Contract between shipowner and charterer -Nature of a voyage charter

Contract between shipowner and charterer -Nature of a voyage charter

Defining a voyage charter

A voyage charter - is a contract for the carriage by a named vessel of a specified quantity of cargo between named ports or places.

It may be thought of as equivalent to the hire of a taxi for a single journey, or for a series of several consecutive journeys in the case of a consecutive voyage charter.

i) The shipowner basically agrees that he will present the named vessel for loading at the agreed place within an agreed period of time and, following loading (responsibility for which will be as agreed between the parties), will carry the cargo to the agreed place, where he will deliver the cargo.

ii) The charterer, who may be the cargo owner or may be chartering for the account of another party such as the shipper or the receiver, agrees to provide for loading, within the agreed period of time, the agreed quantity of the agreed commodity, to pay the agreed amount of freight, and to take delivery of the cargo at the destination place.

iii) In effect the charterers hire the cargo capacity of the vessel, and not the entire vessel, and to this extent a voyage charter agreement can be considered as the maritime equivalent of a taxi hire agreement. (Control of the ship’s operations remains with the shipowner.)

iv) In some trades, e.g. chemical tankers, several cargo parcels carried on one voyage may have been fixed with several different charterers.

v) Theshipowner must provide the master and crew, act as carrier and pay all running and voyage costs, unless the charter party specifically provides otherwise.

On the loaded voyage

During a loaded voyage a vessel must normally proceed to the destination port or place with “due despatch” (but sometimes “utmost despatch”) and always without deviation from the contracted voyage, which includes ports of loading and discharge (and their rotation), dates of loading and discharge where stipulated, voyage route and other agreed elements.

If the vessel deviates in any respect (e.g. by discharging at a port other than that originally agreed, unless with the charterer’s consent, or in the wrong rotation of ports) there is a serious breach of contract and the owners will not be able to rely on any of the exceptions in the contract. The owners will be reduced to the status of “common carrier” and will be have no protection against liability for loss of or damage to the goods carried other than the “common law exceptions”

. The owners would also have to prove that the loss/damage would inevitably have occurred even if the contract had not been breached; this applies whether the loss/damage occurred before, during or after the deviation.

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Contract between shipowner and charterer -Nature of a voyage charter

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