Law of the sea

Twenty-third in the list stands la navigabilità, and the entry hides a division that English makes and Italian does not. English keeps two nouns strictly apart here. « Seaworthiness » is a property of a vessel — hull, machinery, manning, papers, the stowage of the cargo — and it is what a carrier owes before a voyage begins. « Navigability » is a property of water: whether a river, a strait or a channel can be used by shipping at all. The two belong to different branches of law and are never interchangeable. Italian covers both with the single noun of this entry. La navigabilità della nave is the first, and it is what the sentence here means, since la navigabilità va garantita prima della partenza is a duty owed by the owner before the ship sails. La navigabilità del fiume is the second, and nothing in the word itself separates them. Only what follows di does. So read the genitive before choosing the English term: a ship gives « seaworthiness », a waterway gives « navigability », and taking the one for the other moves the sentence out of a charterparty and into a public waterway code.