In addition to presenting the facts and the resulting results, the operator of the ship prepares what is known as a rest period declaration. This topic does not deal with the idea that the agent must be an expert in charter parties, and even if he is, it will never be his duty to interpret such documents. Nevertheless, it is necessary to understand the result of each action related to freight operations in relation to the charter contract clauses within the customer`s company in order to understand the true meaning of each line in such an important document. It is not a question of the need for the representative to decide which event should or should not be included in the statement of facts, since it is not for him to do so, but only to understand how such events might affect the interests of the principal. Since these are dry bulk goods, rain is the most frequent among all stops, mainly in tropical countries. These interruptions are noted in the Statement of Facts from the NOR call for tenders to the end of operations. The law on the recording of rainy periods, even if the ship is on routes waiting to be called to dock, assumes that operations would be interrupted if the ship were moored. To ensure that no mistakes are made, the officer must have a clear overview of what happened throughout the operation. For this reason, it is necessary to establish uniform communication with the master, port operators/tally sheets, owners and charterers. During the transaction, various disputes may arise; Therefore, some remarks could be included in the statement of facts, depending on the wishes of the master or the convenience of the officer under the supervision of the master and director. Common sense says that it is advisable to make available to all parties involved a draft SOF before the end of the operation, thus avoiding possible errors and / or misunderstandings. The most important issue related to the above topic is the distinction of the machine to which the failure is related. It is the duty of the representative to ensure that this is clearly stated in the statement of facts in the case of coastal or marine equipment that has failed during operation.
This makes a big difference, as downtime caused by engine failure of ships would be included in the statement of facts against ships and shipowners, resulting in losses to their business because it would not be counted as stopover time. It works like a mathematical formula. If the data inserted at the beginning of the SOF is incorrect, the hard work done afterwards could be affected as soon as the result of the idle time calculation is incorrect. In this context, particular attention should be paid to the NOR edition. While it is the master`s responsibility to file the declaration of preparation, it is the officer`s responsibility to ensure that the NOR is properly presented to all parties involved and to properly document it in the statement of facts. Another point that can be noted in the statement of facts in the first lines before the start of operation is the date of issuance of the free permit. This is not necessary for all ships, as it is a mere formality. It is usually required for SOF tankers, in the time charter contract and is just in relation to the beginning of the stopover. BPVOY4 is a charter party form that contains a specific clause covering this issue. Many events can occur during an operation, and for each of them, a row must be filled.
Recording the events on this step brings forward the reading of the rest time, which will begin after the NOR call for tenders. Since the purpose is to read between the lines of a narrative, events that occurred after berthing are explained on the basis of the common problems that arise at such a stage, with some clauses serving as a guide that can be found in a charter party for grain cargoes. One of the first things to observe when counting time at this point is from the moment the anchor is raised until the moment the first line is thrown ashore. In such an interval, time does not count and therefore the recorded times must be well adapted to the master to avoid errors in SOF. For the sake of clarity and simplicity, it is divided as follows: As one of the oldest personalities in international trade, the ship counts. There is no doubt that in the past it was the most important route for commercial and cultural dissemination, and to this day it is considered one of the engines that drive the global economy towards Therefore, it is also subject to the regulation of time. To underscore the importance of time in the shipping market, the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers, p. 86, states: The Voyager platform is at the intersection of workflow management and analysis for the marine industry. In our previous article, we`ll look at how our low-code workflow modeler can be used to create digital workflows that you can access and share across multiple networks. As we speak, our customers are creating and sharing digital listings, which are then uploaded and analyzed via API or in Voyager.
Contact us to find out more. In the marine industry, fact-finding is a document that records certain events related to the loading and unloading of a vessel. For the non-containerized sector of the shipping industry, 99% of these documents are still created using clipboard, pen and paper. From there, the document is manually transferred to PDF format and shared via email. On average, a statement of fact contains more than 30 events. Presentation of Facts (SOF). This is the document that is attached to a record of the calculation of time spent (the « Timesheet ») and is a record of events that may affect the counting of time spent in time. Statement of Facts (SOF) – This is a very important document on which operators base their calculations for stopover time calculations. This is a form/document that the ship`s master or port agent completes. It provides information and monitors all vessel-related activities from the movement vessel entering port until all loading operations are completed and the vessel has departed.
Above you will find the standard SOF form recommended by the Baltic and International Maritime Conference. Attention should be paid to the available columns and rows that need to be filled in. This can be seen as a smart way to compile data that could work well as a tool for commercial purposes if handled well by the carrier`s hand. This goes beyond calculating port call time and would also be useful to agents and clients in measuring port operator performance. There are various standard factual forms for dry cargo and tankers. A commonly used Statement of Facts (SoF) form is published by BIMCO. Statement of Facts (SOF) – All facts are counted during the ship`s stay in a port: take the pilot at sea on board I have often heard that it would be a minor inconvenience to make errors in the presentation of facts than in officers` receipts, for example in the case of a loading process. Of course, following the proper procedure, i.e. marking all the receipts already issued by Mate to make one correctly, can take a lot of time and energy than just spending a page of the statement of facts. Nevertheless, to claim that, for better or worse, it is less bad to make mistakes in the presentation of facts is to minimize its importance during the document. The above clause supports the need to record each event related to the aforementioned downtime in the statement of facts, as they are essential for the calculation of stopovers and could have a direct impact on charter activities.
It goes without saying that the nature of such events is beyond human control and is also beyond the control of the authorities and the trade chain. Such interruptions can be favorable to charterers when calculating the stopover time. The declaration shall be based on the facts reported in the statement of facts at the ports of loading and unloading and shall reflect in detail the calculation of the time spent at the port and, where applicable, a calculation for demurrage or shipment. The relevant facts are the date and time of the start or stop of the load, weather conditions and other conditions affecting the progress, the number of bands used, breakdowns, postponements, etc. Computer software is available to calculate idle time. For example, unlike Mate receipt, which is based on a pre-agreed number indicating the min/max of the load involved in the current shipment, meaning that the actual figures may even be lower than the maximum contract value, the factual presentation is used as a reference to calculate the stopover time. In the context of the charterer`s parent clauses, which are directly related to the liability of the charterer and the owner for the transport and freight operation. In short, when we talk about money, while the receipt of the ratings is associated with all the cargo shipped on board, as a mirror for the production of bills of lading, as well as a guarantee for shippers to receive their payment, the factual representation is used to determine how much demurrage or shipment to pay. These types of interruptions are very common, and therefore, an experienced agent must spend time determining the actual reasons for such events.
It is very common to be faced with certain situations where the longshoremen are not familiar with the ship`s gearboxes, but they do not take their fault and therefore this information is recorded in the count as the breakdown of a ship crane. If the tallymaster refuses to make a change, even after proving that it was not a failure of a ship, a remark must be included by the master in a statement of fact.