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　　《装卸时间与滞期费》第6版

　　Laytime Clauses 装卸时间条款

　　FIXED LAYTIME

　　固定装卸时间

　　2.1 If by the terms of the charterparty, the charterer has agreed to load or unload within a ﬁxed period of time, that is ‘‘an absolute and unconditional engagement, for the non¬performance of which he is answerable, whatever may be the nature of the impediments which prevent him from performing it and which cause the ship to be detained in his service beyond the time stipulated’’.

　　2.1如果根据租船合同中的条文，承租人已经同意在一段固定的时间内从事装货或卸货作业，这就是‘一种绝对的和无条件的义务，无论阻止他履行这种义务的障碍是属于什么性质，也无论在其作业中是什么原因致使船舶被滞留的时间超过了规定的时限，他都要为此未履约此项义务而负责’。

　　2.2 As was said by Lord Hunter, the Lord Ordinary, in the Scottish case of William Alexander & Sons v. Aktieselskabet Dampskabet Hansa and others:

　　It is well settled that where a merchant has undertaken to discharge a ship within a ﬁxed number of days he is liable in demurrage for any delay of the ship beyond that period unless such delay is attributable to the fault of the shipowner or those for whom he is responsible. The risk of delay from causes for which neither of the contracting parties is responsible is with the merchant.

　　2.2犹如苏格兰最高民事法院独任法官Hunter勋爵在苏格兰案件William Alexander & Sons v. Aktieselskabet Dampskabet Hansa and others案件中所说的：

　　这一点已经完全可以肯定：如果货方已经承诺在固定的天数之内之卸完船舶，那么除非延迟是由于船东或他应该为之负责的那些人的过失所引起的，否则货方就船舶因超过所规定的时间而生的任何延迟的滞期负责。对于因缔约双方均不负责的原因所引起的延迟之风险，亦应由货方承担。

　　2.3 It is of course open to the parties to agree that certain periods or causes of delay should be excepted, and this may be done either by incorporating the exclusion in the way the ﬁxed laytime is deﬁned—e.g. by reference to ‘‘weather working days’’, thus excepting periods of adverse weather and holidays—or by an additional clause.

　　2.3当然，合同的缔约双方完全可以自由商定将某些时间或造成延迟的某些原因排除在外，并且这种除外可以通过对固定的装卸时间加以限定并将此除外条款以并入的方式予以实现，例如，通过引用‘良好天气工作日’，此表达方式，以此将恶劣天气和节假日的时间排除不计；或者以附加条款的方式将某些时间段排除在外。

　　2.4 The advantage to the shipowner of a charter providing for ﬁxed laytime is that he can pre-determine the length of time that his vessel will be engaged in loading or discharging, if there are no exceptions; and if there are, then at least he will have some idea of the likelihood of delay because only certain causes of delay will be for his account. Any others not so speciﬁed will be for the charterer’s account.

　　2.4采用固定装卸时间的租船合同对于船东的好处是，他可以提早明确他的船舶被用于装货或者卸货作业的时间长度，如果没有除外规定的话；或者如果有除外规定，因为他将只为某些特定的延迟原因负责，他至少对该延迟的可能性能够做到心中有数。而其他任何没有明确规定的延迟，都将由承租人承担。

　　2.5 Fixed laytime may be expressed in one or other units of time, which will form the subject of most of this chapter, or as a rate of working cargo, which, once the amount of cargo is known, will enable the amount of laytime to be calculated. Even if it is expressed as a rate of working cargo, there will still be a time element to which the following principles will apply, but there will also be speciﬁc rules for this form of laytime, which are dealt with towards the end of this chapter.

　　2.5固定的装卸时间可以用不同的时间单位表示，这些便是本章所要论述的主要内容；或者以货物的装卸作业效率表示，在使用这种表述方式时，只要知道了货物的数量，就可以计算出可用于装卸作业的时间总量。即使是以货物装卸作业的效率表示，仍然有适用下述各项原则的时间因素，但是对于这种形式的装卸时间也同样存在着一些特殊原则。本章拟在结束的部分对这些特殊原则加以论述。
　　

　　Calendar days

　　日历日

　　2.6 When steamships became more common, in the second half of the nineteenth century, new principles also emerged relating to the counting of time during loading and discharging. The importance of time to the steamship owner was stressed by Mathew LJ in Yeoman v. Rex, where he said:

　　At 9 o’clock on Saturday morning the lay days were over, or rather the lay hours because in this charter, as is usual with reference to steamships, time is calculated by hours and not by days.

　　2.6在十九世的后半叶，当蒸汽机船舶已经变得十分普遍的时候，有关算装货作业和卸货作业期间持续时间之新的原则也开始出现了。Mathew大法官在Yeoman v. Rex案中着重强调时间对于船东的重要性。他说：

　　在星期六早晨九点钟，装货天数就结束用完了，或者更确切说是装卸时间结束了。因为在该份租船合同中，正如通常对于蒸汽轮船那样，时间是以小时为单位而不是以天数为单位计算的。

　　2.7 It was usual in the days of sail and the early days of steam for charters to provide for a speciﬁed number of lay days, but not to provide expressly when laytime was to commence after arrival. There was, however, no need for the charter to specify this, because it was customary for time to count from the day following the vessel’s arrival, unless the merchant chose to commence cargo operations earlier. The number of days allowed, which were calendar days from midnight to midnight, then ran consecutively, with part days counting as whole ones. It was not necessary for a pro-rata provision in the clause specifying the demurrage rate, since demurrage was bound to be a whole number of days.

　　2.7通常，在帆船时代和早期的蒸汽机轮船时代，当时的租船合同一般都是规定一定的装卸天数，但当时也并没有明确规定在船舶抵达之后装卸时间从何时开始起算。然而，在那个时代，对于租船合同根本无需对此加以规定。因按照当时的习惯，除非货方选择提早开始装卸货作业，否则装卸时间一般都是从船舶到达的翌日起算。而所允许使用的天数是指从午夜至午夜的日历日，然后就一直连续计算，不足一天则当做一天计算。在当时规定的滞期费率的条款中，按比例计算是完全没有必要的，因为滞期费肯定是完整的天数。

　　2.8 Lord Devlin put it this way in Reardon Smith Line Ltd v. Ministry of Agriculture:

　　In the beginning, a day was a day—a Monday, a Tuesday or a Wednesday, as the case might be. Work began, one may suppose, sometime in the morning and ended in the evening, the number of hours that were worked varying from port to port and in different trades. But whatever the number was, at the end of the Monday one lay day had gone and at the end of the Tuesday another; and if the work went into Wednesday, that counted as a whole day because of the rule that a part of a day was to be treated as a day. For this reason the charterer was not obliged to use a ‘‘broken’’ day. If notice of readiness was given during the day he could, if he chose, wait until the following day so that he could start with a whole day.

　　2.8 在Reardon Smith Line Ltd v. Ministry of Agriculture案，Devlin勋爵对这一问题做出这样的说明：

　　首先，一天就是一天，例如星期一、星期二或星期三等等，视具体情况而定。人们可以这样假设，装卸作业在上午的某时开始并在晚上的某时结束。装卸作业所使用的钟点数会随着港与港的不同和贸易种类的不同而变化。但是不论使用了多少小时，持续到星期一结束时即是过去了一个装卸日，并且到星期二结束时便又过去了一个装卸日；然后，如果装卸作业进行到星期三，由于不足一日亦要看作一日对待的原则，所以它又被算作一个完整日。正因如此，承租人没有必要必须使用‘非完整’日。如果在某一天已经递交了装卸货准备就绪通知书，如果承租人可以选择的话，他很可能会一直等到第二天，以便使他能够在一个完整日开始其装卸货作业。
　　

　　2.9 The working of these rules may be illustrated by the facts of Commercial Steamship Co v. Boulton, where, all lay days having been used up at the port of loading, a vessel arrived in dock at the port of discharge at 05 00 on a Tuesday. Discharge commenced at 08 00 on the Wednesday and ﬁnished at 08 00 on the Thursday. In these circumstances, it was held that charterers were liable for two whole days’ demurrage.

　　2.9关于这些原则的运作和实施，我们可以通过Commercial Steamship Co v. Boulton—案的事实加以说明。在该案中，所有的装卸天数在装货港就已经被全部用完，船舶于星期二0500抵靠卸货港码头。卸货作业在星期三上午0800开始，于星期四上午0800结束。在这种情况下，法院判定承租人需要支付二个完整天数的滞期费。

　　2.10 The same rules relating to broken periods apply to the calculation of laytime, where the charter provides for a rate of cargo working. Thus, in Houlder v. Weir, the charterers were entitled to 29 days and a portion of a day for the discharge of the cargo and it was held that, in the absence of anything to the contrary, the charterers were entitled to 30 days.

　　2.10 在租船合同中规定装卸作业效率的情况下，关于非完整时间的规则也同样适用于对其装卸时间的计算。因此，在Houlder v. Weir—案中，承租人有权使用29天和一天的部分时间用于卸货作业。法院判定，在没有任何相反规定的情况下，承租人实际上有权使用30天的时间。

　　2.11 Whilst lay days are to count consecutively, their continuity can be interrupted by the exclusion of Sundays and holidays, if there is an express provision to this effect or local custom so provides.

　　2.11在连续计算装卸天数时，如果这有明示条文，或当地习惯对此规定，装卸天数的连续性就会被星期天和节假日除外的规定所打断。

　　2.12 Speaking of how lay days should be calculated, Lord Esher MR said in Nielsen v. Wait:

　　They must begin from the time, when the ship is at her berth in the usual place of delivery, where she can deliver. They must begin then, and they are to be counted, unless something appears to the contrary, consecutively. That is not because the phraseology says that they are consecutive, but because it is taken as a necessary implication of the meaning of both parties, that the moment the ship begins to unload they are to go on consecutively each day to unload her and they must not either of them at their option take a holiday without the leave of the other.

　　2.12在谈到装卸天数应该如何计算时，上诉法院院长Esher勋爵在Nielsen v. Wait—案中说：

　　装卸时间肯定从这一时刻，即当船舶靠在她通常交货地点的泊位，同时她可以在此交付货物时开始起算。除非出现某种相反的情况，否则装卸时间肯定要从那个时刻开始，并且要一直连续计算。这并不是因为所使用的措词说它们是连续的，而是因为这被看作当事双方意思的必然默示结果，亦即从船舶开始卸货的那一刻起他们就要连续不断地每天卸货，而且他们中的任何一方都不能在没有得到另一方的许可的情况下擅自按照自己选择而单独停下来休息（而不计入该天的时间）。

　　2.13 An example of how a local custom could affect the consecutive running of days is provided by Cochran v. Retberg, where it was found that the word ‘‘days’’ in a bill of lading providing for the carriage of goods from the River Elbe to London meant, by usage of the port of London, working days and thus Sundays and Customs House holidays were excluded.

　　2.13 在Cochran v. Retberg—案提供了一个当地的习惯是如何影响连续计算装卸天数的实例。在此例，法院认定，在为从易北河往敦运输的货物的提单中规定的词语‘日/天’含义，根据伦敦港习惯，是指工作日，因此星期日和海关的节假日均被排除在外。

　　编者介绍

　　魏长庚船长：1996-2000 年在大连海事大学学习，获得航海技术专业学士学位。具有16年海上船舶航行经验，魏长庚船长一直热爱海商法（重点是英国海商法）的学习，并致力海商法的翻译工作（包括Informa出版的Bill of Lading（提单），Laytime and Demurrage（装卸时间与滞期费）等书籍

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