(1) Where loss of life or personal injury is suffered by any person on board a vessel owing to the fault of that vessel and any other vessel or vessels, and a proportion of the damages is recovered against the owner of one of the vessels, which exceeds the proportion in which the vessel was at fault, that owner may recover by way of contribution the amount of the excess from the owner of the other vessel or vessels to the extent to which the other vessels were respectively at fault; but no amount shall be recovered which could not, by reason of any statutory or contractual limitation of, or exemption from, liability, or which could not, for any other reason, have been recovered in the first instance as damages by the persons entitled to sue therefor.