Deadweight Tonnage (DWT)

What is Deadweight Tonnage?

The word ‘ton’ in shipping can denote both weight and capacity. Loaded displacement tonnage is the actual weight of the ship and cargo. Light displacement tonnage is the actual weight of the ship. The difference between the loaded displacement and the light displacement is the weight that the ship can actually carry and is known as the Deadweight Tonnage (DWT).

Bale Capacity and Grain Capacity - what is the difference?

Ship bale and grain capacity measurements are provided by shipyards for dry cargo ships. Ship bale and grain capacities are used for measuring cargo space availability for bulk or non-bulk cargoes. 

Ship bale and grain capacity measurements show the actual volumes available for cargo in numbers. Grain capacity is the space that is available for liquid-type cargo, like bulk grain, which can flow into every corner. Bale capacity is the space that is available for bagged or baled cargoes. Generally, a ship’s bale capacity is about 7–10% less than grain capacity. 

Arrived ship

The Laytime

It is clearly important to determine when laytime commences since this is the key to the division of responsibility for the time spent at the load and/or discharge port. Most charterparties require the owners to serve a notice of readiness at load or discharge port stating that the vessel is ready in all respects for cargo operations, the notice of readiness constitutes the contractual step which is required to trigger the commencement of laytime. Due to this, charterparties usually contain provisions which stipulate when notice of readiness may be contractually served and when laytime commences once notice of readiness has been validly served.

Stowage Factor (SF) is the density of the cargo in the ship’s hold. In the shipping business, Stowage Factor (SF) is a very important piece of information. 

Due to the ship’s cubic capacity, a ship has only a limited volume (space) in her holds. In some cases:

• Light Cargo: the ship’s holds are full before all the ship’s deadweight cargo capacity is utilized 
• Heavy Cargo: full deadweight capacity can be reached with space still available in holds, but that space is unusable

In the shipping business, some historic measurement systems are still in use, for example, variations of the old English system (imperial system) of weights and measures are still frequently used for Stowage Factor (SF) – cubic feet to one ton (ft3/ton). 

Reversible Laytime

In voyage chartering, permitting charterers to add up the laytime allowed for loading and discharging is called Reversible Laytime. In other words, any time saved (or exceeded) at the load port can be carried forward to the discharge port. Depending on the drafting of the relevant clause, charterers may only have a limited period of time for deciding whether to reverse.

Changes in Indonesian Government Policies

Some news about Indonesian coal business.

This is to inform you that due to some sudden changes in Indonesian Government Policies, export procedures have been changed with immediate effect. Exports being previously cleared on trade license now has to be processed under Miners Licenses along with export duties. Even the same is immediately functional for the shipments already loaded and therefore, no ship can sail or load further unless export duties and mine license documentation been done and therefore, all cargo already loaded has to be unloaded back to jetty.

Iran Sanctions

New sanctions for Iran are implemented. The statement on U.S. Department of the Treasury website states:

On May 8, 2018, the President announced his decision to cease the United States’ participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and to begin re-imposing the U.S. nuclear-related sanctions that were lifted to effectuate the JCPOA sanctions relief, following a wind-down period. In conjunction with this announcement, the President issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) directing the U.S. Department of the Treasury and other Departments and Agencies to take the actions necessary to implement his decision.

Ballast Water Management System and things you need to know about it

The Ballast Water Management Convention (the Convention), aimed at establishing standards and procedures to prevent the spread of aquatic organisms, enters into force and takes effect on 8 September this year. While it represents a significant environmental milestone for our planet, the Convention also means that the maritime industry has to gear up for a huge operational change.

Under the Convention, ships trading in international waters will need to ensure they are fitted with a ship-specific Ballast Water Management System (BWMS), according to the agreed implementation schedule. The BWMS installed must be approved by the Flag State in accordance with approval process defined by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

English Supreme Court rules in favour of OW Bunkers

On 11 May 2016 the English Supreme Court delivered its unanimous judgment on the RES COGITANS case in favour of bankrupt marine fuel supplier OW Bunker Malta (“OW Bunkers”) in a dispute over payment liabilities rejecting the further appeal of the ship owners. The outcome was generally expected, as the ship owners had been unsuccessful before the arbitrators, High Court and Court of Appeal.

Check list for Operations dept.

One of the main things to do, when a voyage is fixed and you operate vessel on time charter is drafting a check list for the voyage. Though it's not a very hard question, a check list may hardly be standardized, because it's structure depends on a particular voyage. However we may divide it into blocks and try to make universal rules for these blocks. Here's the example of blocks for an easy usual voyage basis 1/1 without passing channels.