精彩海运视频，极具深度的专栏文章和海量的市场分析报告，以及指数、油价和气象信息

　　　　《装卸时间与滞期费》第6版

　　　　CHAPTER 3 第3章

　　　　Commencement of laytime 装卸时间的起算

　　Dock charters 码头租船合同

　　3.40 The Oxford English Dictionary deﬁnes a dock as ‘‘an artiﬁcial basin excavated, built round with masonry and ﬁtted with ﬂood gates, into which ships are received for purposes of loading and unloading or for repair’’. Often there are a series of inter-linked basins with a range of berths and wharves. In one sense, therefore, a dock charter is a hybrid between a berth and a port charter, and like a port charter, it covers a geographical area. In Nelson v. Dahl in 1879 in the Court of Appeal, dock charters were said to be ‘‘a comparatively recent introduction’’.

　　3.40《牛津英语词典》中对码头的定义是的：‘一个人工挖掘的、周围为砖石结构并配有一个水闸门的港池，船舶驶入其内的目的是为了进行装卸货或修理’。通常一系列的港池是由一排排泊位和码头连接起来的。所以，从某种意义上说，码头租船合同是泊位租船合同与港口租船合同的混合形式。如同港口租船合同一样，它包含一定的地理区域。在1879年Nelson v. DaW 案中，上诉法院认为码头租船合同算是‘比较新的格式’。

　　3.41 Dock systems may be either tidal or non-tidal but, since they usually have a clearly deﬁned entrance, there is usually little dispute as to when a vessel arrives in dock, and that will be when she reaches her speciﬁed destination.

　　3.41有些码头设施受潮汐影响，有些码头不受潮汐影响，但，因为它们通常都有一个明确的进出口，所以，对于船舶何时抵达码头，或者说船舶何时抵达其指定的目的地，这几乎不会产生什么争议。。

　　3.42 In Tapscott v. Balfour the charterparty concerned speciﬁed that the ship should load a cargo of coal at ‘‘any Liverpool or Birkenhead dock as ordered by charterers’’, and the charterers ordered the vessel to Wellington Dock. However, on arrival, the vessel was unable to enter the dock and when she did so some days later, there was a further delay before she was able to get into a position where she could commence loading. The charterers argued that they were not responsible for these delays.

　　3.42在Tapscott v. Balfour—案中，租船合同规定：该轮必须在‘承租人指定的利物浦港或Birkenhead港的任一码头’装煤，后来承租人指示该轮前往惠灵顿港的码头。然而，在该轮抵达之后却等了许多天才靠上码头，这在船舶进入开始装货的地点之前又有进一步的延迟。承租人辩称他们不负责这些延迟。

　　3.43 Rejecting this argument, Denman J commented:

　　. . . on the day when the ship arrived in the dock the shipowner had done all that [he] was bound to do.

　　Of the nomination of the speciﬁc dock by the charterers, Bovill CJ said:

　　It seems to me that the effect of such selection was precisely as if that dock had been expressly named in the charterparty originally and the agreement had been that the vessel should proceed direct to the Wellington Dock...

　　3.43 否决了这一辩解，Denman法官说到：

　　……当该轮抵达码头时，船东已经做到了他应做的一切了。

　　针对承租人指定的这个具体的码头，首席法官Bovill认为：

　　在我看来，这个选择是清晰明确的，其效果就如同在原租船合同中曾经明文指定了该码头一样，该协议就是要求该轮应直驶惠灵顿港的码头……

　　3.44 Some eight years later, the courts again had to consider the question of responsibility for delay because of congestion in relation to dock charters when the House of Lords held in Dahl v. Nelson, Donkin and others that ‘‘the ship did not fulﬁl the engagement in the charterparty to proceed to the Surrey Commercial Docks by merely going to the gates of the docks’’. What had happened was that on arrival in the Thames, the Euxine, the vessel concerned, proceeded to the Surrey Commercial Docks with her cargo of timber, but the dock manager refused it entrance into the docks as they were full and the ship could not be given a discharging berth.

　　3.44 大约八年后，法院又一次讨论了在有关码头租船合同下因拥挤产生的延迟责任问题，在Dahl v. Nelson，Donkin and others案，上议院定：‘根据租船合同规定，该轮驶往Surrey商业码头，而仅仅是抵达该码头的入口处，不算已经完全履约’。该案的案情是这样的：有关船舶Euxine轮，装载原木驶往Surrey商业码头，当她抵达泰晤士河时，码头负责人拒绝她进入港池靠泊，原因是泊位已被其他船占满了，无法再给她空出一个卸货的泊位。

　　3.45 However, if a vessel does gain admittance to the docks, for whatever reason, she has nevertheless arrived at the speciﬁed destination. This was the result in Compagnie Chemin de Fer du Midi v. A Bromage & Co where a vessel called the Smut was ordered to discharge her cargo of pit props at Barry Dock. On arrival, although no berth was available, she was allowed to enter the dock as she was short of bunkers. On completion of bunkering, she gave notice of readiness although not in berth. Charterers therefore argued that laytime should not start to run because she was not in berth and/or because the vessel had only been admitted because of her unseaworthiness by reason of being short of bunkers. Both these arguments were rejected by Greer J, who said:

　　It seems to me there are many reasons which may expedite or delay the arrival of a ship in the place from which her time was to count. The fact that the arrival was expedited in this case by the good nature of the dock authorities in letting her in in order to prevent her from lying in the roads without sufﬁcient coal, is one of the circumstances that have in fact resulted in her being an arrived ship before she would otherwise have been.

　　3.45然而，如果该轮获准进码头的话，不论怎样，她都算已抵达了指定的目的地。这是Compagnie Chemin de Fer du Midi v. A Bromage & Co—案的判决结果，其中此案中的船舶Smut轮被指示前往Barry港的码头卸下矿井坑道支柱。在抵达后，尽管没有空闲适用的泊位，但由于该轮燃料不足，被准许驶入码头的港池。在加完燃料后，尽管她仍未靠泊，但是她仍然递交了准备就绪通知书。因此，承租人辩驳说：装卸时间不应该起算，因为该轮并不在泊位上，而且/或者该轮唯一被获准进入码头的理由是她不适航——燃料不足。但是这些观点均遭到了 Greer法官的否决，他说：

　　在我看来，似乎有许多理由可能加快或推迟船舶抵达其装卸时间应该开始计算的地方。事实上，在该案中，码头当局为了防止该轮因没有足够燃煤而停留在航路上，才准许她进入码头，就是一个很自然的加快了她的抵达的原因，正是这种情况下，她就成为了事实上的抵达船，而不是别的样子。
　　