Running Days

What it does

Running days, sometimes called consecutive days, are calendar days that count one after another without interruption once laytime has begun. Unlike weather working days they do not stop for weather, and unless the charter says otherwise they include Sundays and holidays. The clock simply runs from the start of laytime through to the agreed allowance, regardless of whether cargo work was actually possible on any given day.

Because running days count continuously, they produce a shorter real-time allowance than the same number of weather working days for any voyage that meets interruptions. They represent the owner-friendly end of the spectrum of day types, and where they are used the charterer must rely on separate exception clauses if it wants relief for weather, holidays, or other stoppages along the way.

Commercial effect

Counting laytime in running days places the risk of interruption squarely on the charterer, since weather, weekends, and holidays all consume the allowance unless they are expressly excepted. For a voyage to ports prone to delay this can be a heavy exposure, because the time keeps running while cargo work is stalled and demurrage arrives sooner than a weather-based count would allow.

For the owner, running days are attractive precisely because they give a predictable, continuous count that is not eroded by interruptions. The choice between running days and a weather-sensitive definition is one of the clearest allocations of delay risk in the charter, and it is bargained alongside the number of days and the freight so that each side prices the exposure it is taking on.

Owner's perspective

The owner favours running days because they keep laytime counting continuously and bring demurrage forward whenever cargo work is interrupted for any reason. The continuous count removes the stop-start complications of weather working days and gives the owner certainty about when the free period will end and paid time will begin for the vessel.

The owner resists adding back exceptions that would erode the continuous count, since each exception moves the clause toward the weather-sensitive definitions the owner is trying to avoid. Where the charterer needs relief for particular events, the owner prefers narrow, clearly drafted exceptions rather than a wholesale shift to a different day type that would reopen the interruptions running days are meant to exclude.

Charterer's perspective

The charterer carries the interruption risk under running days and so must judge whether the allowance is long enough to absorb the weekends, holidays, and weather it expects at the ports in its trade. A running-day allowance that looks generous on paper can be tight in practice once continuous counting eats into it during the predictable stoppages of a real port call.

Where it cannot move the owner off running days, the charterer negotiates specific exceptions for the interruptions that matter most, such as holidays or severe weather, and checks that the resulting position matches its sale or sub-charter terms. It also keeps in mind that the once-on-demurrage rule will strip away even agreed exceptions once laytime has expired and the vessel is on demurrage.

Negotiation points

• Whether laytime runs in running days or in a weather-sensitive day type.
• Which interruptions, if any, are excepted from the otherwise continuous count.
• The adequacy of the allowance given that weekends and holidays consume it by default.
• How the day type aligns with the charterer's onward sale or sub-charter laytime terms.

Common variations

• Running days counting continuously, including Sundays, holidays and weather.
• Running days excepting Sundays and holidays only, while still counting weather time.
• Consecutive days wording with a short list of named exceptions.
• A mixed structure using running days at one port and weather working days at another.