Stevens & Sons. p. 128–129. OCLC221071554.
^MacLachian, David (1875). A Treatise on the Law of Merchant Shipping (second ed.). London: W. Maxwell & Son. pp. 203–206.
^Berger, Martin; Helmers, Walter; Terheyden, Karl, eds. (2013). "Schiffahrisrecht: Papiere aller Art Gesetze und Bücher: Besatzungspapiere: Musterrolle". Schiffahrtsrecht, Seemannschaft, Ladung, Stabilität, Schiffbaukunde, Schiffsmaschinenkunde, Chemie für Nautiker, Signal- und Funkwesen, Gesundheitspflege und andere Gebiete. Volume 2 of Handbuch für die Schiffsführung (in German) (seventh ed.). Berlin: Springer Verlag. pp. 118–119. ISBN978-3-662-00042-7.