The master of ship is always authorised to perform whatever acts are ordinarily necessary for the safe and proper prosecution of the voayge with regard to both ship and cargo. In other words, when a ship is away from her home port, where her business was managed, the master generally carried the owner's authority, and ordinarily he had power to enter into engagements, on their behalf, for carrying goods in the ship, or for letting her service, provided those engagements were consistent with the usual manner of employing her adopted by the owners. Accordingly he has always to decide onboard for an adequate applying of statutory law and cases whenever he acts. But the master would appear to have no such autho-rity where he can communicate with the owners without difficulty as, now-a-days, he nearly always can. This paper, therefore, intend to review some guidance of his authority in accordance with the Korean Code of Commerce as well as precedent based on it. The paper is also simply to place at the disposal of young shipmasters and those who aspire to command some legal information concerning limit of master's authority away from vessel's home port through legal commentation on the precedent, which may assist them to a better understanding of the many problems they may be faced with in the course of their ca-reers. In order to make an efficient study of legal structure concerned for shipmaster's authority, several up-to-date precedents are selected and described herein by writer's opinion for preventing unreasonable legal dispute in this field before courts in future.

• 황석갑