New South Wales Consolidated Acts

COMMERCIAL VESSELS ACT 1979 - SECT 8

8 Vessel to be used as provided by permit

(1) Subject to subsections (2) and (3), the owner and the master of a vessel which is used in prescribed waters are each guilty of an offence against this Act and liable to a penalty not exceeding 100 penalty units unless:

(a) a permit relating to the vessel is in force, and

(b) the vessel is used in accordance with the authority conferred by the permit.

(2) Where the master of a vessel is proceeded against for the offence referred to in subsection (1), the master is not guilty of the offence if it is proved:

(a) that, at the time of the use of the vessel, a plate that was, or purported to be, a permit plate was affixed to the vessel,

(b) that the vessel was being used in a manner that, if the particulars specified in that plate had been the only particulars specified in a permit relating to the vessel, would have been in accordance with the authority conferred by that permit, and

(c) that the master had no reason to believe that the vessel was being used as charged.

(3) Where the owner of a vessel is proceeded against for the offence referred to in subsection (1), the owner is not guilty of the offence if it is proved:

(a) that, at the time of the use alleged to constitute the offence, the vessel was the subject of a hiring agreement that had not expired or a hiring agreement that had expired before the owner resumed possession,

(b) that, at the time of the hiring, the permit plate affixed to the vessel corresponded to a permit authorising that hiring,

(c) where the facts alleged to constitute the offence are, in effect, that the vessel was used in prescribed waters not of a class in which the use of the vessel was authorised by a permit relating to the vessel-that, at the time of the hiring, there was delivered to the person taking the vessel on hire written particulars of the means of identifying the class or classes of water in which the use of the vessel was so authorised, and

(d) that, at the time of the hiring, the owner had no means of knowing that the vessel would be used as charged.