13. Shipping Articles.—
The law provides (U. S. Comp. St. § 8300-8314) that the master of every vessel bound from a port in the United States to any foreign port overseas, or vice versa, shall make an agreement, in writing or in print, with each of the crew, containing particulars of the nature and duration of the voyage; the number and description of the crew; the time at which each is to be on board; the capacity in which each is to serve; the amount of wages which each is to receive; the scale of provisions which are to be furnished to each; any regulations as to conduct on board, fines, short allowances and other lawful punishments which may be agreed to; and any stipulations as to advances and allotments of wages, or other matters not contrary to law.
Sections 8287-8297 provide for the appointment of shipping-commissioners in such ports of entry and ports of ocean navigation as require them; where no commissioners are appointed, the collector of customs or his deputy may so act; the duties of such commissioners are to afford facilities for engaging seamen by keeping a register of their names and characters; to superintend their engagements and discharge according to law; to provide means for securing their presence on shipboard according to their engagements; to facilitate the making of apprenticeships to sea service and to perform such other duties relating to merchant seamen and merchant ships as may be required by law. Section 4554 amended by the Act of August 19, 1890, provides that the commissioners shall arbitrate disputes between owners or masters and the crew on mutual application.
Shipping articles should be in the printed form required by the statute and in common use; they should be signed by each seaman in the presence of a shipping commissioner, in duplicate, and one part retained by him; they should be acknowledged and certified under the commissioner's seal, to the effect that each understands what he has subscribed and, while sober, and not in a state of intoxication, acknowledges it as his free and voluntary act; the other duplicate should be delivered to the master and seamen subsequently engaging on the voyage should place their signatures thereon. The ship and also its officers are liable to penalties for shipping seamen without articles, but the requirement is excepted in the case of vessels engaged in the coasting trade and on the Great Lakes. When seamen are shipped in foreign ports where there is a consular officer of the United States or commercial agent, the master must obtain his sanction to the engagement, in substantially the same manner as in the case of a shipping commissioner at home. A copy of the articles, with the signatures omitted, must be posted on the vessel so as to be accessible to the crew, under penalty of one hundred dollars.
Shipping articles for vessels in the coasting trade, in less detailed forms, are required by § 8311 and the master is made liable to a penalty of twenty dollars and the highest rate of wages for every seaman or apprentice carried without such an agreement. All shipments of seamen contrary to law are declared void; any seaman so shipped may leave the service at any time and recover either the highest rate of wages of the port from which he shipped or the sum agreed to be paid him when he went on board.