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).

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.

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.

Types of bulk carriers (one more post)

I saw this picture and understood that I cannot avoid posting it. :)

Draft alterations depend on water density

Good day

It happened that I forgot the formula for the calculation of vessel's draft at different water density, though I searched the Internet and found nothing in English. So I decided to translate the article, which I found in Russian.

When the vessel passes from one water basin to another, the salinity (seawater density) changes.  It's very useful to know the way vessel's draft will change. And for the determination of vessel's draft delta we will turn to physics.

Types of bulk carriers - part 2 (briefly)

In our previous post we have learned much about the types of bulk carriers. However in practice all one needs to know is always less, than they write in books. Thus, this article is here to show you all you need to know about classification of bulk carriers according to their size.

Types of bulk carriers

I would like to enlighten the basics, which will understand the whole picture. And another good book will help me out. It's named "Bulk carrier practice" by Captain J Isbester. It was written in 1990's, so the information might be outdated, but the basics are still the same:

CP proformas

Earlier I have wrote about what is a Charter Party. And now it's time to make a list of different CP proformas for easy reference. The list will be kept here and it will be updated from time to time.

Letters of indemnity

What is a 'Letter Of Indemnity'

In general Letter of Indemnity (LOI) is a letter guaranteeing that contractual provisions will be met, otherwise financial reparations will be made. The principle behind a Letter of Indemnity is the guarantee that losses will not be suffered if certain provisions of a contract are not met.

What is a 'Letter of Indemnity' in shipping

In case one party, which is providing the LOI fails to meet some provisions of the contract, which are also stated in the LOI, it will have to make financial repatriations, or cover financial losses of the other party, which is accepting the LOI connected with this breach. There are various situations in which a Shipowner or a Disponent Owner may be offered a Letter of Indemnity. In each case, this offer will usually be made in return for the Owner taking on some non-contractual risk.

Sometimes Owners request the LOI to be countersigned by Shippers and Shippers' bank together with Charterers' signature and stamp as a confirmation that goods are paid and Shippers do not mind of cargo discharging or changing the receiving party, or any other changes. However, that is not something that is requested very often.

Types of 'Letters of Indemnity'

Each situation, when there is a need in providing the LOI may totally differ from another. However, there are some types, that are most common and often used in shipping practice. These are LOI for:
- non presentation of BsL at discharge port;
- production of clean BsL (for shipment of unclean cargo);
- discharge and delivery of cargo at another port;
- switch of BsL;

The LOI is issued, when Owners are to be indemnified in one of the above-mentioned situations. And the possibility of any of above is usually stated in the governing Charter Party. In case, the Charter Party does not allow, for example, switch of BsL, then Owners have rights to refuse the switch and accordingly refuse to accept relevant LOI from Charterers.

Delivery clause - Time Charter Party

Good day, Everyone.

I would like to start an explanatory course about basics of time and voyage charter. In this article I will enlighten the specifics of Delivery Clause of time charter. It will be based on materials from a very good book named "TIME CHARTERS", author Terence Coghlin.

Stowage Factor of general cargoes

   Stowage factor (SF) indicates how many cubic metres (or cubic feet) of space one metric tonne of a particular type of cargo occupies in a hold of a cargo ship. It is calculated as the ratio of the stowage space required under normal conditions, including the stowage losses caused by the means of transportation and packaging, to the weight of the cargo. (Wikipedia)

What is a Charter Party?

The most general determination of a Charter Party term is:

A contract by which an entire ship, or some principal part thereof, is let to a merchant for the conveyance of goods on a determined voyage to one or more places.

Charter parties could be divided in the following basic categories:

What is laytime?

The definition of LAYTIME is :

‘the period of time agreed between the parties during which the Owner will make and keep the vessel available for loading or discharging without payment additional to the freight’.

or

'the time allowed to the charterers to load/discharge cargo in return for payment of freight to the owners. If the charterers are unable to load/discharge cargo within this allowed period, they will be obliged to pay demurrage or detention to compensate the owners for their loss of use of the vessel'

Safe port and safe berth

Today I have faced with a question, which is simple on the one hand, but is rather difficult on the other hand. The question was "may the particular port and berth be considered as safe port and safe berth?"

THE New York Produce Exchange (NYPE) charter party (as revised in 1946) is a typical time charter. It imposes an obligation on the charterer to ensure that the vessel is employed "between safe port and/or ports". A similar duty is imposed in a voyage charter party. But, in many voyage charter parties, load and disports are identified by name, which gives rise to different considerations.

Stowage Factor of bulk cargoes

  Stowage factor (SF) indicates how many cubic metres (or cubic feet) of space one metric tonne of a particular type of cargo occupies in a hold of a cargo ship. It is calculated as the ratio of the stowage space required under normal conditions, including the stowage losses caused by the means of transportation and packaging, to the weight of the cargo. (Wikipedia)

Oil prices

First of all, let's find out why did the price of oil keep falling during the last seven months.

Back in June 2014, the price of Brent crude was up around $115 per barrel. As of January 23, 2015, it had fallen by more than half, down to $49 per barrel:

Shipping terminology and acronyms / Glossary

А

AA	Always Afloat
AAAA	Always Accessible Always Afloat
AAOSA	Always Afloat or Safe Aground. Condition for a vessel whilst in port
AARA	Amsterdam-Antwerp-Rotterdam Area
ABAFT	Toward the rear (stern) of the ship. Behind.
ABOARD	On or within the ship
ABOVE DECK	On the deck (not over it - see ALOFT)
ABT	About
ADA	All details about
ADCOM	Address Commission
ADDENDUM	Additional chartering terms at the end of a charter party
AFSPS	Arrival First Sea Pilot Station (Norway)
A/E	Accept/Except