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On 31 March 2020 the US Supreme Court decided that
the safe berth clause in charter parties establishes a warranty of
safety, in what is being hailed as monumental but widely expected
decision that could have far reaching consequences in the
chartering market.
In the relevant clause, the charter's duty to select a safe
berth was absolute. The charter had to designate a berth that was
safe and where the vessel could come and go always safely afloat.
In the final paragraph of the Opinion, the Supreme Court stated,
"Charterers remain free to contract around unqualified language
that would otherwise establish a warranty of safety, by expressly
limiting the extent of their obligations or liability."
Therefore, the ability to understand which berths are safe for
vessels to call, dependent on their draught, in the US has now
become very important as failure to comply with this ruling will
leave Charterers open from claims for any damages suffered by
vessels if they ground entering a port they were chartered to.
By using a platform such as Maritime Intelligence and Risk
Suite (MIRS) provided by IHS Markit, then this potential
pitfall can be avoided. As the issuer of IMO Numbers IHS Markit has
the largest database of commercial ships including draught
calculations, enabling charterers to select vessels of the correct
draught to enter a port. With additional layers of casualty
information and weather data, it is very easy for both charterers
and ship owners to make a dynamic assessment as to whether a
potential port has suffered any casualties due to groundings in the
past and whether a fully laden vessel could enter a port at a given
height of tide. By providing these types of dynamic insights it is
IHS Markit's objective to enable effective trade around the world
whilst helping those involved in this energetic business make
informed, time critical decisions.
Figure 1: Casualty events filter solely by stranded
vessels - provides clarity to what you need to see
Figure 2: Example of the data given for each casualty:
Date, Vessel Name, IMO and narrative of casualty
Figure 3: Example showing ENC (Electronic Navigation
Chart) information available within MIRS
