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Shipping is indispensable. But, what is 'shipping'? Depending on context, it means sending items from one place to the next. In what mode this item is sent from its place of origin and delivered to its destination? Well, that depends: [on] the distance between the two places; the practical mode of transportation to use; the time allowed; the external constraint and distraction; documentation for the trade; international or domestic trade; et cetera.
In The "Lehman Timber" [1], Sir Bernard Rix stated that [shipping] is performed on the basis that time is money and that a ship is a floating and travelling warehouse for which cargo must pay either in the form of agreed freight or hire, or by way of damages for any breach of contract. If the ship is delayed by the cargo owner's failure to arrange timely discharge: whether that failure is his breach in facilitation the vessel's arrival in berth where she may become an arrived ship (and thus start the laytime clock running which may in due course lead to demurrage), or whether he has incurred demurrage under the laytime code; or whether there is no laytime or demurrage code, but merely a general obligation to discharge according to the custom of the port or with customary despatch; or whether he has delayed discharge by refusing to discharge a lien for freight or any other payment for which the ship has a lien and has thereby given invalid instructions to discharge; then the contractual arrangement contemplates that either by the means of the liquidated damages known as demurrage, or by means of general damages for detention, the cargo owner myst pay (subject of course to any express exceptions to his liability). That is the commercially just result, and the authorities reflect the search for the just and reasonable result. [...]
In Singapore, Steven Chong J (as he then was) introduced in Toptip Holding Pte Ltd v Mercuria Energy Trading Pte Ltd[2] [that] the charter market, governed by the supply and demand for ships and shipping space, is about as perfect a market as one can find. A charterer who wishes to hire a vessel to transport cargo across the high seas knows that it is operating in a market in which freight rates fluctuate. But the charterer also knows that it has to assess the best freight it can obtain against a multitude of factors including the nature of the cargo, the extent to which it wants the charterparty t be "cargo friendly" rather than "shipowner friendly", and the requirements of any underlying sale contract such as the date by which the cargo has to be loaded or delivered to the buyer. The last factor is particularly crucial as it places the charterer under the pressure of time. Even if the market is not in its favour, the charterer has to secure a charterparty with a suitable laycan (ie, the period of time from the earliest day to the latest day upon which the vessel can arrive at the loading port) or risk being in breach of the underlying sale contract. The shipowner, similarly, has to balance the security of a contract concluded in advance against the prospect that the freight market may rise in its favour, leading to a less profitable charterparty than one which its vessel could have otherwise secured. These factors assume an even greater significance in a situation such as in the present case where both the charterer and the owner have to time their contractual commitments on a back-to-back basis. The charterer has to secure a vessel which is acceptable to the shipper while the owner, which is often merely a disponent owner operating in the spot freight market, has to time the fixture of the vessel with the physical head owner in order to fulfil its obligation to the charterer. If the back-to-back fit does not materialise, this would usually give rise to losses and inevitably, legal proceedings.
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