§ 1924 Voyage Seaworthiness Requirements

• •The seaworthiness check is done for each portion of the trip, not the whole trip at once.
• •The ship must be seaworthy right when each new portion starts.
• •Different parts of the trip can have different safety needs, and that's allowed.

A cargo ship sails from New York to London, then from London to Hamburg. The ship meets the seaworthiness rule if it is safe and ready when it leaves New York for London, and again safe and ready when it leaves London for Hamburg, even if the two legs need different equipment or crew.

Because the rule looks at each leg separately, the ship just has to be seaworthy at the beginning of each leg. If it is, the warranty of seaworthiness is satisfied for the whole voyage.