The defendant was the owner of a vessel which was chartered to the claimant for a voyage from Rotterdam. At the time of the fixture, the vessel was laden with cargo under a previous charter. The charter listed the estimated arrival dates at which the vessel was due to discharge part of her previous cargo at one port and reload part at another port before proceeding to Antifer, Le Havre for final discharge of that cargo, on an estimated date of 25 January 2015. The charter further provided that the vessel was to “perform her service with utmost despatch” before proceeding to Rotterdam and there loading a full cargo, and that if she was not ready to load by 23:59 local time on 4 February 2015 the charterers would have the option of terminating the charter. The charter did not provide for an estimated time of arrival at the loading port. After the part-discharge and during transit, the vessel suffered damage. Following communication by the owners to the charterers that repairs would take months, the charterers terminated the charterparty and brought a claim for damages. The charterers contended that there was an absolute obligation on the owners to commence the approach voyage by a date when it was reasonably certain that the vessel would arrive at the loading port by the cancelling date. The owners disputed that such absolute obligation existed in the charter since the parties had not contracted for an estimated time of arrival, and contended that their obligation was to use due diligence to ensure that the vessel commenced the approach voyage by such date.
On the charterers’ claim—
Held, claim allowed and damages awarded in the quantum agreed. Where a charter contained no estimated time of arrival at the loading port but did include a cancelling date, that cancelling date was not the critical term that informed the question of what was a reasonable time at which the approach voyage was to start. However, intermediate estimated times of arrival stipulated in the charter could be used for the purposes of deriving a time at which the approach voyage would start. The estimate in the charter that the vessel would arrive at Antifer on 25 January 2015 for final discharge of her previous cargo carried with it an estimate that she would take a reasonable period after arrival at Antifer to complete discharge after which she would embark on the chartered service. The owners therefore were to be understood as having given the end of that additional period of reasonable discharging time as an estimate of the expected commencement of the approach voyage and from that point the owners were under an absolute obligation to commence the short approach voyage to Rotterdam. The owners having breached that obligation, the charterers’ claim succeeded (paras 21, 22–23, 24, 33).
Per curiam. Under a voyage charterparty that provides for a cancelling date but no estimated times of arrival either at the loading port or at intermediate ports, there is an absolute obligation on owners to commence the approach voyage by a date when it is reasonably certain that the vessel will arrive at the loading port by the cancelling date (para 26).
John Russell QC (instructed by Clyde & Co llp) for the claimant.
Stewart Buckingham (instructed by Kennedys Law llp) for the defendant.