A cargo insurance surveyor’s perspective

The following paper was given at the Maritime Law Association of Australia & New Zealand Annual Conference 2004.

Archimedes got to grips with the sense of movement of objects at sea and famously said “If it floats it will cost you a lot of money…” –or was it Sir Isaac Newton?

Yachts, launches, and ‘boats’ of all types are all but deck cargoes of irregular shapes. It is interesting to note right at the outset that there are far more cargo losses involving deck cargo of regular easily discerned shapes than of the irregular ones. That being said, when our irregular shaped cargo does get into trouble, it can be spectacular.

This discussion is all taken from a cargo insurance perspective but much of it will apply equally to the surveyor working for the ship or ship’s agent.

I am not going near the 'how-to-secure-containers-six-high-on-deck' debate as there are far more expert minds being bent to that task ( The Container Handbook is a valuable resource on that subject); rather I am looking into the sequences of events and problems which surround the loading of yachts, big and small, as deck cargo. The term ‘yachts’ is used here to encompass those with sails and those without.

This is also necessarily from a New Zealand point of view although recently I have found that my colleagues overseas encounter much the same situations. In several instances, I have swapped anecdotes with surveyors who jump right back with a “me too!” reply.

The problems which present themselves are not insurmountable but they can lead to frustrations when one or more of the parties does not really know what they should be doing.

In many cases, the cargo insurance surveyor may well find themselves, unwittingly, acting as a mediator, a co-ordinator or even the final arbiter when a decision has to be made. I find, personally, that I have to make it perfectly clear from the outset what my job entails and where my responsibilities lie; through experience, if I haven’t, I find myself in the invidious position of being presented with an “it’s up to you” scenario...

I offer sincere thanks to Captain John Knott for guidance on this subject. His excellent book Lashing and securing of deck cargoes (from which you may recognise certain phrases here) is unashamedly recommended.

Who is the instructing party and who pays the fee?

I am sure I am not alone when I recall the numerous jobs presented to me which start with “Are you able to look after a yacht loading for us?”

This might come from an insurer, a broker or sometimes a freight forwarder who has been asked to provide cargo insurance for a yacht transit as part of a package deal.

In some cases it might even be the yacht owner’s agent, manager or skipper; whoever it is I know now to find out, from the outset, to whom I report and of course who will be paying my fee.

What does the instructing party expect?

It is then vital to make sure the instructing party is aware of what I will and will not do as “the surveyor”. This avoids the dilemma of being seen to be or thought to be acting as, at some crucial later stage, the owner’s decision maker or the person in charge.

I do have a standard document in which I describe in outline what I expect to do during loading surveys and what I will report on. I don’t use it when acknowledging instructions from cargo insurers (unless I think something needs calrifying) but always with the likes of forwarders, yacht owners and owners’ agents. In it I include the phrase “I am not in charge of, nor do I take responsibility for, the loading operation.”

Who is involved?

The key parties will comprise (in no special order):

The yacht owner or their agent

Quite often this is the skipper. These people may or may not be used to dealing with their yachts being transported by ships. Those not used to it tend to be led by the forwarder’s advice or, in some cases, the surveyor can be met with a total blank when seeking crucial details about the yacht.

The freight forwarder

This might be a well-known operator or, more problematically, a company which has recently branched into servicing the world-wide yacht trade from within New Zealand.

Their role is pivotal to the scheme and those without the experience can quickly become bogged down in the hail of questions, demands and raft of co-ordination work required.

The ship’s agent or shipping company representative

This person is almost certainly going to be “ship-centric” in that they have a vessel on a schedule which must not be delayed. At the top end, they are extremely helpful, supportive and pro-active in the job at hand; at the other end, the surveyor can be met with the equivalent of “the ship is here, the yacht goes on or it doesn’t”. The surveyor’s dilemma here is trying to find out how best to get them motivated.

The ship’s surveyor

If the shipping line has no local experience to hand they may appoint their own surveyor to look after their interests. Commonly the appointment may well include the actual planning and co-ordination of the loading and securing operations. If this is the case, the cargo insurance surveyor’s job may well be much simplified; both will appreciate the needs of the other leading to a co-operative result.

Stevedores

This fraternity has changed tremendously over recent years; for the good part they are very professional and flexible in their ways; on the down side, as surveyors will know, there can be a dearth of experienced personnel on the day.

Is there a plan and who is in charge?

If, as referred to above, there is a ship’s surveyor involved there is likely to be a plan of action for the entire operation. In a few exceptional cases, yacht owners themselves employ a manager who takes on a planning and co-ordinating role.

Without a plan the entire operation tends to dissolve into ‘suck it and see’ with a lack of correct equipment, unsuitable lashings and much time wasting. Worse, the surveyor can end up with the dilemma of being asked to approve a less-than-acceptable result when, seemingly, there is no time left to carry out the job properly.

With operations such as these there are highly specialised tasks involved and for each task there needs to be someone in charge with the necessary skills. Overall however, there needs to be a ‘commander’ who knows the plan. Finding this person can be difficult when the surveyor arrives, as is often the case, quite late in the overall scheme. There is nothing worse than watching a yacht dangling in mid-air about to hit the ship’s side and hearing several voices all shouting instructions at the same time!

If there is no plan then I will respectfully suggest that one is implemented; this does not always go down well and quite often is ignored. The dilemma for the surveyor here is to decide if forcing the issue will create more problems than working with no formal plan. A judgement call has to be made balancing the risks.

Who provides the gear?

If I hadn’t asked this very simple question in the past one yacht would have been landed on a ship’s deck with no lashings available to tie it down. Everyone thought someone else was supplying the lashings. I was actually asked “Where can we buy lashings?” on the day before the loading. This was an isolated case thankfully!

 The above provided a salutary lesson; always ask and confirm who is to provide the gear and equipment. It should be remembered that not all ships calling at New Zealand ports carry yachts and they might only have a bare minimum of wires and chains aboard – if you are lucky. The days of cargo ships carrying spare gear or “just in case” lashings are, for the most part, long gone.

For lifting the yacht onto the ship it is frequently the case that stevedores will provide the gear.

In some cases, such as heavy lift ships per se, the shipping company may stipulate that only their own lifting gear is to be used on their cranes.

In either case the surveyor will be careful to check and note the gear is serviceable and has current tagging detailing lifting ratings.

Am I exposed?

The surveyor will always have an exposure to claims for loss or damage resulting from their negligence; it is unavoidable. With care though the amount of that exposure can be minimised substantially. I am not able to delve into the legal niceties of disclaimers, contractual negotiations and the like; these are best dealt with by the lawyers amongst us.

However it can be said that the surveyor needs to take special care not to represent themselves as being an expert on a subject when they are clearly not so.

The practicalities

“It will have to lift to shift” – this phrase should always be borne in mind  when dealing with deck cargoes; in fact, any cargo, goods or objects being carried.

Yachts, both with sails and without, come in many styles, shapes and sizes. They may be super-luxury or bare-bones racing machines but they are all fragile, unwieldy and need to be supported pr cradled. They also have the added complication of having expensive naked paintwork and often flimsy (in merchant seafarer terms) fittings.

 Inside, some of these yachts have very expensive fixtures and fittings including the sort which can fly around in rough weather. I have seen crystal vases still left on tables, glass topped coffee tables with no lock downs and dining chairs left around saloon tables. That said, many yachts are fitted out to actually sail or be driven in blue waters and have been well set up to care for their valuables. The surveyor still needs to keep an eagle eye out however for loose drums of oil in engine rooms, spare gear not locked away and canvas covers liable to be ripped away on the high seas.

 In one instance, the skipper of the yacht and his wife were sailing with the ship. I asked that the yacht be fully secured down below, weather-proofing attached to vents and the like and the external doors locked. They seemed amazed; “Why?” they said, “we will be onboard every day doing maintenance”. I then had to explain that the Captain was not going to wait while they shinned up a 4m ladder, in the teeth of a South Atlantic storm, to secure the yacht and their belongings...

 Leading away from the subject of valuables inside to the outside it will be necessary to find out from the owner or their representatives the whereabouts of approved lifting points. In one ‘easy’ job, a racing yacht had a built-in single lifting point adjacent to the mast step. This contrasts with another involving an ex-passenger ferry (partly converted to be a luxury yacht) where it was necessary to crawl through all the spaces counting out the main frames in order to determine the best positions for lifting slings. The sets of building plans kept with yachts (if at all) are sometimes very thin on these aspects. It might be the case that the builders themselves need to be consulted to ascertain where the yacht can be safely lifted.

It is extremely embarrassing for all concerned if, when the yacht is lifted, there are ominous cracking sounds.

 There is then the proposition of where lashings will be attached on the yacht. Those yachts set up for blue water operations will probably be fitted with substantial cleats, fairleads and winches. Those vessels designed for, shall we say, entertainment will have stylish but probably weak deck fittings; these may be useless when it comes to attaching lashings.

If there are only ‘decorative’ cleats fitted then those responsible for lashing will have to be more creative and careful with placement.

Fore & aft or athwartships?

 It is commonly accepted “fact” that yachts must be stowed fore & aft as cargo. This “fact” has arisen, I suggest, because of the way their cradles have been designed.

Cradle design has been driven from a land-lubber’s point of view; after all, they only needed to hold the yacht while it was sitting on a slipway or in a yard. The over-riding need was to make it easy to drive the yacht in and out; cradles are always temporary affairs.

If a cargo is to be shipped, time trouble and expense are taken to package the goods so that they will cope with the adventure and all (well, most of) the risks to be encountered.

 Flying in the face of all of this it is expected that a yacht (the cargo) is dropped into a cradle, plonked (literally) on deck and then tied down as if it were a crate or shipping container.

 If it was taken that the yacht needed to be packaged sufficiently (as in the sense of, say, Institute Cargo Clauses “A”) then, I suggest, a whole new attitude to the design of cradles would appear.

Thus, as a surveyor, I would have less hesitation accepting an athwartships stow for a yacht provided the cradle, the “packaging”, was properly designed.

Cradles

“To cradle” – to hold securely with a certain sense of care and comfort? Believe it when you hear that some cradles do less than this!

 Cargo surveyors are not usually construction or mechanical engineers or naval architects; they do have, or so we like to believe, a good sense of what should be right for the job at hand. This sense will have been gained from first-hand observation of the more experienced carrying out their work; an understanding is (or used to be) quickly gained that cargo reaching the other end in good condition is due to skill and care, not good luck.

Cradles for the size of yachts usually encountered here are steel and more often of welded construction. It is not uncommon though to come across bolted structures - these have probably been designed with a brief of portability, storage and re-use.

 Personally I do not like to see these used because of the increased number of ‘risk’

points; ie the points where human error might creep in with bad results. Aside from hidden faults (which can plague us all) welded joints can be more easily discerned as being badly executed. With nuts, bolts and washers there is no means of telling by Mk I eyeball that they have been tightened to the correct torque, that the bolts are of the correct material or the holes through which they pass are not too large. That being said, the configuration of the yacht’s hull and appendages may necessitate bolted members being made portable for fixing in place after loading.

 I have found that it is best to seek confirmation from the supplier of the cradle that it has been designed, modified or otherwise declared fit for the purpose. This might sometimes result in a simple verbal affirmation; in this case the surveyor’s own wits will be needed. If things look decidedly wobbly, as they did one on recent job, then an outside engineer or engineering firm will have to be brought in to advise. On this one job the cradle appeared quite sturdy and had been “sworn” to be up to the mark but as the yacht was lowered in it began to sway ominously. A four hour delay ensued while about a tonne of extra steel was added to brace it properly.

One aspect which has been highlighted in recent times is the placement of side supports on cradles. Ashore for repairs a cradle simply needs to cope with gravity and perhaps strong winds. Afloat on the teetering deck of a ship, in a north-west Pacific storm, the cradle will be asked to support the yacht in every possible direction and with unusual loadings. Of special interest will be the capability of any supports or shoring preventing the yacht from slipping out (generally) forwards or aft. Lashings will flex and stretch and if there are no additional means of restraint, within the cradle itself or provided for with shoring, trouble will occur.

The cradle needs to become, in essence, part of the ship if it is secured correctly. All lashings between the yacht and the ship will be to no avail if the cradle can move, shift or otherwise move independently of the yacht and ship. The dilemma for this stage of the job is which method is going to get the approval; welded in place (either fully onto the deck or using “keepers”) or lashed down. The welded option can be better in that it is simple and very effective (when welded correctly!) but costs the shipper more in materials and labour. The lashing option is frequently adequate but needs much more attention to layout and application.

Lashings

Webs, ropes, chains or wires?

The shipper and the ship will always be cost conscious when it comes to providing lashings. This is no great problem provided that a few basic calculations along with a simple effective design are implemented. While I have seen plans dealing with lifting arrangements I have yet to come across plans which deal with the crucial aspects of lashing layout and strength in comparison with the yacht’s weight, and the vessel’s rolling period (of which more below).

By far the most common lashing device now in use is the web strap with hand ratchet tensioner. These woven polyester fabric straps are light, easy to handle and are readily available with working load limits (WLL) in the range of anything from 1 to 5 tonnes. While they have very useful properties they have limitations. The most significant is that they are deceptively stretchy and will suffer fatigue deformation under cyclic loading. In essence this means that after regular stretching, when under load, the fibres will stay permanently stretched. The result is that a once-tight web strap will, at the end of a transit, be found to be loose.

In addition it is impossible to establish a rigid tension in the straps when they are deployed with long drifts. You will recall seeing straps of similar design, commonly used on car trailers and trucks, fluttering and snapping in the strong winds on the motorway. The fluttering is the indication that it is not giving a steady securing tension.

Webbing straps (sometimes called “span sets”) also need to be treated kindly when led around corners and over objects. The very composition of their woven fabric makes them very susceptible to fraying during abrasion or when led around sharp objects.

On the other hand, chains provide the better rigid tension application; they are however heavy and awkward to use and not particularly kind to yacht paintwork. One common combination, which I prefer to see used, is short webbing strops connected to the yacht itself, tensioned and secured with chains down to the deck.

Wires tensioned with bottle-screws, rigging screws or turnbuckles are one other option but require skilled professionals for installation.

Perhaps the most crucial aspect for the surveyor when inspecting and reviewing lashings and securing arrangements is the balance of loads applied. There have been spectacular losses deemed to have occurred as a result of the network of lashings being out of balance.

One important issue which was highlighted in the recent past was a lack of lashings between a yacht and the ship itself. The yacht was presented as a “package”; lashed down to a cradle. The cradle was well secured to the vessel but no-one considered adding lashings from the yacht down to the ship’s deck. A consequence was the yacht working itself loose within the cradle and then becoming free to launch itself.<a class="pagenav" href="#Top">TOP</a>

Space on deck

In a perfect world the surveyor will take a walk around the deck of the ship and find a large open space fitted with strong lashing points, easily accessible, at frequent, even intervals. In reality of course, the ship has not mentioned the change of stowage spot for the yacht which means that it has to sit at a strange angle off-centre; the bow rail of the yacht “will just fit” next to the winch house railings and “by the way”, half of the lashings will need to be led down on to the main weather deck rather than on to the hatch covers.

The forces involved

This is not the place for detailed mathematics or a treatise on ship stability so some basic concepts and rules of thumb will be presented with a recommendation to read further on the subject. I can thoroughly recommend Captain John Knott’s “Lashing and Securing of Deck Cargoes” (Nautical Institute Publications).

Firstly the lashing system and the cradle must be able to cope with the pitch and roll of the vessel. For the sake of good seamanship I will always assume the voyage is likely to encounter significant rough weather (say Force 6 and over).

The summation of recommendations given in IMO Cargo Stowage and Securing (CSS Code) and related publications) mixed with sound seamanlike practicalities give a Rule of Thumb – “The 3-times Rule” which says:

The sum of the safe working loads (SWLs) of all the lashings shall equal the static weight of the cargo item to be secured.

The SWL here is calculated by dividing the breaking strength (breaking strain, breaking load) of the lashings by 3; hence the “3 times” name.

There are caveats of course; the prime ones affecting this Rule are that the roll period of the vessel is not less than 13 seconds and that the GM is not “large”.

(The above ‘rule’ and figures are not represented here as being the only calculation needed to work out lashings for deck cargoes. It is a starting point.)

 The roll period is taken as the crucial factor. This is the time taken for the ship to complete one oscillation. Note it is not the time to roll from upright to an angle (“ooh arrr, she rolled 40 degrees that night, me hearties”). It is the time from an initial point, say the upright position, over to one side (the angle of roll), back upright, through and over to the other side and then back to the upright (initial start) position. Once you have mastered this concept and then factor in varying angles of roll, “roll periods” of even 13 seconds can seem quite alarming.

Figures for roll periods are not easy to pluck out of the air in the heat of the moment but with some basic arithmetic they can be approximated for our purposes using simple formulae.

Taking container ship “X” as an example:

 She has a length of 240m and a beam of 32m

With a GM of 0.5m (considered to be “small” or “low”)

her roll period would be 31 seconds.

The ship will be termed “tender” as in soft, lazy or easily moved.

            With a GM of 1.5m (considered to be “large” or “high”)

her roll period would be 18 seconds

With these figures she could be termed “stiff”

¶Coaster “Y” however

Is 67m in length and beam 12m with a GM of 1.35m in a ballasted condition( a “high” GM)

her roll period would be 9 seconds

This ship would be termed “stiff” as in hard, or not easily moved.
 

It is thus seen that simply taking the GM figure on its own without referring to the vessel’s size and cargo/ballast condition can be very misleading. It will be therefore most useful if the surveyor can ascertain if the ship will be more stiff than tender or vice versa in order that modifications to the “3-times rule” can be considered. The modification, if any - in my mind, will always be an increase.<a class="pagenav" href="#Top">TOP</a>

The veto?

I am often asked, “what if you don’t like the lashing/securing/arrangements?”. The $6 million question!

The feeling is that as the cargo insurer’s representative I am ultimately being asked to report whether or not the adventure is one which presents no more than the usual risks. If I am not happy with what I see then I have a duty to tell the insurer as much.

This can result in a patently silly situation; the adventure sets forth with the insurer worried that the exposure is higher than expected and the premium probably already set.

To resolve the situation I might say “If I am not happy then the insurer will not be happy and you (the insured/consignor/shipper) might not receive the amount of insurance cover you expect”. At this stage this is often interpreted as “you won’t have any insurance at all” and is sufficient warning for the start of multi-party discussions as to how to make the surveyor happy.

Believe me; it is not good for this conversation to take place 5 minutes before the ship is due to sail!

Summary

It can be said that an enquiring mind, combined with the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon and the negotiating skills of Churchill, will be very useful (!) when dealing with the multitude of facts and figures, hearsay and old wives tales available on surveys.

The major problem for the surveyor will always be: will all the necessary lashings (as dutifully assessed) fit on the yacht and the cradle – and – will the fittings on the deck, the yacht and the cradle itself, cope with the loads?

The answers cannot be determined here, on paper, without a whole raft of other factors being known; it will be up to the surveyor and the other parties to work out the best means of completing the job on the day, then and there. This is one of the challenges of the surveyor’s job.
 
There will no one answer but I fear, however, that in some instances a “she’ll be right” attitude overrides the need to “get it right”. There can be no substitute for the experience of knowing the difference.

 Neil Abbott MIIMS; Auckland 2/4/04