《装卸时间与滞期费》第6版

CHAPTER 3 第3章

Commencement of laytime 装卸时间的起算

Notice in advance of arrival 抵达之前通知/预抵通知

3.255 It sometimes happens that a charter provides for one or more notices to be given in advance of arrival. Thus, a vessel may be required to signal her ETA at the discharge port on sailing from the load port and, say, 72, 48 and 24 hours before arrival. Failure to give any of these will not prevent the vessel from giving notice of readiness on arrival, but, if any delay is caused thereafter which can be shown to arise from the failure to give notice, then the charterer will be able to claim damages for breach of the notice provision of an amount equal to that which would otherwise have been claimed by the shipowner as demurrage.

3.255有时会遇到这样的租船合同,它要求船舶在抵达之前发出一个或多个预抵通知。因此,要求船舶从装港开航后,在抵达卸港之前,就要按照提前72/48/24小时告知预计抵达卸港的时间,缺少上述任一个预报通知并不能妨碍该轮在抵达时递交准备就绪通知书,但,若因此而产生了延迟,承租人能够证明是由于未发该预计抵达通知造成的,那么,他就能够就由于未发该预抵通知而违反了通知条款的规定而提出索赔。该数额相当于船东索赔滞期费的数额。

3.256 An interesting illustration of these principles, where there was an express provision relating to the consequences that would ensue in the event of a breach, is provided by London Arbitration 1/94.

3.256当这有明示条文针对违约之后接着发生后果这种情况,在报道的伦敦仲裁1994年第1号案中,对这些适用原则做了生动的说明。

3.257 Here the charter required a total of seven notices at specified periods between 15 days and 24 hours to be given to both the discharging port agents and the charterers. In the event of the owners or master ‘‘failing to give the aforementioned notices’’, 24 hours’ extra laytime was to be allowed. In the event, the discharging port agents received all but one of the required notices (the 15 days’ notice) and the charterers three (the closest to the vessel’s arrival being 72 hours’ notice). Nevertheless, the charterers claimed an additional 24 hours’ laytime. In their finding, the tribunal held that the charterers were kept very adequately informed of the ship’s ETA from a practical point of view and therefore they refused to hold that the notice provision should be read as a failure to give any notices at all. For the charterers to have succeeded, there would have had to have been a substantial failure which arguably might have had some effect on the operations of the vessel at the discharging port.

3.257在该案,租船合同要求在15天到24小时之间,同时向卸港代理和承租人发出总共7个通知。万一船东或船长‘未发出上述通知’的话,允许的装卸时间就应该再延长24小时。在该案中,卸货港代理除了其中之一(即15天通知)未收到外,其余的全部收到,而承租人只收到3个(离船舶抵达最近的3个,72/48/24小时)。尽管如此,承租人还是要求增加24小时的装卸时间。在仲裁裁决中,仲裁庭裁定,从实际角度看,承租人已经得到了该轮完全足够的预抵通知,因此,他们拒绝裁定把这一通知条款理解成根本未发出任何通知。承租人想要胜诉的话,就本应该去争论这必须是船方重大错误(实质性违约)并因此影响了该轮在卸货港的作业。

3.258 The practical effect of the clause was therefore that, if there was a substantial breach, it provided its own remedy by way of increased laytime rather than damages at large, which would have been the position had it not so provided.

3.258因此,这种条款在实际的作用是,假如发生了实质性的违约,据此可通过增加装卸时间来补偿,而不是等待遥遥无期的损失赔偿,如果没有这样规定,这本应该也是这样的法律地位。

Time lapse between readiness and commencement of laytime

准备就绪与装卸时间开始起算之间的间隔时间

3.259 It is commonplace for a charter to provide for there to be a delay before laytime commences, either from when the vessel is actually ready to load or discharge, as the case may be, having reached the specified destination or from when the notice of readiness is given. This delay, which is intended to give time to prepare for the loading/discharging of the cargo, may either be a straight period of time or be fixed by reference to a point in time or to an external event. An example of the last of these is provided by John Sadd & Sons Ltd v. Bertram Ratcliffe & Co, where the formula was: ‘‘Time for discharging to count from first high water on or after arrival providing sufficient water at the berth’’.

3.259在租船合同中对装卸时间起算前的延迟间隔时间做出规定,这已是老生常谈的事。这一间隔时间要么是从船舶实际上做好装货或卸货准备开始,视情况而定,如果她已抵达了指定的目的地;要么是从递交了准备就绪通知书时开始。这种延迟间隔,意图是给予一段用于做装货/卸货准备的时间,要么是纯粹的一段时间,要么是固定的时间段一直要持续到某个时间或某一外部情况出现时为止。John Sadd & Sons Ltd v. Bertram Ratcliffe & Co案曾为后一种情况提供了一个实例,其计算准则是:‘卸货时间从第一次高潮或者抵达后泊位开始起算,如果泊位水深足够的话。’

3.260 Most tanker charters contain a provision to the effect that laytime shall commence six hours after laytime has been given or upon the vessel’s arrival in berth, whichever is earlier.

3.260许多油轮租船合同,对于这种情况,都包含有这样一个条款:装卸时间从递交通知书或靠泊后6小时起算,其中以先发生者为准。

3.261 In a case called Owners of Borg v. Darwen Paper Co, the relevant charter provided for time to commence 24 hours after arrival at or off the port. One of the questions before the court was how was the 24 hours to be reckoned. Of the argument that was raised, Rowlatt J said:

It is not contended that if the hours began to run they are not interrupted because a non-working day intervenes. It is not contended that they are not to be interrupted if wet weather intervenes, or that if the non-working hours at night intervene, but it is said the 24 hours must begin upon a working day.

Having pointed out that the time that has to elapse before laytime commences is totally different from the time that has to count after discharge has begun, the judge continued:

I think the plain course for me is to say that what is meant is that the consignee shall have 24 hours of ordinary time, from Monday to Tuesday, or Tuesday to Wednesday, or whatever it may be before his time for discharge begins.

If at the moment discharge begins you find yourself in the middle of the night or a holiday, the work does not naturally begin until the ordinary working hours come round.

If, therefore, the charter provides for a period of time to elapse and the end of that period occurs in what would be an excepted period during the running of laytime, then laytime will begin at the end of that excepted period.

3.261在称为Owners of Borg v. Darwen Paper Co的案中,相关租船合同规定:时间从抵达港口或港外的24小时后起算。提交法院的一个问题就是这24小时应该怎样计算?就提出的争议, Rowlatt法官说:

人们并不能坚持认为,如果时间一经起算,就是因为非工作日的干扰介入也不会中断。也不能坚持说如果是恶劣天气干扰或夜间的非工作时间的介入也而不能中断。但可以说,这24小时必须在工作日内开始。

在指出装卸时间起算前的间隔时间完全不同于卸货开始后必须应计算的时间之间差异时,法官接着说:

我认为,按常理讲,意思是指,在卸货对间开始起算前应给予收货人24小时的正常时间,不论是从星期一到星期二,还是从星期二到星期三,或者是任何卸货前的时间。

如果当卸货时间开始时你发现是在半夜或假期中,实际作业自然不会开始,直到正常工作时间来临才开始。

因此,如果租船合同中规定了一个不予计算的时间段,而该时间段结束时恰在连续计算的装卸时间的除外期间之内,那么,装卸时间就应该从这一除外期间结束时起算。

3.262 In Metalimex Foreign Trade Corporation v. Eugenie Maritime Co Ltd, the question that arose for consideration was the meaning of the following clause:

6. Time for loading to count from 8 a.m. 48 hours after the ship is reported and ready . . . and for discharging from 8 a.m. 24 hours after ship is reported...

At both the loading and discharging ports, notice was given at 09 00. The shipowners claimed that time ran from 09 00 two days later at load port and one day later at discharge port. The charterers, on the other hand, said that time counted from 08 00 three days later at load port and two days later at discharge port, i.e. that time should commence from the next 08 00 after the requisite period had elapsed. McNair J said the shipowners were right:

It seems to me that proper business effect is given to the position of the respective parties if one says that the purpose of this is quite clearly to secure that the charterers get the dual protection suggested by the shipowners, namely 48 hours clear before the loading time shall start and that the expiry of the 48 hours shall not start at some inconvenient time, and one should accordingly, read: ‘‘from 8 a.m.’’ as ‘‘not earlier than 8 a.m.’’. Well, on the whole, that seems to me to be a reasonable construction which does not do undue violence to any of the language or figures used in the clause.

3.262在Metalimex Foreign Trade Corporation v. Eugenie Maritime Co Ltd(The Nedon)案,提出要求探讨的争议就是关于下面这个条款的含义:

6.装货时间从船舶已准备就绪并递交了准备就绪通知书的48小时之后的上午0800时起算……卸货时间从船舶递交了准备就绪通知书的24小时之后的上午0800时起算……

在装卸两港,准备就绪通知书都是在0900被递交的,船东主张说,装港的时间应从两天后的0900起算,卸港的时间应从1天后的0900起算。相反,承租人却说,装港的时间应从3天后的0800起算,卸港应从两天后的0800起算,也就是说,装卸时间应从必需的时间间隔过后的下一个0800起算。McNair法官认为船东是正确的。他说:

在我看来,这已经给予了合同双方各自合适的商业效果,如果有人认为这一条款的目的是十分清楚的,就是保证承租人得到了船东间接表示的双重保护,亦即装货开始前可有48小时间隔,而且这48小时的届满时不能开始于一个不便的时间段内,相应地将‘从上午8点’应该理解为‘不早于上午8点’。总之,对我来说,比较合理的解释是不能对条款中所使用的任何语言或数字上做过分的曲解。

3.263 In London Arbitration 12/01, where the charter on the Sugar Charterparty 1969 form provided for laytime to start next regular working period commencing before 15 00 after receipt of NOR, the tribunal held that laytime commenced at 13 00, when the stevedores returned from their meal break, although that was in the middle of their shift, rather than 17 00 as the charterers argued, which was when the first overtime period began.

3.263 在报道的伦敦仲裁2001年第12号案,是以1969年食糖租船合同格式范本签订的租船合同,其中规定:装卸时间是从收到准备就绪通知书后下一个常规工作时间期间内15点之前开始, 仲裁庭裁定:装卸时间是从1300开始,是装卸工人吃完午饭后返回工作的时间点,尽管这是在工班中间,而不是承租人争论的1700,这是第一段开始加班的时间点。

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