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London Arbitration 1/19 shows that owners need to substantiate a claim for cleaning dirty holds after redelivery under a time charter. The vessel was chartered on an amended NYPE 1946 form for “2–3 laden legs of minimum duration 40 days”. Line 22 of the charterparty provided for the carriage of “any ordinary cargo” with an additional clause containing various cargo exclusions and restrictions including a stipulation that coal was not to be the last cargo. The charter also provided “Charterers shall have the option of redelivering the Vessel without cleaning of holds against paying the Owners a lumpsum of USD5,000 lumpsum, including removal of dunnage/bark/debris.”
In breach of charter the final voyage was for a full cargo of anthracite, following which the vessel was redelivered to the owners without any cleaning of the holds. The owners then used the crew to clean the holds which took nine days. The vessel’s next employment commenced two days later.
The owners claimed to be compensated at the hire rate for the time spent cleaning the cargo holds following the redelivery of the vessel, some 9.3854 days. The charterers submitted that there was no legal basis for the owners’ method of assessment of their damages claim as being effectively an extended period of hire. The owners had not provided any evidence of any cleaning operations, or of losses or extra costs. There was no evidence of any possible follow-on fixture being missed. No details had been provided of the cleaning operation which was said to have occupied more than nine days. The charterers accepted that payment of US$5,000 for redelivery with unclean holds was due to the owners but denied that any further compensation was due.
The tribunal held that the only possible conclusion to be drawn from the absence of any evidence of losses or extra costs incurred by the owners as a result of their having to clean the cargo holds had to be that none were in fact incurred, and that the owners’ claim therefore had to fail. Owners’ claim was dismissed.