{{Short description|Legal documents for maritime commerce}} {{Redirect|Shipping articles|transported articles|Cargo|containers|Shipping container}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2018}} 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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Glossary of terms: Articles |publisher=International Transport Workers' Federation |url=https://www.itfseafarers.org/glossary.cfm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110906013738/https://www.itfseafarers.org/glossary.cfm |archive-date=6 September 2011 |url-status=live |df=dmy}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|title=ship's articles |encyclopedia=Collins English Dictionary |url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/ships-articles}}</ref> 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,<ref>''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.'' {{harvnb|Boyd|1876|page=128}}</ref> and the regulations to be observed aboard ship and in port, including punishable offenses and punishments.<ref name="Boyd">{{Cite book|last=Boyd |first=Alexander Charles |year=1876 |title=The Merchant Shipping Laws: Being a Consolidation of All the Merchant Shipping and Passenger Acts from 1854 to 1876 |location=London |publisher=Stevens & Sons |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=NAU1AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA128 128–129] |oclc= 221071554}}</ref><ref name="Maclachian">{{Cite book|last=MacLachian |first=David |year=1875 |title=A Treatise on the Law of Merchant Shipping |edition=second |location=London |publisher=W. Maxwell & Son |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=8WVMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA203 203–206] }}</ref><ref name="Berger">{{Cite book|editor-last1=Berger |editor-first1=Martin |editor-last2=Helmers |editor-first2=Walter |editor-last3=Terheyden |editor-first3=Karl |year=2013 |chapter=Schiffahrisrecht: Papiere aller Art Gesetze und Bücher: Besatzungspapiere: Musterrolle |title=Schiffahrtsrecht, Seemannschaft, Ladung, Stabilität, Schiffbaukunde, Schiffsmaschinenkunde, Chemie für Nautiker, Signal- und Funkwesen, Gesundheitspflege und andere Gebiete |series=Volume 2 of Handbuch für die Schiffsführung |edition=seventh |language=de |location=Berlin |publisher=Springer Verlag |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=VtLvBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA118 118–119] |isbn=978-3-662-00042-7 }}</ref><ref name="State">{{Cite book|chapter=[Letter] Mr. Adee to Mr. Conger |date=3 December 1897 |title= Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 6, 1897 |publisher=Office of the Historian, United States Department of State |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1897/d46 }}</ref> 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.<ref name="Manning">{{Cite web|title=Chapter 05 Ship's articles and the seafarer's book |work=Manning Order Merchant Shipping and Sailing |url=https://puc.overheid.nl/nsi/doc/PUC_1171_14/1/ |archive-url=https://archive.today/WWo3O?url=https://puc.overheid.nl/nsi/doc/PUC_1171_14/1/ |archive-date=2 September 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine|last=Prechtel-Kluskens |first=Claire |year=2007 |title=Twentieth-century vessel crew lists |magazine=NCS NewsMagazine |publisher=Office of the Chief of Staff of the National Archives and Records Administration |pages=35–38 |url=https://twelvekey.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/ngsmagazine2007-04.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180904180302/https://twelvekey.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/ngsmagazine2007-04.pdf |archive-date=4 September 2018 |url-status=live |df=dmy}}</ref>
==History== Ships' articles developed as part of the Law Merchant (''Lex mercatoria''). Early trading vessels were often cooperative efforts where the crew, or some members, contributed to the initial costs of ship, cargo and operations; and payment was in shares at the end of the voyage. Thus all members of a crew were considered participants in the enterprise, even if they only contributed labour.<ref name="Hayes">{{Cite journal|last=Hayes |first=Peter |year=2008 |title=Pirates, Privateers and the Contract Theories of Hobbes and Locke |journal=History of Political Thought |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=461–484 }}</ref> This became widely recognized under the legal concept of a "community of joint hands" (''Gesamthand'' in German, ''comunidad in mano'' in Spanish).
Early ship's articles were not written, as few were literate.<ref name="Maclachian" /> But by the eighteenth century most sailors expected the articles to be written, even if they themselves could not read. Finally in the 1800s legislation in many countries required that ships' articles be written down, and freely available to any ensigned sailor.<ref name="Maclachian" /><ref>{{Cite book|last=Cooper |first= Alastair |year=2012 |chapter=Perceptions and Attitudes of Seafarers Towards Maritime Regulations: An Historical Perspective |editor-last=Chircop |editor-first=Aldo |display-editors=etal |title=The Regulation of International Shipping: International and Comparative Perspectives |location=Leiden |publisher=Brill |pages=427–442 |isbn=978-90-04-20244-3 |doi=10.1163/9789004202443_021 }}</ref>
===Privateers and pirates=== {{main|Pirate code}} In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the ship's articles of privateers and pirates evolved into an authority independent of the laws of any nation. Although the such articles were not completely uniform across ships and crews, there were common themes that came to be known as the "Jamaica discipline".<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|editor-last1=Dear |editor-first1=Ian C. B. |editor-last2=Kemp |editor-first2=Peter |year=2005 |title=Jamaica discipline |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea |edition=second |series=Oxford Reference Collection |location=Oxford, England |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-860616-1 |url=http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100016656}}</ref>
==Compensation== In addition to monetary payments, seafarers on ships traditionally received housing (berth), board (food and provisions), medical care (ship's doctor),<ref>''Further, the issue of failure to treat is one peculiar to the crew members, bound by ship's articles and their dangerous work at sea to seek from their superiors prompt relief from duty and proper medical attention, hospitalization and nursing care.'' {{Cite journal|last=Klonsky |first=Robert |year=1952 |title=The Uncharted Course of Maritime Law |journal=NACCA Law Journal |publisher=National Association of Claimants' Compensation Attorneys |pages=145–150 }}</ref> and sometimes things like laundry services or an alcohol allowance. This as often expressed in the ship's articles as so much "a month and found".<ref>'' A sailor comes aft to take mate's place, cabin-boy goes for'ard to take sailor's place, and you take the cabin-boy's place, sign the articles for the cruise, twenty dollars per month and found.'' {{Cite book|last=London |first=Jack |year=1904 |chapter=Chapter 3 |title=The Sea Wolf |title-link=The Sea-Wolf |location=New York |publisher=Macmillan }} available at [http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/SeaWolf/chapter3.html The Sea Wolf, Chapter 3]</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Kimsey |first=William E. |display-authors=etal |chapter=$45 a Month and "Found" |year=1952 |title=50 Years of Progress |publisher=Bureau of Labor, State of Oregon |page=7 |url=http://www.oregon.gov/boli/docs/BOLI_History_50_Years_of_Progress.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150911112849/http://www.oregon.gov/boli/docs/BOLI%20History%2050%20Years%20of%20Progress.pdf |archive-date=11 September 2015 |url-status=dead |df=dmy}} </ref>
==Usage== Ship’s articles are considered part of a "ship's papers", which constitute the legal environment aboard ship.<ref name="State" /> They are required in resolving disputes between seafarers and their captains, as well as between seafarers and the ship's and cargo's owners.<ref name="Berger" /><ref name="State" /> They are presented to port authorities and foreign consular officials to establish the ''bona fides'' of a ship.<ref name="State" />
==Notes and references== {{Reflist}} {{Clear}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ship's articles}} Category:Industrial agreements Category:Labor relations Category:Law of the sea Category:Merchant navy Category:Maritime books Category:Ship management