The about margin in charter party descriptions
How about is construed across speed, consumption, quantity and laycan, the double about problem, and why modern practice states the margin as a number.
The word about qualifies a contractual description and gives a margin, and the size of that margin is a question of construction rather than a rule of law. The market convention of 0.5 knots on speed and about 5 percent on daily consumption is exactly that, a convention, and the authorities treat it as a question of fact turning on the vessel’s configuration, size, draft and trim.
Without the word there is no margin, because it is a construction of the word rather than an implied tolerance for measurement error. The full article will cover the construction of about across speed, consumption, cargo quantity and laycan, the unsettled double about question, the difference between about and average, and the drafting fix of stating the margin numerically in the recap.