London Arbitration 23/21
The charterted vessel was on a trip charter of about 55 days without guarantee from Recalada (Argentina) to Cuba. The charterparty form used was NYPE 1946 with additional clauses, and contained a performance warranty (cl 74) which stipulated:
SPD/CONS ARE ABOUT, UNDER GOOD WEATHER CONDITION’ I.E. THE WINDS NOT EXCEEDING BF4, EVEN KEEL, NO DECK CARGO, NO SWELL, NO ADVERSE CURRENTS, THE SEA STATE UP TO DOUGLAS SEA SCALE 3 (MAX 1.25M). THE WORD ABOUT IN SPEED/CONSUMPTION REFERS TO AN ALLOWANCE OF +/- 0.5 KNOTS ON SPEED AND +/- 5% ON BUNKER CONSUMPTION RESPECTIVELY BOTH ALWAYS IN VESSEL’S FAVOUR. ANY GAIN ON TIME AND/OR CONSUMPTION TO BE SET OFF AGAINST LOSS OF TIME AND/OR CONSUMPTION – IF ANY.
ABT 13 KNOTS ON ABT 20 TONS VLSIFO + 0,1 MT LSMGO ECO SP/CONS:
ABT 12 KNOTS ON ABT 18 TONS VLSFO + 0,1 MT LSMGO
Clause 67 of the charterparty also provided:
The Charterers may supply an independent weather bureau advice to the Master, during voyages specified by the Charterers and the Master shall comply with the reporting procedure of the weather bureau. However, the Master remains responsible for the safe navigation and choice of route. Alternatively Charterers have the option to instruct the Master to report daily to a weather bureau during the execution of sea voyages. The weather bureau will subsequently produce a performance analysis report.
Evidence of weather conditions shall be taken from Vessel’s logs. Consideration of minimum 24 hours continuous good weather periods from noon to noon. No hire deductions for alleged underperformance claims. Vessel to be monitored by Charterers’ appointed weather routing company strictly in accordance with the performance warranty. The independent weather reporting bureau appointed by Charterers will be for their account. This does not preclude Owners from appointing their own independent weather reporting bureau for their account which evidence along with Vessel’s evidence shall be taken into consideration by all parties.
The charterers instructed a weather routing company (WRC) which prepared a report on the performance of the chartered vessel during the trip concluding that the chartered vessel achieved a good weather performance speed of 10.63 knots on the voyage compared to the minimum 12.5 knots warranted. As part of its assessment, the WCR employed a “good weather parameter” which utilised significant wave height (which naturally included swell) and ignored the effect of the adverse currents. Accordingly, the charterers claimed that the trip took an additional 87.78 hours (so was off hire during that period)- a sum of US$ 49,383 and they also claimed excessive bunker consumption in the sum of US$ 31,423.20. The charters also contended that the hull was fouled on entry into charterparty, which was a breach of line 22 of the Charter form providing that “On delivery the vessel to be… tight, staunch and in every way fitted for the service.” The charterers also challenged the veracity of the logbooks as “not true and correct logs of the voyage.”
The arbitrator found that:
1) In the light of the evidence presented by the charterers, the vessel’s hull was fouled on entry into the charter (especially the constantly high slip figures on the laden voyage were inconvertible indication of hull fouling). This was a defect of the hull in breach of line 22 of the charterparty. Moreover, as the vessel was not in every way fit for the service to be undertaken, the owners were in breach of the charterparty, which resulted in a loss of time. The loss of time was an off-hire event under cl. 15 of the charterparty.
2) The arbitrator was convinced that the master exaggerated the wind and sea conditions recorded in the log book from sailing from Recalada until 16 February so he failed to maintain a true and correct log in breach of cl. 11.
3) The arbitrator found that the role of cl 67 was to evaluate the performance strictly in accordance with the parameters set in this clause. However, WRC essentially devised its own methodology of assessing the vessel’s true performance by construing the parameters set in cl. 67. Therefore, WCR’s findings were based on non-contractual criteria and not binding. However, based on the finding that the log entries were not accurate, the arbitrator was satisfied that the vessel underperformed in speed due to a hull deficiency.
The finding of the arbitrator was in favour of the charterer but it clearly demonstrates that if the charterparty specifies the source of data from which good weather assessment should be derived, that data needs to be used and an assessment that employs other methods (or data) will be regarded as non-contractual regardless of how sound those methods are. The arbitral finding also shows that increasingly reports from weather routing companies play a significant role in performance claims and the days of relying solely on the log book entries of the master are long gone! Performance claims usually require complicated assessment methods and there is plenty technical analysis in this arbitral finding that might be useful to parties and arbitrators in the future especially when depicting “good weather” qualification.
