해상에서 인명과 재산을 보호하기 위해서는 해양사고를 예방하고 긴급상황 시에 신속하게 대처하는 능력이 중요시된다. 해양사고의 80%가 선박의 운항과 관리에 관련된 인적요인으로 발생한다. 그것은 대부분의 해양사고가 한 개인의 순간적인 실수에서 유발되는 것이 아니라 그 배경에는 인적과실을 유발하는 잠재적인 요인들이l 복합적으로 작용한다는 것을 나타낸다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 선박에서 선상의 리더십이 선박에 미치는 영향과 선박의 의사결정 과정을 알아보고 특히, 선박의 긴급상황 시에 발생할 수 있는 행동특성의 이해를 통하여 특정선박에서 인적과실을 줄이기 위한 해결방안 및 대응전략을 제시하였다.

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.