Most of the disputes we are asked to help with months later start on the day a vessel is delivered, not on the day she is redelivered. A note from recent on-hire bunker and condition work in Argentina and Brazil.
Recent on-hire work
Over the last few weeks our surveyors attended:
- On-hire bunker and condition surveys at San Lorenzo and Timbúes, the grain and oilseed terminals of the Up River stretch of the Paraná.
- On-hire bunker and condition attendances up river on the Paraná, where the vessel is delivered to charterers as she arrives to load.
- An on-hire bunker and condition survey at Vitória, on the Brazilian coast.
- A draft survey combined with an on-hire condition survey at Barcarena, at the mouth of the Amazon.
What we insist on with the team
Two rules apply to every on-hire survey we attend, whichever the port.
The condition part is not a formality
Holds, hatch covers, cranes, previous cargo residues and any existing damage go into the file with photos and dates. That record is the only baseline the off-hire survey will have to compare against. If a dent in a hopper tank or a seized hatch cleat is not in the on-hire report, it becomes an argument at redelivery, and the party that did not document it will usually lose it. Our condition survey checklist exists precisely so that nothing on that list is skipped because the vessel was in a hurry to start loading.
Bunkers and condition in the same attendance, same timeline, same report
Owners and charterers should not have to reconcile two documents written by two different people hours apart. Remaining on board at delivery is measured by the same surveyor who walks the holds, with the time of each sounding recorded against the vessel’s trim and list at that moment. One attendance, one timeline, one report: the quantities and the condition describe the same ship at the same hour.
Port by port, surveyor by surveyor
That is the file we are building at UPRIVER Marine, port by port and surveyor by surveyor, in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. It is not a template; it is the same procedure on board and the same review before a report leaves our office.
When you take a vessel on hire in South America, what do you wish your surveyor photographed more of? We read every answer, and the good ones end up in the checklist.
