Speed and Consumption Claims Are Argued Over the Weather Definition, Not the Data

A speed and consumption claim rarely turns on whether the vessel underperformed. It turns on what the charter party says about good weather, and on whose record of that weather the parties accept.

The pattern is familiar to anyone who has handled one. The charterer says the vessel steamed slower and burned more than warranted. The owner points to the weather, the currents or the loading pattern. Both sides work from assessment reports rather than toward a hearing, because full arbitration is expensive and comparatively rare, and most claims are settled long before a tribunal reads them. The vessel has, in principle, reported the same figures to everyone. What is in dispute is which of those figures fall inside the warranty at all.

That is the uncomfortable part for an operator or a claims handler. The good weather definition decides how much of the voyage is even eligible to be assessed, and it is frequently drafted loosely enough to support more than one reading. Some charter parties are drafted clearly and are argued over anyway. Absent a court ruling on the wording, there is usually room to argue.

What the argument is about

• •The good weather definition. Wind force, sea state, swell, duration, and what they are measured against. This clause decides which hours of the voyage count, and a claim can turn entirely on it.
• •Which weather record applies. The deck log is often what a tribunal prefers and is often the only continuous record available. An independent weather source is used where the charter party provides for it, or where the parties cannot agree and the contract sends them there. Neither side concedes the point casually, because it decides the outcome.
• •How the warranty is applied to what is left. Once the eligible periods are settled, the calculation is comparatively mechanical. Getting to that point is not.
• •Whether the claim covers one voyage or several. Most claims, particularly on the dry side where spot and short period business dominates, are made voyage by voyage. Assessments spanning multiple voyages are more common in some tanker trades.

Where reporting quality does and does not matter

It is tempting to conclude that better reporting wins claims. In the ordinary case it does not, because the way a noon report was filled in is rarely what either side is disputing. Manual noon reporting remains standard, and unless the charter party specifies that deck logs are to be used, the noon reports are the record everybody works from.

Where reporting does matter is earlier and quieter than the dispute. Data validated as it is entered, rather than reconciled afterwards, means the figures leaving the vessel are internally consistent from the outset. Consistency across the voyage means there is no gap for either side to characterize. And a performance position that is monitored while the voyage is running, rather than assembled at the end of it, means an owner knows where they stand before a claim arrives instead of after.

The cost of finding out late

• •A claim is normally settled on the strength of what each side can put on the table quickly. An owner who has watched the performance position through the voyage is in a different negotiation from one assembling it after the fact.
• •Hire is typically paid on a fifteen-day cycle. A discrepancy noticed on day three is not a deduction anyone agrees to on day three, but it is the difference between raising the question inside the period it belongs to and raising it once the money has moved.
• •Charterers form a view about which vessels self-report reliably, and that view follows the vessel into the next fixture.

What is worth doing

• •Read the good weather definition before the fixture is signed, not when the claim arrives. It is the clause that will decide the claim, and it is the one most often carried over untouched from the last fixture.
• •Use a reporting system the crew can complete accurately without a fight, with validation at the point of entry. The aim is not a better exhibit. It is figures that are right the first time.
• •Monitor charter party performance while the voyage is running. The value is in knowing the position early enough to do something about it, whether that means raising it, correcting something operationally, or simply not being surprised by it.

None of this displaces the legal merits, and the contractual framing is the greater part of the outcome. A tribunal applies the warranty, as written, to the periods the definition allows. But the operator's side of it is narrower and more practical than the dispute makes it look. Get the clause read before it is signed, get the data right as it is produced, and know where the voyage stands before somebody else tells you.