Load-line, a line painted on the sides of a ship to show how far up the sides the water will rise when the ship is loaded. The (English) Merchant Shipping Act, 1890 (53 & 54 Vict. c. 9), substituted a 'maximum load-line in salt water, to which it should be lawful to load a ship,' i.e., a compulsory load-line, for a load-line indicating a point beyond which the owner intended that it should not be loaded, as prescribed by the (English) Merchant Shipping Act, 1876, i.e., an optional load-line; and this provision of the Act of 1890 was re-enacted by s. 437 of the (English) Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, and see also s. 8 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1906. Both these sections have now been repealed by the (English) Merchant Shipping (Safety and Load Line Conventions) Act, 1932 (22 Geo. 5, c. 9), and ss. 43 to 46 now prescribed the law.
Under the (English) M.S. Act, 1894, s. 442, sub-mergence beyond the load-line by reason of weather was held to be an offence, Radcliffe v. Brickwell, (1927) 2 KB 273; see now s. 44 (4) of the Act of 1932; and UNSEAWORTHY SHIPS.