REPORT ONLY WHAT YOU KNOW


BY CAPT BARRY THOMPSON HONFIIMS


Although the following account refers to a cargo survey the lessons to be learnt from it by a surveyor apply just as much to a yacht or small craft condition survey — indeed to any ‘fit for purpose’ survey.


In 1985 a New Zealand company ordered just over 22,000 tonnes of compound fertiliser at a C & F cost of US$4.2 million. It was part loaded into the geared bulk-carrier Adelina (26,687 dw, built 1977) in Sweden with the balance in Tampa, Florida. SGS, of worldwide reputation, were the appointed surveyors to certify the holds as clean, dry and fit to receive the fertilizer.


Arriving at Napier, NZ on 1 August 1985 Adelina was initially refused permission by the NZ Government inspectors to discharge her cargo because diseased barley gains were


42 | The Report • March 2017 • Issue 79


found in all five holds. Although the authorities subsequently relented they imposed a number of restrictive conditions on the fertiliser’s sale and understandably the importers refused to accept receipt of the cargo because of these restrictions.


After several weeks of argument with those responsible in New York for the original purchase, a buyer was found for the cargo ‘as is’ in Belgium and the ship left Napier nearly two months after arrival. The contaminated fertilizer was finally discharged in Antwerp.


The loss on the actual sale of the contaminated fertilizer amounted to just under US$1 million but with extra steaming and port costs and damages under the terms of the Charter Party the claim eventually reached US$2.4 milllion.


It was not until nearly the end of 1989 that the claim came before the New York District Court when SGS was sued, it being alleged that the surveyor failed to detect the grains of barley in the holds and should not have accepted that the ship was fit to receive the cargo.


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