“MARITIME LAW” “Maritime Law”

“Maritime Law”

Introduction

Referring to the sceanrio and Appolo's position a ship might be substandard in one of three ways. She might be structurally sub-standard, a 'rust-bucket' as such ships are colloquially known.Athenian Tankers Management SA v Pyrena Shipping Inc. (The Arianna) [1987] 2 Ll L R 376. Many older and poorly maintained ships (although poorly maintained vessels do not have to be 1 Athenian Tankers Management SA v Pyrena Shipping Inc. (The Arianna) [1987] 2 Ll L R 376 4 old) will show one or more of the obvious problems; for example leaking hatchcovers, unclean or rusty holds, gear which is broken or incapable of maintaining its SWL, engines which would seem to struggle to move the ship without the assistance of a fleet of tugs. (Ashworth D 2008 Pp. 70)

In this case Alternately the vessel was sub-standard in terms of manning. As an example, the crew may be inefficient and not capable of carrying out their basic duties. Clearly the ship's officers and crew are as important to the successful prosecution of a voyage as the ship itself, and their inefficiency will make a vessel sub-standard as much as any structural defect. Finally, the vessel's management may be sub-standard. The vessel's certificates may be out of date or not available. Every vessel requires a sheaf of certificates to pass muster - classification, gear tests, IMO, and the absence of a relevant certificate for all or part of the ship will delay or prevent a voyage just as easily as a damaged engine or inefficient Master.

English law has adopted the Hague-Visby Rules (1968) which replaced the earlier Hague rules (1924), and are incorporated into our law via the carriage of Goods by Sea Act (1971). As a result, the Shipowners' duty to provide a seaworthy ship, while absolute at common law, is replaced by one from the Hague-Visby Rules, Article III Rule 1, which reads: “The carrier shall be bound before and at the beginning of the voyage to exercise due diligence to: - (a) Make the ship seaworthy; (b) Properly man, equip and supply the ship;The use of the phrase “due diligence” is an interesting one.

Effectively this means that where unseaworthiness has been found the shipowner can escape liability if he can show that he did exercise due diligence in providing a seaworthy vessel at the start of the voyage. (Ashworth D 2008 Pp. 70-72)

Consider Article IV Rule 2. (a), which states; “Neither the carrier nor the ship shall be responsible for loss or damage arising or resulting from Act, neglect, or default of the master, mariner, pilot, or the servants of the carrier in the navigation or in the management of the ship”. This seems to me to be a fairly wide ranging exemption which works in favour of the owners, rather than the maritime charterer.A leading case on this is “Hong Kong Fir - v - Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha”. The “Hong Kong Fir” was built in 1931, and in 1956 (when she was 25 ...