Voyage charter party: laytime, demurrage and freight

A voyage charter party is a contract of affreightment under which a shipowner carries an agreed cargo between named ports in return for freight, calculated either per tonne of cargo loaded or as a single lump sum for the voyage. The owner keeps possession of the ship, employs the master and crew, and pays the voyage costs. The charterer buys carriage rather than the ship, and its principal financial exposure is time: the charter allows a fixed period for loading and discharging, called laytime, after which the ship goes on demurrage at an agreed daily rate.

That allocation is the whole commercial point. An owner fixing a voyage charter is selling a result at a fixed price and absorbs bunkers, port dues, pilotage and canal tolls, so its margin turns on how fast the ship steams and how cheaply the ports are worked. A charterer fixing a voyage charter buys certainty on the freight line and accepts a metered exposure to port delay. Compare that with the time charter party , where the charterer pays hire per day and buys the bunkers, and with the bareboat charter party , where the charterer takes the ship itself and mans her. The four structures are set side by side in the charter parties overview .

What a voyage charter party is, and how it differs from the other charter structures

A voyage charter transfers no possession and no management of the ship. The owner performs a carriage obligation and is paid freight for performing it, which is why the contract is properly a contract of affreightment rather than a hire of a chattel. Every other charter structure moves one of those two variables.

The distinction that causes most confusion in practice is between a voyage charter and a trip time charter, because both cover one movement of cargo from A to B. The test is not the shape of the voyage but the unit of payment and the location of speed risk. Freight buys a result. Hire buys time.

A voyage charter is also the structure under which most seaborne dry bulk and crude oil actually moves, and it is usually concluded not by the registered owner but by a disponent owner: a party that has taken the ship on time charter and now charters her out for a voyage. That is why a demurrage claim so often has to be passed up a chain of back-to-back fixtures with different laytime terms at each link, a problem examined in charter chains and sub-chartering .

Consecutive voyages and contracts of affreightment

A consecutive voyage charter commits the ship to a stated number of voyages in succession, so the owner carries the risk that a delay on voyage two eats the earning capacity of voyage three. A contract of affreightment commits the owner to lift an agreed quantity over a period without naming the ship, leaving the owner free to nominate tonnage and the charterer free to declare cargoes within an agreed spread. BIMCO revised its contract of affreightment forms in 2022, publishing GENCOA A 2022 as a framework used alongside a separate voyage charter and GENCOA B 2022 as an all-in-one document, replacing the 2004 edition. Both are covered in GENCOA contracts of affreightment .

Formation: the recap, the subjects and the signed form

A voyage fixture is concluded by an exchange of recap messages between brokers, and the recap is the contract. It sets out the ship, the cargo, the load and discharge ranges, the laydays and cancelling date, the freight, the laytime and demurrage terms, the form and edition, and the rider clauses, and in the great majority of fixtures no signed charter party is ever issued. The mechanics are set out in the fixture process and the anatomy of the document in fixture recap .

Negotiations run through shipbrokers acting for owner and charterer, and an offer is commonly made on subjects: conditions that must be lifted before the fixture is clean. Charter party subjects range from subject stem, meaning the cargo is not yet confirmed available, to subject receivers’ approval and subject board approval. A fixture on subjects is not a binding contract of carriage until the subjects lift, and the difference between a condition of the contract and a condition precedent to its formation is where the litigation sits.

Where a signed form is later issued and differs from the recap, the relationship between the two is a question of construction and of whether the parties intended a variation. It is not an automatic rule that the later document wins. Read both.

The standard forms, and which trade uses which

Voyage fixtures are concluded on a printed standard form plus a rider, and the form and edition are load-bearing terms, not stationery. The dry-cargo default is BIMCO’s Uniform General Charter, GENCON; the independent tanker default is ASBATANKVOY; the oil majors use their own proprietary forms; and the grain, coal and chemical trades each have a dedicated form.

GENCON 1994 and GENCON 2022

GENCON has been BIMCO’s flagship contract since it was first developed in 1922, with catalogued editions in 1922, 1976, 1994 and 2022. The 1994 revision was triggered by English court decisions casting doubt on clauses in GENCON 76, notably the General Strike Clause, and BIMCO’s stated intention then was to clarify and update rather than rewrite. That restraint is why the GENCON 1994 form served for nearly three decades and why it is still fixed today.

GENCON 2022 took the opposite approach. BIMCO’s subcommittee, with Documentary Committee support, chose a comprehensive rewrite so that a company without in-house legal support would find most relevant issues addressed in the printed form rather than having to build them from riders. The clause count roughly doubled. Four changes matter to a chartering desk:

• The laytime machinery is unpacked. GENCON 1994 carries laytime and the commencement of laytime inside clause 6 and demurrage at clause 7. GENCON 2022 separates notice of readiness at clause 9, laytime at clause 10, commencement of laytime at clause 11, the running of laytime at clause 12, and demurrage and despatch at clause 13.
• The Laytime Definitions 2013 are incorporated. GENCON 1994 predates them and does not incorporate them, so on the older form every laytime abbreviation means whatever the rider and the general law make it mean.
• Despatch appears. GENCON 2022 clause 13 provides despatch at half the demurrage rate. GENCON 1994 provides none, so on that form despatch exists only if a rider creates it.
• The modern protective suite is printed in, including the York-Antwerp Rules 2016 at clause 29, the BIMCO Law and Arbitration Clause 2020 at clause 37, sanctions at clause 32, VOYWAR 2013 at clause 33 and piracy at clause 34.

Each edition has its own bill of lading. GENCON 1994 pairs with CONGENBILL 2016 and GENCON 2022 with CONGENBILL 2022 , which is the quickest way to tell from a document set which edition governs.

Tanker forms: ASBATANKVOY 2025 and SHELLVOY 6

ASBATANKVOY was revised in 2025 for the first time since ASBA’s original 1977 edition. A joint BIMCO and ASBA subcommittee produced the new text and BIMCO published it on 23 April 2025, together with a companion bill of lading, ASBATANKBILL 2025. Copyright is held by ASBA and the form is published by BIMCO. BIMCO and ASBA describe ASBATANKVOY as the only dedicated tanker form not associated with an oil major and as the most widely used independent tanker voyage charter party in the world, which is a stronger claim than the regional characterization the form often attracts.

Three features of the 2025 edition change how a fixture is negotiated. Arbitration now mirrors the BIMCO Law and Arbitration Clause 2020 with four named venues, New York, London, Singapore and Hong Kong, and New York is the default. The York-Antwerp Rules 2016 are mandatory. And the stated design goal was to need fewer rider clauses, so as to reduce inconsistency between the printed text and the rider, which is the single most common source of laytime disputes on an older form.

SHELLVOY 6 remains the edition seen in reported fixtures on the Shell suite. It is structured in three parts, with Part I divided into sections A to O and the Part II heading sitting above clause 30. Part I(A) carries the vessel description and the owner’s warranties, with the warranties themselves at clause 1(A)(III). Clause 3(2) covers voyage instructions and clause 4 the charterers’ due diligence in nominating. Laytime commencement is at clause 13(1)(a), running six hours after tender of notice of readiness or on the vessel being securely moored at the berth, whichever comes first, subject to a free pratique proviso. Clause 14 sets the exceptions to time counting, clause 15 covers demurrage, and clause 15(2) allocates delays not specifically dealt with elsewhere. Those clause references come from the reported judgments in the Trafigura Maritime Logistics v Clearlake Shipping litigation, principally [2022] EWHC 2147 (Comm) and [2022] EWHC 2234 (Comm). Further detail is in SHELLVOY 6 .

BIMCO’s own tanker voyage form, TANKERVOY 87 , remains in the catalogue alongside the liquid-cargo family that includes BIMCHEMVOY 2008 for bulk chemicals, GASVOY 2005 and LNGVOY.

Dry-cargo trade forms

The commodity trades keep their own forms, and each carries laytime and cargo-handling conventions drawn from the trade rather than from general chartering practice.

Two of those are commonly miscited. SYNACOMEX 2023 replaced the earlier edition and was announced by BIMCO on 19 October 2023; it is drafted with the Chambre Arbitrale Maritime de Paris, so a Continental grain fixture routinely arbitrates in Paris rather than London. NORGRAIN is an ASBA form recommended by BIMCO, with a companion NORGRAINBILL. BIMCHEMVOY 2008 pairs with BIMCHEMVOYBILL 2008 and BIMCHEMVOYBILL 2016, and interacts with the carriage requirements of the IBC Code for the cargoes it covers.

Clause anatomy of a voyage charter party

A voyage charter allocates four things: the ship, the cargo, the time, and the money. Every printed form organizes those in the same order, and a rider that changes one usually has to change another.

Vessel description

The vessel description clause identifies the ship by name, IMO number, flag, year of build, deadweight, draft, capacity in cubic meters grain and bale, gear, hold and hatch configuration, and class. Under a voyage charter the owner provides a named ship, and the charterer does not nominate her. The description operates as a set of warranties, and a misdescription of capacity or gear that costs the charterer time is a breach sounding in damages rather than a laytime adjustment. Class is warranted by reference to a named society, and the position of the recognized organization in the certification chain is set out in classification society .

Where the ship is described as suitable for a particular cargo, the description reaches into the operational codes: a bulk carrier fixed for a Group A cargo has to satisfy the IMSBC Code requirements the schedule imposes, and hold condition is measured against the cargo hold preparation standards the trade expects.

Cargo description, quantity and the margin

The cargo clause states the commodity, the quantity, and whose option the margin is in. A quantity expressed as 60,000 metric tonnes 5 per cent more or less in owner’s option gives the owner a 3,000 tonne band to declare, which it uses to optimize against draft, bunkers and stowage factor . The same margin in charterer’s option moves that flexibility to the cargo side.

Where the charterer ships less than the agreed minimum, the shortfall is deadfreight : the freight the owner has lost, recoverable as damages. GENCON’s lien clause in both editions covers freight, deadfreight, demurrage and damages for detention, at clause 8 in the 1994 edition and clause 15 in 2022, so the owner has contractual security over the cargo for it. The mechanics of exercising that security are in lien on cargo and sub-freights and cesser and lien clauses .

Cargo quantity disputes are their own field. A shortage alleged at discharge is measured against the bill of lading figure, the draft survey and the shore figure, and the three rarely agree. See dry bulk cargo shortage claims and shore weightometer and cargo quantity disputes .

Ports, berths and the nomination warranties

The charterer nominates the load and discharge ports from an agreed range, and the nomination carries the safe port warranty. Under English law that warranty promises that the particular ship can reach, use and leave the port without, in the absence of an abnormal occurrence, being exposed to danger that good navigation and seamanship cannot avoid. That is the test of Sellers LJ in the Court of Appeal in Leeds Shipping Co Ltd v Societe Francaise Bunge (The Eastern City) [1958] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 127 at 131, and the two qualifiers that carry the argument are the particular ship and the relevant period of time. A port safe for a handysize is not thereby safe for a capesize.

The berth nomination carries its own warranties, and the two commonly offered are not equivalent. Under definition 3 of the Laytime Definitions 2013 reachable on arrival addresses the ship getting in. Definition 4, always accessible, adds an undertaking that she can also leave safely and without delay. In an ice-affected or tidally constrained port that departure undertaking is the whole negotiation, and it interacts with the ice clauses in charter parties the form provides. Berth suitability itself is assessed through the terminal questionnaire and berth fit process, and waiting is managed through anchorage management and selection .

The full treatment of both warranties, including the secondary obligation to renominate where a nominated port becomes unsafe, is in safe port and safe berth warranties .

How voyage freight is calculated, and when it is earned

Voyage freight is payable either per tonne of cargo or as a lump sum for the voyage, and the two allocate quantity risk in opposite directions. Freight per tonne is calculated on the intaken quantity, so the owner is paid for what is actually loaded and the charterer carries the cost of loading less. Lump sum freight is payable whatever quantity is shipped, so the owner is paid in full and the charterer buys the whole ship. A charterer with an uncertain parcel takes freight per tonne; an owner with an awkward stow prefers lump sum.

Under GENCON 1994 clause 4 the freight rate is the Box 13 figure applied to the intaken quantity, with a box selection between freight prepaid, freight deemed earned and non-returnable ship and cargo lost or not lost, and freight payable on delivery. GENCON 2022 clause 7 restructures this: non-lump-sum freight is earned progressively during loading on the Mate’s Receipt quantity, lump sum freight is earned on completion of loading, freight remains non-returnable ship or cargo lost or not lost, and the owner is not required to sign freight prepaid bills of lading until the freight has actually been received. That last provision closes a real exposure, because a freight prepaid bill in the hands of a holder is evidence the freight was paid whether or not it was.

The distinction between freight earned and freight payable is worth stating plainly, because the two are separate questions and the recap usually answers only one. When freight is earned decides whether the owner keeps it if the adventure fails. When freight is payable decides the cash flow date. A clause providing that freight is deemed earned on shipment, discountless and non-returnable, ship and cargo lost or not lost, answers the first question in the owner’s favour and says nothing about the second. See voyage charter freight and when it is earned .

Gross freight is not what the owner banks. Address commission for the charterer and brokerage for the brokers come off the gross figure, and the bridge from gross to net is set out in address and brokerage commission .

The rule against deduction from freight

A charterer cannot deduct a cargo claim from voyage freight. In Aries Tanker Corporation v Total Transport Ltd (The Aries) [1977] 1 WLR 185 the House of Lords held that there is no set-off against freight unless the charter expressly permits it, so a receiver with a good cargo claim must pay the freight in full and sue separately. The same decision held that the one-year period in Hague-Visby Article III rule 6 extinguishes the claim rather than merely barring the remedy, which means an expired cargo claim cannot even be deployed defensively.

The rule does not extend to time charter hire, against which equitable set-off is available. That asymmetry surprises operators moving between the two structures, and it is the single most consequential freight rule a claims handler meets. The detail is in no set-off against freight .

Who bears the cargo handling cost

Whether the freight includes loading and discharging is set by the liner or free-in-and-out terms the recap adopts, and the choice moves the freight rate directly. Under free in and out the charterer arranges and pays for both operations; under FIOST it also pays for stowing and trimming; under liner or berth terms the owner does. The variants and the freight differential each implies are in free in and out and liner terms , and the physical operation and its hazards are in stevedoring and cargo handling operations .

Worldscale: what a WS number means and how the flat rate is built

Worldscale is a published schedule of nominal freight rates for tanker voyages, against which a fixture is quoted as a percentage. WS100 means the freight equals the published flat rate for that voyage, sometimes called Worldscale flat. WS250 means 250 points, that is 250 per cent of the published rate, and WS30 means 30 per cent of it. Under the older convention those would have been quoted as plus 150 per cent and minus 70 per cent.

Worldscale is published by two non-profit organizations, Worldscale Association (London) Limited and Worldscale Association (NYC) Inc, each governed by a management committee of senior tanker brokers, and available on subscription. It is not a BIMCO product and never has been. The full treatment is in Worldscale , and the older tanker benchmark that gave the Aframax class its name is in AFRA .

The published formula is the flat rate, including any additions, multiplied by the Worldscale equivalent and by the cargo quantity.

The standard vessel and the daily hire element

The schedule is built around a standard vessel of 75,000 tonnes total capacity performing a round voyage, carrying a fixed daily hire element of USD 12,000 per day. The Association states that the premise is periodically checked against fleet statistics and remains near the average vessel in size, number and performance, so it is a live reference rather than a historic assumption. Note that the figure is total carrying capacity, not deadweight.

New Worldscale took effect on 1 January 1989. Old Worldscale ran from September 1969 to the end of 1988 with a fixed daily hire element of USD 1,800 that stayed constant across its whole life. Before that the MOT schedule was effective from 1 January 1946 and the USMC schedule from 1 February 1946, with Intascale in between.

The mechanism is stated publicly and the inputs are not. The Association explains that voyage time and port time are calculated and multiplied by the fixed daily hire, and that annual bunker prices and consumption rates for fuel allowances are set out in the Preamble to each edition. The Preamble is subscriber-only, so the standard vessel’s service speed, its consumption at sea and in port, and the port time allowance are not in the public domain and are not stated here.

The annual revision and the 30 September data cut-off

Worldscale is completely recalculated once every twelve months, providing revised rates effective from 1 January of each year that reflect changes in bunker prices, port costs and currencies as assessed and available up to the preceding 30 September. That cut-off explains a recurring complaint: a flat rate built on data to the end of September can look badly stale against a bunker market that moved in the fourth quarter, and the Worldscale equivalent has to absorb the difference.

Circulars issued during the year specify the date they take effect and apply to voyages with a loading date on or after that date. Applying a circular to a voyage that loaded earlier is a matter of agreement between the parties, not an automatic adjustment.

Differentials, charterers’ account items and route selection

The book is more than a table of flat rates. Differentials sit on the pink pages and cover costs that do not fit the flat rate structure. Fixed differentials are applied per tonne of the subscriber’s cargo size, not the standard vessel’s, which is the detail most often got wrong. Variable differentials are a dollar addition to or deduction from the flat rate, adjusted by the Worldscale equivalent, and are common where a single buoy mooring’s costs differ from berth costs. Charterers’ account items, such as tugs and harbour dues that local tariffs make impossible to include, carry no allowance at all and are reimbursed by the charterer to the owner. The book also carries a laytime allowance and a table of demurrage rates at Preamble Part C.

Panama and Suez canal tolls are treated as differentials rather than folded into the flat rate, because of their significance and complexity. Route selection in the schedule uses whichever route produces the lowest rate for the voyage for the standard vessel at WS100, usually but not always the shortest, and the cheapest route can change from year to year, so contracting parties should agree which route applies. That interacts directly with the routing choice between the Suez Canal and the Cape of Good Hope , and with the canal transit clause in the rider.

Emission control area costs are incorporated on their respective effective dates by fixed differential based on miles steamed within the ECAs, with the China phase effective 1 January 2019 and a further area from 1 January 2020, a Taiwan in-port low-sulphur allowance following regulations effective January 2019, and a Korean allowance in the 2021 flat rates extended for 2022 to include transiting. From 2016 low-sulphur fuel costs within ECAs are included in the rate rather than charged separately. Detail is in Worldscale flat rate and differentials .

Why a VLCC fixes at a lower WS number than an MR

Because WS100 is the breakeven point for the 75,000 tonne standard vessel and for no other size. The Association states that economies of scale tend to give figures higher than the flat rate for smaller vessels and lower than the flat rate for larger ones. A VLCC fixing at WS45 and an MR fixing at WS180 on notionally comparable trades are not evidence of different market strength, and comparing WS numbers across tanker size classes without converting to a daily equivalent is a category error.

Laytime: the code, the clock and the exceptions

Laytime is the period the charter allows the charterer for loading and discharging without payment additional to the freight. That is definition 5 of the Laytime Definitions for Charter Parties 2013, issued jointly by BIMCO, the Comite Maritime International, FONASBA and INTERCARGO, and published by FONASBA under the alternative name VOYLAYRULES 2013. The full treatment of the mechanism is in laytime .

The 2013 Definitions apply only where incorporated

The preamble is explicit on two points that decide a surprising number of arguments. The definitions apply for the purposes of laytime only, and they apply only when expressly incorporated into the charter party. They are not default law and they do not fill gaps by implication. Charter Party is itself defined to include any contract of carriage or affreightment, including one evidenced by bills of lading.

The practical consequence is that GENCON 2022 fixtures get the code and GENCON 1994 fixtures do not, unless the rider incorporates it. On a 1994 fixture every abbreviation in the laytime clause means whatever the rider and the general law make it mean, which is why the same recap language produces different results on the two editions. See Laytime Definitions for Charter Parties 2013 .

How laytime is expressed

Laytime is fixed either as a stated number of days or hours, or as a rate per hatch or per tonne against the quantity loaded, or not fixed at all. Where it is unfixed the charter provides for customary quick despatch, under which the charterer must work as fast as is reasonably possible in the circumstances of the port, and there is no demurrage clock because there is no fixed allowance to exceed. The obligation to proceed and to work without unjustified delay is treated separately in utmost despatch .

Definitions 6 and 7 of the 2013 code give the two rate-based formulations, per hatch per day and per working or workable hatch per day, with the division rules and the counting conventions for twin hatches and two gangs. Definitions 8 to 10 separate the day itself into three: a Day is any 24 consecutive hours, a Calendar Day runs 0000 to 2400, and a Conventional Day is 24 hours from any identified time, each pro-rated.

Weather working days and the pro-rata deduction

Under definition 15 a weather working day is a working day or part of a working day during which it is, or if the vessel is still waiting for her turn would be, possible to load or discharge without interruption due to weather. The mechanism that generates the disputes is the deduction. Where an interruption occurs, or would have occurred had work been in progress, laytime excludes a period calculated by reference to the ratio the duration of the interruption bears to the time which would have or could have been worked but for the interruption. It is a proportional calculation, not a whole-day switch.

The two 24-hour variants compute differently again. Definition 16, the weather working day of 24 consecutive hours, excludes the actual period of interruption from a working day. Definition 17, the weather working day of 24 hours, excludes the actual period of interruption from a 24-hour composite made up of one or more working days. Definition 18 makes working day weather permitting identical to definition 16. Three formulations, three answers on the same statement of facts. Definition 11 defines a working day as one when by local law or practice work is normally carried out, and definition 14 defines a holiday as a day other than the normal weekly days of rest, which is how the code accommodates Friday and holiday excepted practice in the Arabian Gulf and North Africa without naming a day. See weather working day and, for the related performance warranty, good weather definition in charter warranties .

WIBON, WIPON, and the abbreviations the code does not define

Definition 27 defines whether in berth or not, also written berth or no berth: if the designated loading or discharging berth is not available on arrival, the vessel on reaching any usual waiting place at the port is entitled to tender notice of readiness from it, and laytime commences in accordance with the charter party. Definition 28 defines whether in port or not: if the designated berth and the usual waiting place at the port are both unavailable, the vessel may tender from any recognised waiting place off the port.

The limit of WIBON was settled in Bulk Transport Group Shipping Co Ltd v Seacrystal Shipping Ltd (The Kyzikos) [1989] AC 1264. A berth was available at Houston but fog closed the pilot station, so the ship could not reach it. The House of Lords held that WIBON shifts only the risk that the berth is unavailable through congestion. Where a berth is free and the ship cannot reach it for some other reason, WIBON does not operate and the owner carries the delay.

WIFPON and WICCON are not defined in the 2013 edition at all. The nearest provision is definition 29, vessel being in free pratique, meaning that the vessel complies with port health requirements, and there is no customs-clearance definition anywhere in the code. A recap that writes WIFPON or WICCON and then incorporates the 2013 Definitions has left both abbreviations without a contractual meaning, which is a drafting gap worth closing in the rider rather than discovering in arbitration. See WIBON, WIPON and waiting place clauses .

Reversible laytime is not averaging

These two are routinely treated as synonyms and they are not. Definition 24 makes reversible laytime an option given to the charterer to add together the time allowed for loading and discharging, with the effect that a single total time covers both operations. Definition 23, to average laytime, requires separate calculations for loading and discharging, with any time saved in one operation set off against any excess time used in the other.

Reversing pools the allowance into one figure. Averaging keeps two figures and nets them. On a fixture where loading runs well over and discharging well under, the two produce different demurrage and despatch outcomes, and a demurrage analyst who applies the wrong one has produced the wrong number. See reversible laytime and despatch .

Time lost waiting for berth

Definition 26 covers the case the WIBON and WIPON clauses do not reach. Where no berth is available and the vessel cannot tender notice of readiness at the waiting place, time lost waiting counts as if laytime were running, or as time on demurrage if laytime has already expired. That time ceases to count once the berth becomes available. When the vessel then reaches a place where she can tender, laytime or demurrage resumes after tender and, for laytime, on expiry of any notice time. The gap between the berth becoming available and the ship being able to tender is therefore uncounted, which is the point of the clause and the reason it is negotiated. See time lost waiting for berth and, on the underlying commercial problem, port congestion .

The statement of facts and the time sheet

Laytime is computed from the statement of facts, a chronological record of the port call signed by the master and the agent and, where possible, countersigned by the terminal. BIMCO and FONASBA recommend the Standard Statement of Facts, published in 1975, with companion forms for oil and chemical tank vessels and a Standard Time Sheet. The document set and the disputes it generates are in statement of facts .

Notice of readiness: validity, tender and waiver

Notice of readiness is the notice to the charterer, shipper, receiver or other person required by the charter that the vessel has arrived at the port or berth and is ready to load or discharge. That is definition 25 of the Laytime Definitions 2013, and it is notable for what it does not say: the code imposes no writing requirement, prescribes no method of tender, and sets no standard of physical or documentary readiness. Those come from the charter and from the general law. The full treatment is in notice of readiness .

Validity has two limbs. The ship must be physically ready, with holds or tanks clean and fit for the cargo and gear available where the owner supplies it, and she must be legally ready in the sense the charter requires, which commonly means arrived at the contractual place and, where the clause so provides, in free pratique and customs cleared. A notice that asserts readiness the ship does not have is untrue when given.

Tendering hours matter and are contractual. SHELLVOY 6 clause 13(1)(a) starts laytime six hours after tender or on the vessel being securely moored at the berth, whichever comes first, subject to a free pratique proviso, so that form builds in a notice period rather than starting the clock at tender.

The arrived ship: port charter and berth charter

Whether the ship can tender at all depends on whether the charter is a port charter or a berth charter. Under a berth charter the contractual destination is the berth. Under a port charter it is the port, and the question becomes what within the port is enough.

The test comes from E L Oldendorff and Co GmbH v Tradax Export SA (The Johanna Oldendorff) [1974] AC 479. If she cannot proceed immediately to a berth, the ship must have reached a position within the port; she is an arrived ship if she is at the usual waiting place within the geographical limits of the port, counting for turn, and at the immediate and effective disposition of the charterer. At a usual waiting place she is presumed to be so disposed unless the charterer proves extraordinary circumstances.

One point of vocabulary is worth stating because it is widely got wrong. The House of Lords used the 1966 Practice Statement to depart from Sociedad Financiera de Bienes Raices v Agrimpex (The Aello) [1961] AC 135, and the commercial area of the port is the language of the discarded test, not the current one. An article or a submission that defines the arrived ship by reference to the commercial area is stating the law as it was before 1974. See arrived ship doctrine .

An invalid notice, and what does not cure it

A notice untrue when given is a nullity. In Transgrain Shipping BV v Global Transporte Oceanico SA (The Mexico 1) [1990] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 507 the Court of Appeal held that such a notice does not spring into life when the ship later becomes ready: there is no inchoate or delayed-action notice, and a fresh valid notice is required.

Waiver is possible but narrow, and it narrowed further in 2026. Glencore Grain Ltd v Flacker Shipping Ltd (The Happy Day) [2002] EWCA Civ 1068 established waiver where a notice valid in form is followed by the ship arriving and being, or being treated as, ready, and cargo operations then beginning to the charterer’s order without rejection or a demand for a fresh notice. In Trans Trade RK SA v Sebat Shipping and Trading Company (The Sebat) [2026] EWHC 950 (Comm), decided on 28 April 2026 on a section 69 appeal, the court held that there is no free-standing doctrine of deemed waiver: waiver requires actual knowledge of the defect and a clear and unequivocal election, and simply commencing cargo operations is not enough. An arbitral award of over USD 840,000 in discharge port demurrage was overturned on that basis.

Early tender is a separate question. In Tidebrook Maritime Corp v Vitol SA (The Front Commander) [2006] EWCA Civ 944 the Court of Appeal held that a charter clause can permit tender before the laydays open where the charterer consents, and that consent may be found in the charterer’s own instructions to proceed. Further detail is in inchoate notice of readiness .

Demurrage: the rate, the clock and the exclusive-remedy rule

Demurrage is an agreed amount payable to the owner for delay to the vessel once laytime has expired, for which the owner is not responsible. That is definition 30 of the Laytime Definitions 2013, and its second sentence carries the operative rule: demurrage is not subject to the exceptions that apply to laytime unless the charter party specifically says so. The rate is a daily figure set in the recap, entered at Box 20 on GENCON 1994 and Box 19 on GENCON 2022. The full treatment is in demurrage .

Once on demurrage, always on demurrage

The common law reaches the same result as definition 30 by a different route. In Dias Compania Naviera SA v Louis Dreyfus Corporation (The Dias) [1978] 1 WLR 261, decided on 26 January 1978, the House of Lords held that the charterer’s breach in exceeding laytime is a continuing breach until discharge completes, so unless the delay frustrates the adventure the charterer remains liable in liquidated damages throughout. The House expressly recognized that apt words can contract out, which is why a rider excepting strikes or weather from demurrage is effective if it is drafted to say so. See once on demurrage .

Demurrage liquidates the whole of the loss

The question of whether an owner can recover more than demurrage for a delay was settled in England in 2021 and the answer is generally no. In K Line Pte Ltd v Priminds Shipping (HK) Co Ltd (The Eternal Bliss) [2021] EWCA Civ 1712, judgment of 18 November 2021, the Court of Appeal held that demurrage liquidates the whole of the damages flowing from the charterer’s failure to complete cargo operations within laytime, not merely some of them. An owner claiming beyond demurrage must identify and prove breach of a separate obligation. The facts were a cargo of soya beans held on board 31 days beyond laytime at Longkou, which deteriorated, and the first-instance decision at [2020] EWHC 2373 (Comm) had gone the other way on assumed facts.

The appellate history matters because it is often misstated. Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court was granted, announced on 7 September 2022, and a hearing was fixed for 19 and 20 June 2023. The case settled and the appeal was withdrawn, announced in the week to 5 May 2023. The Court of Appeal decision therefore stands and is the governing English authority. The Supreme Court has not ruled on what demurrage liquidates, and any statement that it has is wrong. See demurrage as an exclusive remedy .

The drafting consequence is direct. An owner that wants recourse for cargo deterioration, for a missed subsequent fixture, or for port costs incurred during the delay has to write a separate obligation into the charter and be able to point to its breach.

Demurrage and detention

Demurrage runs while the charter clock runs. Detention describes delay for which the charter provides no liquidated rate, either because demurrage days have been exhausted where the charter caps them, or because the delay falls outside the cargo operation the demurrage clause addresses. Damages for detention are proved, not liquidated, and GENCON’s lien clause in both editions secures them alongside freight, deadfreight and demurrage.

Despatch: the two time bases

Despatch money is an agreed amount payable by the owner where the vessel completes loading or discharging before laytime has expired. That is definition 31, and it is worth noting what the definition does not contain: no rate. Half the demurrage rate is market convention, not a definitional rule. GENCON 2022 clause 13 provides despatch at half the demurrage rate; GENCON 1994 provides no despatch at all, so on that edition despatch exists only if a rider creates it. Tanker charters conventionally provide none.

The time basis is the second variable and it is worth more money than the rate. Definition 32, despatch on all working time saved or on all laytime saved, is payable for the period from completion to the expiry of laytime excluding periods excepted from laytime. Definition 33, despatch on all time saved, covers the same period including the excepted periods. All time saved therefore pays the charterer more, because it counts the nights, weekends and weather stoppages that working time saved strips out.

The demurrage time bar and the documentation standard

There is no statutory demurrage time bar anywhere. The bar is purely contractual, and neither GENCON edition carries one, so on a GENCON fixture it exists only if a rider creates it. Oil-major charters commonly carry one in their additional clauses. The day count, the trigger event and the documentation list all vary by charter, and the clause is usually extinctive rather than procedural, meaning that the charterer’s liability disappears rather than the owner merely losing a remedy.

The clause can be two-stage, which is the trap. In AET Inc Ltd v Arcadia Petroleum Ltd (The Eagle Valencia) [2010] EWCA Civ 713 the charter was on the SHELLVOY 5 form and the time-bar wording came from the Shell Additional Clauses, that is from a rider rather than the printed text. It required the owner to notify the charterer within 60 days after completion of discharge if demurrage had been incurred, and to submit a fully and correctly documented claim received by the charterer within 90 days after completion of discharge, failing which the charterer’s liability for demurrage was extinguished. An owner that submits a complete claim on day 85 having missed the 60-day notice has lost it. The same case held that the notice of readiness is an essential document in support of a demurrage claim.

On documentation the leading modern authority is Tricon Energy Ltd v MTM Trading LLC (The MTM Hong Kong) [2020] EWHC 700 (Comm). An amended ASBATANKVOY clause barred any claim where the claim, the invoice and all supporting documents were not received before the bar. Because the demurrage was pro-rated by bill of lading quantities, the bills were supporting documents, and omitting them barred the entire claim, the clause making no reference to constituent parts as the clause in The Adventure [2015] EWHC 318 (Comm) had done.

Two qualifications keep the rule workable. Where a listed document never came into existence the requirement is not engaged, as in Lukoil Asia Pacific Pte Ltd v Ocean Tankers (Pte) Ltd (The Ocean Neptune) [2018] EWHC 163 (Comm). And an owner is not debarred from making factual corrections to a claim presented in time, on the reasoning of Bingham J in Babanaft International Co SA v Avant Petroleum Inc (The Oltenia) [1982] 1 Lloyd’s Rep 448, whose stated commercial purpose is that claims be presented within a short period of final discharge so they can be investigated while the facts are fresh. The standard the charterer is entitled to was put in “Amalie Essberger” Tankreederei GmbH and Co KG v Marubeni Corporation [2019] EWHC 3402 (Comm) as a self-contained package sufficient to evaluate the claim without collateral investigation. See demurrage time bars and documentation .

Laycan and the cancelling date

Laycan is the pair of dates between which the ship must arrive and tender a valid notice of readiness: the laydays date, before which the charterer is not obliged to accept her, and the cancelling date, after which the charterer may cancel. It is the second most negotiated term after freight, because it prices the charterer’s cargo program against the owner’s positioning.

The cancelling right is an option, not an automatic termination. If the ship misses the cancelling date the charter does not end by itself; the charterer elects whether to cancel or to take the ship late and claim damages if it has any. GENCON places cancelling at clause 9 in the 1994 edition and clause 14 in 2022. Where the charter carries a laycan narrowing provision the owner must declare a narrower spread as the position firms, which converts an option into a commitment at a defined point.

A separate obligation commonly sits alongside laycan: a statement of the date the vessel is expected ready to load. It is a distinct term from the cancelling date and it constrains the owner’s positioning independently of it. Treatment of both, including the consequences of a missed cancelling date in a rising and a falling market, is in laycan and cancelling .

Where performance becomes impossible rather than merely late, the question moves from cancellation to discharge of the contract, covered in frustration of charter parties . Where the ship departs from the contractual route, the analysis is in deviation in charter parties .

Voyage cost allocation and voyage economics

Under a voyage charter the owner bears every cost of moving the ship and the charterer bears the cargo and the delay. That split is what makes the freight rate a single number rather than a schedule.

The owner’s cost lines

The owner pays bunkers for the whole voyage including the ballast leg, port dues and pilotage at every call, canal tolls, towage, agency, crew wages and victualling, hull and machinery and P&I cover, and hold or tank cleaning between fixtures. Bunkers are the largest single line and the primary driver of profit or loss on a fixed freight, which is why the optimum speed economics of a voyage are calculated before the fixture rather than after it.

Port cost is assembled into a disbursement account, proforma before the call and final after it, covering port dues and disbursements at each end.

Where the bunker market can move materially between fixture and performance, a bunker adjustment provision shifts part of that exposure to the charterer. See bunker adjustment factor .

The charterer’s cost lines

The charterer buys and insures the cargo, pays freight and any deadfreight, pays demurrage where laytime is exceeded, and pays cargo handling where the form so provides. Cargo insurance sits outside the charter and is covered in cargo insurance and the Institute Cargo Clauses , with valuation in cargo insured value .

Time charter equivalent and break-even freight

A voyage fixture cannot be compared with a time charter offer or with a market index until it is converted to a daily figure. Time charter equivalent takes voyage freight revenue, deducts the voyage costs, and divides by the total voyage days including both the laden and the ballast legs. Break-even freight inverts the same arithmetic to find the minimum rate at which the voyage covers its costs, which is the number that decides whether to fix or to wait. Both are treated in time charter equivalent and applied in voyage estimation .

Charter party and bill of lading: incorporation and the Hague-Visby Rules

The bills issued under a voyage charter are governed by a different regime from the charter itself, and the gap between the two is where cargo liability actually lands.

The Rules do not apply to the charter of their own force

Article V of the Hague-Visby Rules provides that the Rules are not applicable to charter parties, but that if bills of lading are issued in the case of a ship under a charter party they must comply with the terms of the Rules. Article I(b) defines a contract of carriage as one covered by a bill of lading or similar document of title, including one issued under a charter party from the moment it regulates the relations between a carrier and a holder.

Four consequences follow, and each is practical rather than academic:

1. Between owner and charterer the Rules apply only because the parties said so, through a clause paramount , and then as contract terms rather than as a compulsory regime.
2. Article III rule 8 has no independent purchase on a charter party, because a charter party is outside the Article I(b) definition. Terms brought in by a clause paramount can in principle be modified by the same clause that brought them in, so the wording of the clause is the whole question.
3. On the bill, Article X decides compulsory application: a bill issued in a Contracting State, carriage from a port in a Contracting State, or a clause paramount in the bill itself.
4. Article I(a) defines carrier as including the owner or the charterer who enters into a contract of carriage with a shipper, so a voyage charterer issuing bills on its own form is a carrier to the holder whatever the charter says between charterer and owner.

The back-to-back gap is the point a claims handler cares about. Where the charter incorporates the Hague Rules unamended and the bill is compulsorily Hague-Visby, the owner’s exposure to the holder exceeds its recourse against the charterer, and the difference is uninsured contract risk. Which charter terms travel into a bill, and on what wording, is treated in charterparty bills and incorporation and in bill of lading .

Package limitation and the burden of proof

Under Article IV rule 5(a) as amended by the SDR Protocol of 21 December 1979 the limit is 666.67 units of account per package or unit, or 2 units of account per kilogram of gross weight, whichever is the higher, unless the nature and value of the goods were declared before shipment and inserted in the bill. The unit of account is the IMF Special Drawing Right. The unamended Hague Rules limit is 100 pounds sterling per package or unit, and United States COGSA 1936 sets USD 500 per package or customary freight unit, the United States having ratified neither Protocol. See package and unit limitation .

On proof, Volcafe Ltd v Compania Sud Americana de Vapores SA [2018] UKSC 61, decided 5 December 2018, held that the carrier bears the legal burden of disproving negligence under both Article III rule 2 and Article IV rule 2. To rely on an excepted peril the carrier must prove the peril, prove that it caused the damage, and prove that it was not caused to operate by the carrier’s own negligence. That allocation, not the list of exceptions, is what decides most cargo claims. The underlying obligation is in seaworthiness and due diligence , and the reported regime detail in Hague-Visby Rules and bills of lading .

The competing regimes

Status figures are from the UNCITRAL status pages, consulted on 1 September 2026. Party counts for the Hague family are deliberately omitted: the three instruments have three different party lists, Visby Protocol Article 6 makes ratification of the Protocol by a non-party to the 1924 Convention operate as ratification of the Convention so the lists cannot be added, and a State can apply the Hague-Visby text by domestic legislation without being a Contracting State for Article X purposes. Published compilations of those counts disagree with each other and none is current.

Where cargo is delivered without production of the original bill, the practice is governed by letters of indemnity rather than by the Rules. See letter of indemnity in shipping and, on the master’s position when tendered cargo he should not load, master’s right to refuse cargo .

The market layer: how a voyage fixture is benchmarked

A voyage fixture is priced against a published market, and for dry bulk that market is the Baltic Exchange. The Baltic Dry Index is a composite of the dry bulk timecharter averages of the Capesize, Panamax and Supramax indices, weighted 40 per cent, 30 per cent and 30 per cent, as published by the Baltic Exchange and read on 3 September 2026. Handysize is not a BDI constituent, despite the Baltic publishing a separate Handysize index.

Baltic Exchange index constituents and weightings, read 3 September 2026.

Two features of the index basis are routinely missed. Every Baltic timecharter vessel description is non-scrubber fitted, so the index prices a non-scrubber baseline and a scrubber-fitted ship earns the fuel spread on top. And the Baltic publishes tanker assessments on both a Worldscale basis and a time charter equivalent basis, which is the bridge between a WS number in a recap and a daily figure an owner can set against a time charter offer. Detail is in Baltic Exchange , Baltic Dry Index and freight indices and Baltic dirty and clean tanker indices .

The index also underpins the paper market. A voyage charterer hedging freight exposure, or an owner locking in forward earnings, trades against the index rather than against a physical fixture, which is the subject of forward freight agreements . Physical rate structure and the surcharge layer that sits above the base rate are in ocean freight rates and ocean freight cost and surcharges .

General average and cargo security

General average is the principle that extraordinary sacrifice or expenditure made for the common safety of ship, cargo and freight is shared proportionally among the interests in the adventure. It is governed contractually by the York-Antwerp Rules, which are maintained by the Comite Maritime International, are not a convention and have no force of law, and apply only where the contract incorporates them.

Four editions circulate: 1974, 1994, 2004 and 2016. YAR 2016 was adopted unanimously by the CMI Assembly at New York on 6 May 2016. BIMCO’s Documentary Committee agreed on 10 May 2016, announced the following day, that all new and revised BIMCO charter parties, bills of lading and waybills would refer to adjustment under YAR 2016 in place of YAR 1994, and the BIMCO Average Bond Clause was amended in 2017 in line with Rule G and Rule XVII. ASBATANKVOY 2025 makes YAR 2016 mandatory. YAR 1994 remains widely incorporated in older contracts, and YAR 2004 was rejected by shipowners and is rarely seen.

The edition is therefore a recap item in exactly the way the charter form edition is, and more than one edition can apply to a single casualty where different parcels travel under different bills. Where general average is declared, cargo is not released until security is provided, by average bond and guarantee or by cash deposit. See general average and the York-Antwerp Rules and York-Antwerp Rules 2016 .

Two related clauses travel with general average in the bill. The New Jason clause preserves the carrier’s right to a general average contribution where the casualty arose from negligent navigation, and the Himalaya clause extends the carrier’s defenses to servants and independent contractors. Where the charter is on a time-charter form in a chain, cargo claim allocation between owner and charterer runs through the Inter-Club Agreement , which is an NYPE-family mechanism and does not apply to a voyage charter.

The regulatory overlay on a voyage fixture

Emissions regulation reaches a voyage fixture through contract clauses, not directly, because the regulated party is usually the owner or the ISM company while the commercial decisions that move emissions sit with the charterer. BIMCO publishes the clauses that bridge that gap, and three points about them are commonly stated wrongly.

Carbon Intensity Indicator

The clause for a voyage fixture is the CII Clause for Voyage Charter Parties 2023, adopted by BIMCO’s Documentary Committee on 11 October 2023. The 2022 instrument is the CII Operations Clause for Time Charter Parties and is a time charter clause; it is not the voyage clause under a different name.

What the voyage clause does is narrower than it is often described. It is broadly in line with the BIMCO Slow Steaming Clause for Voyage Charter Parties 2012 and retains some of its wording. Subclause (a) entitles the owners and the master to adjust course and to reduce speed or RPM, provided the vessel’s speed basis good weather stays above a figure the parties must fill in; the definition of good weather and the minimum speed are blanks, and the clause does not operate until they are completed. Subclause (b) provides that proceeding in accordance with (a) is compliance with, and no breach of, any obligation to proceed by the usual or customary route or with utmost or due despatch, and optionally any speed and consumption warranties. The laycan is expressly unaffected, and the clause contains no right to reject voyage instructions.

The regime the clause responds to is in what is CII , the operational consequence in slow steaming and CII , the clause family in BIMCO CII clauses and the speed provisions in BIMCO slow steaming clauses .

EU Emissions Trading System: three voyage clauses, not one

BIMCO adopted and published three voyage charter ETS clauses on 8 December 2023, and the parties choose between them:

• ETS Emission Scheme Freight Clause for Voyage Charter Parties 2023, which builds the allowance cost into the freight rate.
• ETS Emission Scheme Surcharge Clause for Voyage Charter Parties 2023, under which the charterer pays an agreed surcharge corresponding to the vessel’s emissions within the scope of the applicable scheme, while the owner remains responsible for surrendering the allowances.
• ETS Emission Scheme Transfer of Allowances Clause for Voyage Charter Parties 2023, under which the charterer transfers actual allowances rather than paying money.

BIMCO states expressly that the three are alternatives developed so that parties can choose a procedure suited to their trade. The Emission Trading Scheme Allowances Clause of 2022 is a time charter clause and is not one of them. The clauses are also scheme-neutral: Emission Scheme is defined to cover the EU ETS and any other similar system imposed by a lawful authority, which is why the same wording survives a non-EU scheme appearing. Companion clauses exist for contracts of affreightment (2024), SHIPMAN (2023), memoranda of agreement (2025) and BARECON (2026). See BIMCO ETS clauses for voyage charters , with the underlying regime in EU ETS for shipping and its phase-in in EU ETS maritime scope and phase-in .

FuelEU Maritime: there is no voyage charter clause

As at 3 September 2026 BIMCO’s published FuelEU Maritime clauses are for Time Charter Parties, adopted 25 November 2024, for SHIPMAN, published 19 December 2024, and for Memoranda of Agreement, 2025. There is no voyage charter version. A voyage fixture that needs to allocate FuelEU exposure therefore does it by bespoke rider, or by borrowing the freight and surcharge architecture of the ETS voyage clauses.

The terminology in Regulation (EU) 2023/1805 is worth getting right, because it is frequently inverted. The Regulation uses compliance balance, compliance surplus, compliance deficit and FuelEU penalty. A ship that beats the applicable greenhouse gas intensity limit generates a compliance surplus, which can be banked or pooled; a deficit attracts the penalty. A surplus is the good outcome. See FuelEU Maritime explained .

Sanctions and war risks

Sanctions exposure on a voyage fixture is handled by the BIMCO Sanctions Clause for Voyage Charter Parties 2020, and war risk by the War Risks Clause for Voyage Charter Parties 2025, the successor in the VOYWAR line. Both are separate from the sanctions and war risk provisions written for time charters, and both are commonly amended by rider in trades touching a listed area. See BIMCO sanctions clauses , CONWARTIME and VOYWAR and war risks insurance . Counterparty screening before the fixture is covered in charterer vetting policies and vessel vetting , with the tanker inspection regime in SIRE tanker inspections .

BIMCO also publishes a Just in Time Arrival Clause for Voyage Charter Parties 2021, for use where the parties have agreed a scheme allowing the charterer to ask the owner to optimize speed so as to arrive at an agreed time. It is the contractual vehicle for the operational practice described in just in time arrival and port call optimization , and it interacts with weather routing and marine voyage planning and routing .

Charterer-facing emissions reporting through the Sea Cargo Charter sits alongside the clause layer and does not replace it.

Disputes: seats, procedures and the four time bars

Most voyage charter disputes are arbitrated rather than litigated, and the seat is a recap item. The BIMCO Law and Arbitration Clause 2020 offers London, New York, Singapore and Hong Kong in a single wording, and GENCON 2022 adopts it at clause 37. ASBATANKVOY 2025 offers the same four with New York as the default.

The current London rule sets are the LMAA Terms 2021, the LMAA Intermediate Claims Procedure 2021 and the LMAA Small Claims Procedure 2021, all effective 1 May 2021. There is no later edition. Two points about the thresholds are usually mis-stated:

• The SCP 2021 applies, in the absence of an agreed monetary limit, where the total of the claimant’s claims and the total of any counterclaims does not exceed USD 100,000, with that limit applying separately to claims and to counterclaims and not as an aggregate figure.
• The ICP 2021 applies, absent an agreed limit, where claims or counterclaims exceed any agreed SCP upper limit or USD 100,000, but where neither the claims nor the counterclaims exceed USD 400,000, exclusive of interest and costs.

Both are defaults that apply only where the parties agreed to the procedure, not automatic bands that a claim falls into by size. The LMAA states that parties not infrequently agree higher limits, so a USD 120,000 demurrage claim can be kept in the SCP by agreement. Where a counterclaim later pushes an ICP reference above USD 400,000, either party may, no later than 14 days after service of the counterclaim, demand in writing that both claim and counterclaim proceed under the LMAA Terms 2021; the tribunal may so order, and if it does not the reference continues under the ICP.

Cost, not merit, usually decides whether a small demurrage claim is referred at all. For SCP references commenced after 31 March 2024 there is a fixed arbitrator fee of GBP 5,000 plus VAT payable in advance, recoverable costs are capped at GBP 6,000 in the arbitrator’s discretion, the LMAA presidential appointment fee is GBP 450, and a counterclaim exceeding the claim attracts an additional fixed fee of GBP 3,000.

The other seats have their own current rules: the SMA Maritime Arbitration Rules 2024 in New York, applying to contracts entered into on or after 1 October 2024; the SCMA Rules 4th edition in Singapore, in force 1 January 2022, with an expedited procedure where neither claim nor counterclaim exceeds USD 300,000; and the HKMAG Terms 2021 in Hong Kong, for appointments on or after 1 September 2021 and substantially based on the LMAA Terms 2021.

London arbitration is now conducted under the Arbitration Acts 1996 and 2025. The Arbitration Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 24 February 2025 and came fully into force on 1 August 2025 under SI 2025/905, amending rather than replacing the 1996 Act and applying to arbitrations commenced on or after that date in relation to arbitration agreements whenever made. Three of its reforms bear directly on charter disputes: a power of summary dismissal, which bites hardest on an unmeritorious demurrage or freight defense; a default rule on the law governing the arbitration agreement, which removes a recurring uncertainty where a charter names a London seat with a foreign governing law; and a revised section 67 framework for jurisdiction challenges, which matters where the fixture was concluded on a recap and its existence is in issue.

Four separate time bars can defeat a claim arising from one voyage:

1. Hague-Visby Article III rule 6, one year from delivery or from the date delivery should have taken place, extendable only by agreement made after the cause of action arose. It extinguishes the claim (The Aries) and reaches misdelivery occurring after discharge (FIMBank plc v KCH Shipping Co Ltd [2024] UKSC 38, decided 13 November 2024).
2. The general limitation period, six years from accrual on a simple contract under English law, and different elsewhere, so name the system before quoting a number.
3. The contractual demurrage bar, commonly 90 days from completion of discharge and often two-stage.
4. The Inter-Club Agreement bar of 24 months, extended to 36 where the Hamburg Rules apply compulsorily, which is an NYPE-family provision and bears on a voyage charter only by contrast.

See cargo claim time bars , and for security and enforcement against the ship, maritime lien and ship arrest and the LLMC Convention .

Limitations

This article states the international and contractual position and identifies national law as an overlay wherever one applies. Six limits are worth naming.

English law is not the world. The case law here is predominantly English because most voyage fixtures on GENCON and the oil-major forms choose English law and London arbitration, but the results are not universal. The clearest divergence is the safe berth warranty: under English law the undertaking is judged by the Eastern City test with the abnormal-occurrence carve-out, while in CITGO Asphalt Refining Co v Frescati Shipping Co Ltd, decided by the United States Supreme Court on 30 March 2020 by 7 to 2, the ASBATANKVOY safe-berth clause was held to establish a warranty of safety rather than a duty of due diligence, resolving a circuit split. Diligence in selecting the berth is therefore beside the point in New York in a way it is not in London. See safe berth warranty in the United States .

Standard form texts are not public. BIMCO no longer serves sample contract text openly and Shell and BP publish none, so clause numbering here is drawn from the editions as catalogued and from clause references appearing in reported judgments. Verify the numbering against the actual form before relying on a clause number in correspondence.

Some Worldscale inputs are subscriber-only and are not restated here. The Association publishes the mechanism, that voyage time and port time are calculated and multiplied by the fixed daily hire, but the standard vessel’s service speed, its bunker consumption at sea and in port, and the port time allowance appear only in the Preamble to each edition, which is available to subscribers. Those basis-of-calculation values are set out in the Worldscale article against the Preamble; they are not repeated here, and a figure quoted for them without a Preamble citation should be treated as unverified.

Party counts for the Hague family are not given. Published compilations disagree, none is current, and the three instruments cannot be summed because Visby Protocol Article 6 makes ratification of the Protocol by a non-party to the 1924 Convention operate as ratification of the Convention.

Time bar day counts are charter-specific. The 90-day figure is common in oil-major additional clauses and is not a market standard. Neither GENCON edition carries a time bar at all. Read the clause.

Index weightings change. The Baltic Exchange revises route baskets and constituent weightings periodically. Every weighting in this article was read on 3 September 2026 and should be re-checked against the Baltic’s published index constituents before being used in a calculation.

Quantitative work on a live fixture belongs on the fixture, not on a reference article. The formula cards here state the method and its source; where a companion calculator exists on ShipCalculators.com the card links to it.

Related Articles

• Charter parties overview - the four charter structures compared, and where the voyage charter sits among them
• Time charter party - the period-hire alternative, under which the charterer directs employment and buys the bunkers
• Laytime - how the allowed time is expressed, counted and interrupted
• Demurrage - the liquidated remedy for delay beyond laytime, and how the claim is built
• Notice of readiness - validity, tender and the consequences of an invalid notice
• Worldscale - the tanker freight benchmark, its flat rate construction and its annual revision
• GENCON charter party - BIMCO’s Uniform General Charter, clause by clause across both live editions
• Bill of lading - the cargo receipt and document of title issued under a voyage charter
• Hague-Visby Rules and bills of lading - the carriage regime that governs the bill and reaches the charter only by incorporation
• General average and the York-Antwerp Rules - proportional sharing of extraordinary sacrifice, and which edition applies
• Time charter equivalent - converting voyage earnings into a daily figure comparable with the market
• Voyage estimation - building the pre-fixture calculation that decides whether to fix
• Baltic Dry Index and freight indices - the published benchmarks a dry cargo fixture is priced against
• Bulk carrier - the principal ship type employed under dry-cargo voyage charters
• Oil tanker - the principal ship type employed under tanker voyage charters quoted in Worldscale
• Chemical tanker - the type fixed on BIMCHEMVOY and subject to the IBC Code
• Safe port and safe berth warranties - what the charterer promises when it nominates
• Maritime arbitration: LMAA, SMA, SCMA and HKMAG - the four seats and their current rule sets