《装卸时间与滞期费》第6版
CHAPTER 3 第3章
Commencement of laytime 装卸时间的起算
3.485 Having said that, the textbooks were of little assistance on this occasion, seeming to concentrate on ‘‘always accessible’’ being synonymous with ‘‘reachable on arrival’’, ignoring its possible application to departure from the berth, as did the Voylayrules 1993 (but see the definition in Baltic Code 2007 quoted above). The tribunal inferred that this meant that the charterers, by agreeing ‘‘always accessible’’ terms, were under an obligation to provide a berth which was available immediately on arrival but that that particular regime did not apply after the ship was actually in berth, when the normal charterparty provisions as to laytime would apply.
3.485已经说过,一些教科书在此也没有多大帮助,好像都是集中在把‘始终可以自由进入’视为‘抵达即马上靠泊’同样意思这方面,忽略了它很可能适用于离泊方面,如Voylayrules1993(参看上文引用的Baltic2007规则的定义)。仲裁庭根据‘始终可以自由进入靠泊’条文推断出承租人有责任在船舶到达时提供安排一个立即可用的泊位,但这种独特的制度并不适用于船舶实际靠泊后,租船合同中条文诸如装卸时间正常适用的情况。
3.486 That there had been no academic discussion of the point, or that it had not been considered by the authors of the Voylayrules, seems a rather weak basis to draw the inference the tribunal did. However, the tribunal then went on to consider dictionary meanings of ‘‘accessible’’ and concluded that none had made any mention of ‘‘access from’’ as opposed to ‘‘access to’’. They did not consider what effect the addition of the word ‘‘always’’ might have.
3.486关于这一点还没有学术上的讨论,或者说,它还没有被Voylayrules的作者考虑到,作为仲裁庭如此推断的基础似乎是相当薄弱。然而,仲裁庭又考虑了这一词语‘Accessible’字典中的含义,随后做出断定是:这并没有提到任何与‘进入’相反‘离港开出’的含义。他们也不认为增加‘始终’这一词语可能会产生怎样的作用。
3.487 In The Forum Craftsman,[1] Hobhouse J said:
The word ‘‘always’’ imports an absence of qualification and is often used for that purpose in the drafting of exceptions clauses.
Applying this to the phrase ‘‘always accessible’’, the question becomes: does it mean the berth itself should be able to be approached by any vessel of the size of the vessel in question during the period of loading/discharging (or could be but for the presence of the berthed vessel); or is it more restricted in meaning, as the arbitral tribunal held, and means only that the particular vessel must be able to get to the berth when it wishes to do so?
3.487在The Forum Craftsman案,Hobhouse法官说:
‘始终’这个词经常是被毫无任何限制地引入并应用于拟定除外免责条款之中。
若这句话适用于‘始终可以自由进入靠泊的’这一短语,问题就变成:是否是指泊位本身,能够在装卸货期间被任何大小的船舶靠近(或,要不是已经靠泊的船舶占据着,是能够如此);或者,如同仲裁庭所裁定的,是否是更限制性的含义,仅意味着是指某种特定船舶,当它希望靠泊时就必须能够进入泊位?
3.488 The tribunal had a further reason for finding as they did based on the High Court decision in The Kyzikos,[2] where Webster J held that the expression ‘‘always accessible’’ did not mean that because fog or other weather conditions prevented the vessel from safely approaching the berth it was not accessible. However, on that point the subsequent decisions in The Fjordaas[3] and The Sea Queen[4] went the other way and, in relation to a ‘‘reachable on arrival’’ provision, held that bad weather was within the protection afforded by the phrase. On this point there is no logical reason why different considerations should apply between the two phrases and it is suggested that the Fjordaas and Sea Queen decisions are the ones that should be followed in relation to ‘‘always accessible’’.
3.488仲裁庭还认为他们有理由做出如此认定是基于高院在The Kyzikos案中Webster法官对‘always accessible’这一表述方式的判决,即该短语并不是指由于大雾或其它天气情况(阻止船舶安全进入泊位)才导致泊位是不可自由进入的(即还有其它情况)。然而,对于那一点,后来的案例The Fjordaas 和The Sea Queen却使用另一种方法处理,是有关‘抵达即立即马上靠泊’条文,它们的判决是恶劣天气是在这种短语提供的保护之下。关于这一点,这里没有逻辑上的理由为什么要在这两个短语之间适用不同的考虑,所以,这建议,就有关‘始终可以自由进入的’方面的争议,这两个The Fjordaas 和The Sea Queen案例的判决是应当遵循的。