Express Exceptions to Laytime: Weather, Holidays, Unless Used and Demurrage Explained

Express exceptions to laytime are contractual provisions that stop, suspend, or reduce the running of laytime when particular events occur during loading or discharging. In voyage chartering, laytime normally runs once the ship has become an arrived ship, a valid Notice of Readiness has been tendered, and any agreed notice period has expired. However, the Shipowner and the Charterer may agree that certain periods should not count against the Charterer. These periods must be clearly stated in the Charter Party, because the law does not usually imply laytime exceptions merely because a delay appears inconvenient, unexpected, or outside the Charterer’s control.

Express exceptions are commercially important because they allocate the risk of delay. If laytime continues to run, the Charterer may exhaust the agreed laytime and become liable for demurrage. If laytime is validly interrupted by an exception, the time lost during the excepted period is excluded from the laytime calculation. For this reason, words such as Sundays and holidays excepted, weather permitting, unless used, strikes, ice, mechanical breakdown, or similar expressions should be drafted and checked carefully before the charter is fixed.

General Rule for Express Exceptions to Laytime

The basic rule is that laytime runs continuously unless the Charter Party contains wording that clearly interrupts it. If the parties agree that particular days or events are excepted, laytime will not count during those periods according to the wording of the clause. For example, if the Charter Party states that Sundays or holidays are excepted, laytime is suspended on those days even if cargo work could physically take place.

Where an excepted period is nevertheless used for cargo operations, the time worked will not automatically count unless the Charter Party contains suitable wording. The most common wording is Unless Used (UU). This expression means that if cargo operations are carried out during an otherwise excepted period, the time actually used, or in some clauses the whole relevant period, may count as laytime depending on the precise wording. If Unless Used is not included, work performed during an excepted period may require a separate agreement or clear conduct amounting to a variation of the Charter Party before it can be brought into the laytime account.

Specified Days as Laytime Exceptions

Charter Parties often exclude particular days from laytime. These may include Sundays, Fridays in some ports, public holidays, local holidays, or other named days. The effect depends strictly on the wording used. If the clause excludes only Sundays, it does not automatically exclude public holidays. If the clause excludes holidays, it does not automatically exclude Sundays or Fridays unless those days are recognized as holidays at the relevant port or are separately mentioned in the Charter Party.

This distinction is important in international trading because working patterns differ from country to country. In some jurisdictions Friday may be the weekly rest day; in others Sunday is the normal day of rest; in some ports Saturday afternoon may be a restricted working period. These commercial realities do not by themselves create a laytime exception. The Charter Party should state the excluded days expressly if the Charterer wishes to avoid uncertainty.

Saturdays and Laytime

Saturdays frequently create disputes in laytime calculations. A Saturday is not automatically a holiday merely because banks, offices, or some port services operate reduced hours. In many ports, cargo operations continue on Saturdays, sometimes at overtime rates. The payment of overtime does not by itself convert Saturday into a holiday for laytime purposes.

If the parties intend Saturday, Saturday afternoon, or Saturday night to be excluded, the clause should say so clearly. Common wording may refer to Saturdays, Sundays and holidays excepted, or may specify that time is excluded from a stated hour on Saturday until a stated hour on Monday. Without such wording, Saturday will generally be treated as an ordinary working day for laytime purposes, subject to the facts and applicable local law.

Holidays and Local Holidays

Holiday exceptions require careful examination of the port, the local law, and the actual port practice. A day may be a national holiday, a religious holiday, a port holiday, a local municipal holiday, or a day on which labor is available only on special terms. Whether that day interrupts laytime depends on the wording of the Charter Party and the evidence of local practice.

When the Charter Party refers simply to holidays, the term does not always mean only national holidays. In some cases, a local holiday may qualify if it is recognized at the loading or discharging port and if ordinary cargo work is not available in the usual manner. Conversely, if labor is readily obtainable at ordinary rates, it may be harder to argue that the day is a non-working holiday for laytime purposes.

Political, religious, and local administrative conditions may also affect the analysis. A holiday may continue to be treated as such in practice even where a government is attempting to change the official working calendar. Therefore, when a laytime calculation depends on a disputed holiday, evidence from port agents, terminal operators, local regulations, labor arrangements, and Statements of Facts may become decisive.

Weather Permitting

Weather permitting is one of the most common express exceptions to laytime. The clause is especially important in dry bulk trades because many cargoes cannot safely be loaded or discharged during rain, snow, strong winds, or other adverse weather conditions. Grain, fertilizers, certain minerals, bagged cargoes, and moisture-sensitive commodities may suffer damage if exposed to unsuitable weather. If the Charter Party contains no weather exception, laytime may continue even though cargo operations are stopped by rain or bad weather, unless another clause or legal principle applies.

Where the clause states that cargo must be loaded or discharged within a stated time weather permitting, laytime is normally suspended only for periods when weather actually prevents the relevant cargo operation. The question is not merely whether the weather is bad, but whether the weather prevents or materially interferes with the loading or discharging operation contemplated by the Charter Party. Rain may stop grain loading, but the same rain may not stop the discharge of a cargo that can safely be handled in wet conditions.

Weather clauses should therefore be read together with the cargo description, port practice, terminal method, and Statement of Facts. If the interruption is recorded vaguely, later disputes may arise over whether the stoppage was caused by weather, by terminal delay, by lack of labor, by hatch cover handling, or by the Charterer’s own cargo arrangements.

Unless Used (UU) and Time Actually Used

The expression Unless Used (UU) is commonly added to exceptions such as Sundays and holidays. Its purpose is to prevent a Charterer from enjoying a full laytime exclusion while also taking the commercial benefit of cargo work performed during the excluded period. Where the clause states Sundays and holidays excepted unless used, time worked during the otherwise excluded period may count.

However, the exact consequence depends on the wording. Some clauses count only the time actually used. Others may cause the whole period to count once work is performed. A clause may also use related expressions such as unless used, time actually used to count, unless used in which case actual time used shall count, or unless used, in which event time used shall count. These differences are not merely stylistic. They can change the result of the laytime calculation by many hours.

Other Express Exceptions to Laytime

Parties are free to agree additional express exceptions to laytime. In dry cargo chartering, standard forms may contain relatively limited exceptions, leaving the parties to add special wording if required. Tanker charter forms often contain a more detailed code of exceptions because tanker operations involve terminal restrictions, safety procedures, pumping arrangements, slops, deballasting, and berth movements that can produce complex delay disputes.

Common express exceptions may include strikes, lockouts, ice, port closure, bad weather, breakdown of shore equipment, breakdown of ship equipment, restrictions on night navigation, lack of tugs or pilots, waiting for free pratique, terminal safety stoppages, shifting from anchorage to berth, deballasting, slop discharge, and delays caused by specific port authority orders. Whether these events stop laytime depends on the exact contractual words and whether the event falls within the scope of the exception.

In some forms, such as older GENCON wording, strike provisions may modify the running of laytime or allocate delay risk between the parties. In tanker forms such as ASBATANKVOY, specific clauses may deal separately with delay caused by the ship, shore restrictions, deballasting, slops, moving from anchorage to berth, and other operational events. These clauses must be read as a complete contractual mechanism rather than as general statements of fairness.

Strict Interpretation of Laytime Exception Clauses

Laytime exceptions are normally interpreted strictly against the party relying on them. This means that a Charterer who wants to suspend laytime must show that the event falls clearly within the wording of the exception and that the exception applies to the period being claimed. A broad commercial argument that the delay was outside the Charterer’s control may not be enough.

General exception clauses in a Charter Party do not always apply to laytime or demurrage. If the parties want a force majeure clause, strike clause, ice clause, or other general exception to interrupt laytime, the clause should say so in clear terms. Otherwise, a court or tribunal may find that the clause applies only to performance obligations generally and not to the special laytime and demurrage regime.

Statement of Facts and Evidence of Laytime Exceptions

The practical evidence for an express exception is usually found in the Statement of Facts (SOF), port log, weather records, terminal reports, notices from port authorities, letters of protest, time sheets, and agent reports. If the Statement of Facts simply records “stopped” without identifying the reason, a later laytime dispute may become difficult to prove.

For this reason, Masters, agents, operators, and chartering departments should record the start and end of each delay carefully. The record should show whether the delay was caused by weather, shore equipment, lack of cargo, lack of documents, waiting for berth, port authority order, tug shortage, pilotage restriction, or another specific event. Accurate records are essential because even a valid exception cannot be applied properly unless the period of interruption is proved.

Do Express Exceptions to Laytime Apply to Demurrage?

The usual rule is that express exceptions to laytime do not automatically apply once the ship is on demurrage. This principle is commonly summarized as Once on Demurrage, Always on Demurrage. Once the Charterer has used up the agreed laytime, the Charterer is in breach of the obligation to complete loading or discharging within the permitted time, and demurrage continues to accrue unless the Charter Party clearly provides otherwise or unless the delay is caused by the Shipowner’s fault.

The reason is commercial certainty. Laytime exceptions are designed to calculate the allowed time before demurrage begins. Demurrage is a separate contractual consequence of exceeding that allowed time. Therefore, if the parties intend weather, holidays, strikes, or other events to stop or reduce demurrage after laytime has expired, the Charter Party should say so expressly.

Some Charter Parties do contain demurrage exceptions. For example, tanker forms may provide that demurrage is reduced to half rate or excluded for certain specified delays. Such clauses must be applied according to their wording. A clause that suspends laytime is not the same as a clause that suspends demurrage.

Practical Chartering Guidance

From a chartering perspective, express exceptions should be negotiated before fixture recap terms are finalized. Charterers should identify the delay risks they cannot accept, such as weather delays for moisture-sensitive cargoes, local holidays, strike risk, ice restrictions, or terminal stoppages. Shipowners should check whether the proposed exceptions are too wide, whether they also apply to demurrage, and whether the clause permits the Charterer to benefit from cargo work during excepted periods without counting time.

Clear drafting reduces later disputes. The clause should identify the event, the period affected, whether time is excluded completely or partly, whether Unless Used applies, whether actual time used counts, whether the exception applies before and after demurrage, and what evidence is required to support the calculation. Ambiguous wording can convert an ordinary port delay into a costly demurrage dispute.

Conclusion

Express exceptions to laytime are essential tools for allocating delay risk in voyage chartering. They may exclude Sundays, holidays, bad weather, strikes, ice, operational stoppages, or other agreed events, but they must be stated clearly in the Charter Party. Laytime generally runs unless the contract provides a valid exception, and any party relying on an exception must prove that the wording applies to the delay claimed.

Most importantly, an exception to laytime does not automatically become an exception to demurrage. Unless the Charter Party expressly provides that the same exception continues after demurrage has started, the principle Once on Demurrage, Always on Demurrage will usually apply. Careful drafting, accurate Statements of Facts, and precise laytime calculations remain the best protection for both Shipowners and Charterers.