Northern Territory Consolidated Acts Northern Territory Consolidated Acts(1) Where a vessel is overloaded, except as permitted under this Part, and goes to sea from or arrives at a port or is on a voyage, the owner and the master of the vessel are each guilty of an offence.
Penalty: 100 penalty units, plus the prescribed amount not exceeding 5 penalty units, in respect of each 25 millimetres or part thereof by which the vessel is overloaded.
(2) It is a defence to a prosecution for an offence against subsection (1) that the vessel was overloaded because of a deviation or delay of the vessel caused solely by stress of weather or some other circumstance which the person charged could not have prevented or forestalled.
(3) For the purposes of this section, a vessel is deemed to be overloaded if it is so loaded or any time that, if the vessel were floating without a list in salt water of a specific gravity of 1.025 the load line marked on either side of the vessel that is the appropriate load line at the time would be submerged, and to be overloaded to the extent to which that load line would be submerged.