1966 Load lines Convention
Cargo capacity is normally decided on most ships by it load-lines which are placed on each side of a ship to show the ships maximum true mean draught that must not be exceeded. This is normally taken as the summer load line in salt water when a ship is operating in the summer zone but can vary for timber ships and ships operating in other zones. The measured load lines on a ship is based on the freeboard and watertight integrity requirements contained in the IMO's “International Convention on Load lines convention 1966 as amended”, and is defined as the measurement from the uppermost continuous watertight deck to the ships waterline at its mid-point. To decide on any of the watertight integrity of a particular ship, the regulations contain 7 basic corrections or allowances that are applied to the initial freeboard to get the assigned freeboard (MariEMS 2017).