SNIPPET: Certificates of Competence for a ship's captain were not needed at the time of the Famine sailings. By 1848 ship owners had started to build ships specifically for the emigrant trade, sometimes converting old vessels, such as the huge packet ships of the American running fleet. The worst of the famine had just been reached: the ruin of the potato crop in the summer of 1848 was almost universal throughout the country with the result that virtually an armada crossed the Irish Sea to Liverpool every day. Though the recent tightening of the Passengers' Acts served their purpose in preventing captains and shipowners from taking too many liberties with their passengers, yet emigrants sailing under British rule were still very much at risk. The mandatory examinations for masters and mates had yet to be introduced, and, up until 1850, masters achieve their status by climbing up through the ranks, by dint of age, experience and capability. In September 1850, the board of Tra! de in London finally introduced the Mercantile Marine Act, forcing masters and mates to sit a formal examination for their Master's or Mate's Tiquet. But the backlog of examinees was so great that many masters and mates were allowed to remain in their commands until an opportunity arose to sit the test at one of the major ports. Ironically, rules were also imposed on passengers by the Board of Trade and introduced a year earlier than those for seamen. The Rules for Passengers of 6 Oct 1849 stipulated that all passengers must rise by 7 a.m.., unless excused by the surgeon, and be in bed by 10 p.m. Breakfast could not commence until the deck, including the space beneath the berths, had been swept, the bedding stowed away; the long list of edicts even included religious behavior on Sundays. The vessels, themselves, were covered by the flimsiest regulations. For a ship to be listed in Lloyd's Register, it had to be surveyed and judged first-, second-, or even less! , third-class, according to its age, condition and general seaworthiness. A third-class status prohibited any but short voyages; not out of Europe but, with the pressure of the emigrant trade, such regulations were sometimes broken. Lloyd's classification was introduced primarily for insurance purposes but there were still countless ships sailing the seven seas and all the five oceans, which had never been either surveyed or listed. While no unlisted ship could be chartered by the government to transport convicts to the colonies, such restrictions failed to protect innocent emigrant passengers. The only requirement for emigrant ships was that the appointed Local Inspector of Emigrant Ships satisfy himself as to the fitness of the vessel, but that inspector was not always an experienced sailor or shipbuilder and frequently lacked the competence to make such judgments. Among the coffin ships, especially those chartered by the agents organizing the landlord emigration were seve! ral unlisted by Lloyd's. Presumably the owners were either careless or feared their vessels unfit to pass Lloyd's survey. The convict ships, like the slave ships before them, were properly provisioned with food and water for the voyage. Dietary regulations for the convicted felons directed that they should have meat on three days a week, as well as on Sundays, alternating with meat-broth on other days. No such basic necessities formed part of the statutory provisions for emigrants. A convict ship was not allowed to carry cargo, for a variety of reasons, in case it should cramp the conditions or accommodation on board and endanger the ship in bad weather. Emigrant ships carried whatever cargo pleased the captain or the owner, even iron which had a habit of shifting in the hold, sometimes in mid-ocean. Overladen vessels with either too much cargo or too many passengers or both were not as rare as they should have been. (Nearly 30 years would pass before the introduction of th! e Plimsoll Line. Devised the politician, Samuel PLIMSOLL, the line was a load line painted along the ship's hull to indicate the ship's maximum load-bearing capacity in water. If a ship's Plimsoll Line sank below the surface of the water, then the ship was deemed to be overloaded and from 1876 could be detained in port). During the height of the famine, a parliamentary committee examined contemporary regulations and proposed increasing crews. On convict ships and all other ships chartered by the government, there were to be four seamen for every 100 tons of registered burthen. For emigrant ships, however, the proposed increase was less - only three seamen for every 100 tons, and even this modest measure was quashed by the powerful Liverpool shipping lobby. Convicts had a rigorous medical inspection at both ends of a voyage and most of these ships actually carried a doctor on board. While emigrants, were usually thoroughly inspected on arrival, they wererarely checked seriously on embarkation, and doctors were only found on the very largest emi! grant vessels, usually the American packet ships. Dublin's politicians protested to the British government about conditions aboard emigrant ships, starting circa 1848: "We would recommend that free emigrants should be treated at least as well as convicts in transport ships." But their plea met with little response. Further reading on subject -- "The Famine Ships," Edward Laxton (1996). Includes replicas of famine-related documents. Later Document -- Certificate of Competency for Master of a Foreign-Going Ship was awarded to Donald Robert McCUTCHAN, by Order of the Board of Trade, 30th day of June 1911.