Laytime Exceptions

What it does

Laytime exceptions are the events the charter lists as stopping the laytime clock, so that time lost to them is not counted against the charterer. Typical exceptions include weather interruptions, Sundays and holidays, strikes, and other stoppages outside the charterer's control. While an exception applies, laytime is suspended and the free period is effectively extended by the duration of the interruption.

The scope of the exceptions is a question of drafting: some are built into the day type, such as weather working days, while others are added as separate clauses. Their reach is usually confined to the laytime period, because the once-on-demurrage rule generally prevents them from suspending time once the vessel has passed into demurrage, unless the charter clearly carries them forward.

Commercial effect

Exceptions allocate the risk of specified delays to the owner by removing them from the charterer's laytime account. The broader the list and the more loosely it is drafted, the more delay the charterer can deduct, and the longer in real time the vessel may be held before demurrage begins. Exceptions are therefore as important to the economics as the length of the allowance itself.

For the owner, every exception is time the ship may wait unpaid, so the negotiation over the list is a direct contest about who bears each category of delay. The interaction with the day type and with the once-on-demurrage rule shapes how much the exceptions are actually worth, since protections that vanish at the demurrage threshold are worth less than they first appear on the page.

Owner's perspective

The owner wants the list of exceptions kept short and tightly worded, with each one confined to events genuinely outside the charterer's control and clearly defined as to when it starts and stops. Loose or open-ended exceptions extend the unpaid waiting the owner must absorb, so the owner scrutinises catch-all wording and resists exceptions that overlap with risks it regards as belonging to the charterer.

The owner also relies on the once-on-demurrage rule to switch off the exceptions when laytime expires, and so resists any wording that would carry them into the demurrage period. Where it must concede an exception that survives into demurrage, it wants that carry-forward expressed narrowly and supported by clear records of when the excepted event actually interrupted the work.

Charterer's perspective

The charterer seeks exceptions broad enough to cover the realistic interruptions at the ports in its trade, since each one is protection against paying for delay it could not avoid. Weather, holidays, and strikes are common priorities, and the charterer wants the clauses drafted so that genuine stoppages are excluded without an unrealistic burden of proof falling on it.

The charterer keeps the records needed to justify the deductions it claims and aligns the exceptions in its head charter with those in its sale or sub-charter contracts. It also remembers that, by default, the exceptions stop protecting it once laytime has expired, so where a delay is likely to persist past that point it negotiates an express carry-forward into the demurrage period.

Negotiation points

• Which events are excepted (weather, holidays, strikes, and others) and how each is defined.
• Whether any exception is carried forward into the demurrage period or stops when laytime expires.
• The proof and records required to claim time lost to an excepted event.
• How the exceptions interact with the chosen day type and with the charterer's onward contracts.

Common variations

• Exceptions built into the day type, such as weather working days excluding Sundays and holidays.
• A separate excepted-periods clause listing strikes, weather, and similar interruptions.
• A strikes or force majeure clause addressing labour stoppages specifically.
• An express clause carrying named exceptions forward into the demurrage period.