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Merchant Shipping Act, 1951 (Act No. 57 of 1951)

Chapter IV : Engagement, Discharge, Repatriation, Payment, Discipline and General Treatment of Seafarers and Cadets

153. Recovery of wages of seafarer lost with his ship

[Section 153 heading substituted by section 29(i) of Act No. 12 of 2015]

 

(1) If a seafarer of a South African ship is lost with the ship to which he belongs the proper officer may recover the wages due to him from the owner of the ship.

[Section 153(1) substituted by section 29(d) of Act No. 12 of 2015]

 

(2) The provisions of sections one hundred and thirty-six and one hundred and fifty-two shall apply, mutatis mutandis, in respect of wages referred to in subsection (1).

 

(3) If in any proceedings under subsection (1) for the recovery of wages it is shown by the official records or by other evidence that the ship departed from a port twelve months or more before the institution of the proceedings and has not since been heard of, that ship shall be deemed to have been lost with all hands on board, either immediately after the latest time at which she is known to have been still in  existence or at such later time as the court hearing the case may think probable.

 

(4) Any duplicate agreement with the crew delivered to a proper officer in terms of paragraph (c) of section 103 or any statement of a change of the crew transmitted to a proper officer in terms of section 104 at the time of the departure of the ship from the port last visited, and any certificate purporting to be a certificate issued in terms of section 105(1), stating that certain seafarers joined the ship at the said port shall, if produced by the Authority, be taken in the absence of proof to the contrary as sufficient proof that the seafarers therein named as belonging to the ship were on board at the time of the loss.

[Section 153(4) substituted by section 29(g) of Act No. 12 of 2015]