2018-06-06
624 Laytime Clauses 装卸时间条款
2.200法院接着又说：这一看法是在The Sandgate和The Tropwave两案的判词中均有支持，即使后者并未参照诸如Sandgate —案的判决。基于这一点，法院做出结论判词，说：
因此，对第一个问题的回答我们是站在船东一边的。我们在得出这一结论时颇有些踌躇，因为我们的观点与一个著名的商业判决意见相左。而从另一方面，则令人满意地看到，我们所提出的解释也曾经被许多在这一法律领域最有经验的仲裁员们所引用过。
2.201 In the House of Lords, the view of the majority in favour of the owners was expressed by Lord Goff, who also clearly was impressed by the fact that in the original arbitrations from which the appeals lay, the construction favoured by the owners was unanimously adopted by the arbitrators. On this he said:
It is plain that what really struck the arbitrators was that the clause did indeed provide for an overall rate of discharge, and did not expressly provide for a rate per hatch, despite the existence of well-known authorities dealing with clauses which so provided. They were simply not prepared to ignore the express provision for the overall rate; they preferred to treat the reference to ‘‘available workable hatches’’ not as substituting a rate per hatch for the expressly provided overall rate for the ship, but rather as imposing a qualification upon it.
2.201在上议院，Goff勋爵代表大多数的大法官的观点支持船东，说：他还明确地记得这样一个事实，即引起上诉的最初仲裁裁决中，仲裁员全体一致同意船东的解释。针对这一点，他说：
显然，真正打动仲裁员们的是该条款实际上已经规定的是总的卸货率，而没有明确规定每个舱口的卸货率，尽管有涉及这样规定的条款的著名判例存在。他们的确不准备有意忽视总速率的这一明确规定；他们宁可引用‘可用作业舱口’一词，而不是想用每舱口速率来代替船舶明确规定的总速率，但要给它强加一个限制条件。
2.202 The second point considered by the courts arose only from the arbitrations in respect of The Proteus and Dinara. Those vessels were ordered to small ports in India where discharging had to take place in the stream where discharge was effected using the ships’ gear. Although each vessel had five hatches, each only carried four cranes. In these circumstances, charterers contended that the contractual average rate of discharge should be limited to 800 tonnes on the basis of four available workable hatches. In both arbitrations, that argument was also rejected.
2.202法院考虑的第二个问题仅是从Proteus和Dinara这2个仲裁案中引起的。那些船舶都被指派去印度的一些小港，在那儿不得不用船吊在锚地卸货。尽管每艘船都有5个舱口，但是，每艘船仅有4个克令吊。
针对这些情况，承租人争辩说基于只有4个可作业的舱口，合同所规定的平均卸货率应限定为800吨。在这2个仲裁，这一论点均被驳回。
2.203 Agreeing with this conclusion in the High Court Webster J said:
I agree with this conclusion which seems to me to follow inevitably from the hypothetical example of a gearless vessel sent by charterers to discharge at a port where discharge has to take place in the stream and where there are no floating cranes. In such a case, if the charterers’ contention were correct and if owners and charterers were to stand on their rights, laytime would continue indefinitely until the contract was terminated by frustration. This would seem to me to be an absurd result.
2.203对于这一仲裁结果，高等法院的Webster法官表示赞同，他说：
我同意这一结论，在我看来，可以从假设的例子：承租人派遣一艘无吊机的船前往某一港口卸货，而该港既无浮吊又不得不在锚地卸货，是不可避免地得出这一结论。在这种情况下，如果承租人的争辩是正确的，并且船东和承租人又都坚持自己的权利的话，那么装卸时间就会无限地计算下去，直至合同最终受阻失效。我认为那样的结果将是非常可笑的。
2.204 The judge also reached the same conclusion by pointing out that a hatch was not the same as a piece of cargo gear by which cargo could be loaded or discharged and he found no authority in any of the five cases that were relevant to show that laytime by reference to a ‘‘hatch’’ relates to the availability of loading or discharging gear. He also suggested that when Hobhouse J mentioned ‘‘winch’’ breakdowns discussing the earlier cases, this was an error since they did not break down.
2.204 这位法官也得出了同样的结论，并指出，一个舱口并不等同于能够进行装卸作业的一件起货设备，而且他还认定：在5个相关的案例中，并没有一个判例表明装卸时间所参照的‘舱口’同其装/卸货机械装置的可用性有关联。他还指出：在讨论前几个早期案例时，Hobhouse法官曾经提及‘绞盘车’失灵的事，由于那些案件都没有涉及机械故障，所以这在当时是一个判决错误。
2.205 In the Court of Appeal, the court agreed with both the High Court and the arbitrators saying:
. . . the charterer was given an option as to the safe port or anchorage which he could choose... the charterer was given the right to use ships’ gear but was not obliged to do so.
In these circumstances it seems to us that the laytime provisions cannot be affected by the fact that the charterer ordered the vessels to be discharged by small ports in India where shore cranes could not be used, so that only the four cranes on board each vessel could be employed to unload the five hatches.
2.205 上诉法院同意高等法院以及仲裁员们的说法：
……给予承租人选择安全港口或锚地的选择权……也给予了承租人使用船舶起货设备的权利，但这并不是义务强迫这样做。
在这些情况下，我们认为，装卸时间条款的规定就不会受这一事实的影响，即承租人指示船舶前往印度的小港卸货，在那儿又不能使用岸吊，以致于只能使用仅有的4个在船的克令吊去卸这5个舱口。
2.206 The court agreed the position might have been different had one or more of the hatches been unworkable by reason of a defect in the hatch or hold itself, but they were not and they therefore concluded:
. . . the calculation of laytime cannot be affected by the fact that only four cranes were available for the five loaded hatches.
This point was not considered by the House of Lords.
2.206 法庭同意，如果有1个或几个舱口由于其舱口或货舱自身的缺陷导致无法作业的话，情形就不同了。但是事实并非如此，因此他们的结论是：
……装卸时间的计算不会受这5个装货舱口仅有4个可用克令吊进行作业的事实的影响。
对这一观点，上议院未予考虑。
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