Shipboard Management
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               Page 37
            
         Seaworthiness and Risk Management
   Page 37
For better or for worse, the evolution of the law of seaworthiness owes its existence to the importance of maritime commerce to Britain's prosperity, from its burgeoning in the eighteenth century when the confidence of merchant venturers needed underpinning – and to a great extent it is still the influence of commercial risk which guides the law today.