Repudiation of the contract, most often by the voyage charterer or timecharterer when the ship misses her cancelling date, or by the time chartererwhen the ship is off hire for longer than the period stipulated in thecharter- party.Every charter has a date by which the shipowner must tender notice ofreadiness to the charterer that the ship has arrived at the port of loading andis ready to load. This date is known as the cancelling date. The charterermay have the option of cancelling the charter if the ship arrives after this date. It may be the second of two dates which comprise the laydays cancelling,for example, laydays 25 March cancelling 2 April or, when abbreviated tolaycan, laycan 25 March/2 April. The charterer is not obliged to commenceloading until the first of these dates if the ship arrives earlier.If a ship is likely to be delayed in reaching the load port (in the case of avoyage charter) or the place of delivery (in the case of a time charter), theshipowner may ask the charterer to extend the cancelling date. If the chartereragrees, the contract is amended accordingly. If not, the charterer may havethe option to cancel the charter either before the cancelling date by mutualagreement or after the cancelling date within a time specified in the charterparty.Alternatively, the shipowner may be obliged to present his ship at theload port, however late.The cancelling date may be contained in a cancellation clause or cancellingclause. Alternatively, it may be shown separately, such as in a box on theface of the charter- party. In this case, the cancelling clause merely containsthe definition.BIMCO has published a cancelling clause called BIMCO CancellingClause 2002 (Code Name: CANCELCON 2002) which reads as follows:“(a) Should the Vessel not be ready to load (whether in berth or not) on the agreed cancellingdate, the Charterers shall have the option of cancelling this Charter Party.(b) Should the Owners anticipate that, despite the exercise of due diligence, the Vessel will not beready to load by the cancelling date, they shall notify the Charterers thereof without delay statingthe expected date of the Vessel's readiness to load and asking whether the Charterers will exercisetheir option of cancelling the Charter Party, or agree to a new cancelling date.Such option must be declared by the Charterers within 48 running hours after the receipt of theOwners' notice. If the Charterers do not exercise their option of cancelling, then this CharterParty shall be deemed to be amended such that the seventh day after the new readiness datestated in the Owners' notification to the Charterers shall be the new cancelling date.The provisions of sub- clause (b) of this Clause shall operate only once, and in case of the Vessel'sfurther delay, the Charterers shall have the option of cancelling the Charter Party as per subclause(a) of this Clause.”
You must be Register or logged in to view full content, high resolution maps, charts, pdf and more.
