Reversible Laytime

What it does

Reversible laytime treats the time allowed for loading and the time allowed for discharging as a single combined allowance rather than as two separate ones. The hours saved at the load port are added back to the pool and can be used at the discharge port, and the reverse also holds, so the charterer is assessed against the total time used across both operations rather than at each end independently.

The alternative is non-reversible laytime, where load and discharge are accounted separately and a saving at one cannot help an overrun at the other. Reversibility is an option the charterer must secure in the charter; if the clause is silent or specifies separate counting, the charterer cannot pool the time, and any overrun at one port stands on its own regardless of how fast the other was worked.

Commercial effect

Reversibility benefits the charterer by smoothing the risk of a slow port against the efficiency of a fast one. A charterer that loads quickly but expects a congested discharge can carry the saved load time forward to absorb the discharge delay, reducing or eliminating demurrage that would otherwise arise from looking at the discharge port on its own.

For the owner the effect runs the other way: pooling the allowances gives the charterer more room before demurrage starts, so the owner is less likely to be paid for delay at a single slow port if it is offset by speed elsewhere. Whether laytime is reversible is therefore a meaningful lever in the overall bargain, and it is priced alongside the length of the allowance and the demurrage and despatch rates.

Owner's perspective

The owner generally prefers non-reversible laytime, because separate accounting at each port means a slow operation at one end produces demurrage even if the other end was quick. Keeping the allowances apart maximises the occasions on which the owner is compensated for delay and removes the cushion that pooling would otherwise hand the charterer across the voyage as a whole.

Where the owner concedes reversibility, it does so as part of the wider negotiation, often in exchange for a shorter total allowance or a firmer freight rate. The owner wants the clause to state plainly how the pooled time is calculated and how despatch, if payable, is assessed against the combined account rather than separately at each port in the rotation.

Charterer's perspective

The charterer values reversible laytime as a hedge across the voyage, letting efficiency at one port subsidise delay at another and lowering the chance of paying demurrage on the leg that runs slow. It is especially attractive where one port in the rotation is reliably fast and the other is prone to congestion or to weather interruptions that eat into the allowance.

The charterer must secure reversibility expressly, since the default in many forms is separate counting. It also considers how reversibility interacts with despatch, because pooling the time changes how any saving is measured and paid. Aligning these terms with its sale or sub-charter contracts prevents a mismatch between the time it is allowed and the time it can pass on.

Negotiation points

• Whether laytime is reversible at all, or accounted separately at load and discharge.
• How the combined allowance is calculated and how any overrun is apportioned for demurrage.
• How despatch, if payable, is assessed against the pooled time rather than at each port.
• Whether reversibility is conceded in exchange for a shorter total allowance or other terms.

Common variations

• Fully reversible laytime, pooling all load and discharge time into one account.
• Non-reversible laytime, with each operation counted and settled separately.
• Averaging, where the results at each port are netted off against each other after separate calculation.
• Reversible at the charterer's option, declared within a set time, leaving the choice until the position is clearer.