Claims Review

A lifeboat was discovered to be missing by the crew at 07.00 one morning. It had evidently fallen overboard during the preceding night. The Master reported the lifeboat as missing and it was eventually found drifting off the port of Naze in Japan.

Ship brokers fixed a charter party that contained an option for a second voyage. They failed to pass on the charterer’s message declaring the second leg option which had to be declared upon completion of loading of the first voyage.

A ship agent in Australia was asked by their principal to arrange for the disposal of dunnage and other materials related to the packing of cargo upon the ship’s arrival. Australia has strict local quarantine regulations.

A naval architect was asked to provide plans for modifications to a section of a racing yacht which was under construction. When providing the plans, they misstated the amount of carbon fibre tissue that was required to provide greater strength in the hull by stating that 400g was required instead of 600g. While this was not held to have led to any critical weakness within the hull, the owners decided to reinforce the hull by adding the missing carbon fibre during the winter season.

A pool manager fixed a ship on the basis that it could transit the new Panama Canal. The ships in that fleet were all of a size to be able to transit the canal and the pool manager believed that all the ships wereequipped appropriately for Panama Canal transit.

A surveyor in Canada was contracted to provide a load and stow survey for a barge of steel.

Yacht managers were instructed by the owners to terminate the employment of two crew members. Both crew members were French nationals employed by the owners. The managers gave the crew a month’s notice as required by their contracts which were said to be subject to “United Kingdom law”.

A cargo recovery agent was engaged in relation to three containers of seeds that had arrived wet. The cargo had a total value of US$145,000.

A naval architect was appointed by the builders of an 8m hydrographic survey vessel to approve the vessel’s design and stability in accordance with prescribed standards.

A maritime engineering consultant was engaged on a Boil-Off Gas (commonly referred to as “BOG”) Compressor Project. Their involvement included the design of the oil lube pump piping in the compressors. They prepared construction drawings and the oil lube pump piping was built in accordance with those drawings.