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Glossary · the trade's own words

Maritime procurement glossary

41 terms a buyer, superintendent or purchasing officer meets between the requisition and the delivery receipt — each defined the way it is used on a real order, with the rule or contract behind it and the sources we read.

Index

01 SHIP SUPPLY & PROCUREMENT — 1302 PORT CALLS, LAYTIME & DEMURRAGE — 703 CHARTERING — 504 MARINE INSURANCE & LIABILITY — 305 BUNKERS & FUEL COMPLIANCE — 506 SAFETY, SECURITY & SHIP REGULATION — 8

Every rule, date and figure is cited to its source

A–Z

Every term, alphabetically

D

E

I

L

M

P

R

S

V

01 · 13 terms

Ship supply & procurement

Codes, documents and delivery terms behind a requisition — from the IMPA code on the line to the launch boat at the anchorage.

Bonded stores
Dutiable goods — tobacco, spirits, wine, beer, perfume — supplied to a ship free of duty under customs control, for consumption on board outside the country's territory.
Cash to master
Cash — usually US dollars — delivered to the ship's master in port, normally through the port agent, for crew advances, wages and small expenses on board.
IMPA code
A six-digit number from the IMPA Marine Stores Guide that identifies one ship-store item, so buyer and chandler mean exactly the same thing on a requisition.
Incoterms for ship supply
The ICC's eleven standard trade terms, used on spare-part and stores orders to fix where the seller's delivery ends and who pays freight, insurance and duties.
ISSA code
The item numbering of the ISSA Ship Stores and Provisions & Bonded Stores catalogues, published by the International Shipsuppliers & Services Association — the supplier-side counterpart to IMPA.
Launch boat delivery
Delivery of stores, spares or provisions to a ship lying at anchor or off port limits, carried out by a launch or supply boat rather than a truck at the quay.
OPL
Off (or outside) port limits — a ship receiving bunkers, stores, spares or a crew change outside a port's limits, without formally entering the port.
Owners’ items
Goods the owner or manager buys and ships to the vessel themselves — spares, stores, documents — held by a local supplier or agent until they are delivered on board.
Requisition
The ship's request to the office for goods or services — the list a purchaser turns into enquiries, quotes and an order.
RFQ
A request for quotation: the enquiry a purchaser sends to suppliers asking them to price a requisition under stated terms.
Ship chandler
A supplier that delivers stores, provisions, spares and consumables to ships in port or at anchorage — the shipsupplier of the trade bodies.
Ship spares in transit
Spare parts consigned to a ship through a port — "for vessel X, in transit" — so they move under customs control to the ship instead of being imported.
Slop chest
The ship's own store of clothing, work gear, tobacco and personal items, kept by the master and sold to the crew during the voyage.

02 · 7 terms

Port calls, laytime & demurrage

Arrival times, notice of readiness, laytime and the money that runs when a ship or a box stays too long.

Demurrage
The agreed amount a charterer pays the owner for each day a ship is kept beyond the laytime allowed for loading or discharging; its mirror, despatch, is paid for time saved.
Demurrage and detention
Carrier charges for keeping a container too long after free time ends: demurrage while it sits in the terminal, detention while it is outside (with the consignee or shipper).
ETA, ETB and ETD
The ship's estimated time of arrival (at the port or pilot station), of berthing (all fast alongside) and of departure — the three times every port-call order is planned around.
Husbandry
The services a port agent arranges for the ship and crew rather than for the cargo — crew changes, spares and stores, repairs, medical assistance, cash and mail.
Laytime
The period agreed in a voyage charter during which the owner keeps the ship available for loading or discharging without payment beyond the freight.
Notice of readiness
The master's notice to the charterer that the ship has arrived and is ready in every respect to load or discharge — the event that starts laytime running.
Port agent
The ship's representative at a port — arranging clearances, berth, pilots and tugs, cargo documents and the owner's husbandry, and paying port costs on the principal's behalf.

03 · 5 terms

Chartering

How a ship is hired — by the voyage, by time or bare — and what each form leaves with the owner.

Bareboat charter
A charter of the ship alone, without crew — the charterer takes possession, mans, operates, maintains and insures her for the period, much as an owner would.
Charter party
The contract by which a charterer hires a ship (or her carrying capacity) from the owner — by the voyage, for a period of time, or bare without crew.
Off-hire
A period during a time charter when hire stops because the ship cannot work fully for the charterer, for a cause listed in the charter's off-hire clause.
Time charter
A charter in which the charterer hires a crewed ship for a period (or a trip) at a daily rate of hire and directs her employment, while the owner keeps operating her.
Voyage charter
A charter to carry a stated cargo between named ports for an agreed freight, with the owner running and paying for the voyage and the charterer allowed laytime to load and discharge.

04 · 3 terms

Marine insurance & liability

Who pays when something goes wrong: the hull underwriter, the P&I club, or everyone in the venture.

General average
The rule that an extraordinary sacrifice or expense made to save ship and cargo from a common peril is shared by every interest in the voyage in proportion to its value.
Hull and machinery insurance
Insurance of the ship herself — hull, machinery and equipment — against physical loss or damage, plus part of the owner's collision liability.
P&I club
A mutual association of ship-owners that insures its members' third-party liabilities — crew injury, cargo claims, pollution, collision balance, wreck removal.

05 · 5 terms

Bunkers & fuel compliance

Fuel grades, sulphur limits and the paperwork every stem leaves behind.

Bunker delivery note
The supplier's document recording a bunker delivery — grade, quantity, density, sulphur content — required by MARPOL Annex VI and kept on board for three years.
Bunkers
The fuel a ship burns in her engines and boilers — residual and distillate marine fuels specified to ISO 8217 — and, as a verb, the act of supplying it.
MARPOL Annex VI
The annex of the MARPOL convention that regulates air pollution from ships — sulphur in fuel, NOx from engines, ozone-depleting substances, fuel quality and emission control areas.
MGO
Marine gas oil — a light distillate bunker fuel, usually ISO 8217 grade DMA; at 0.10% sulphur it is the low-sulphur MGO (LSMGO) burned in emission control areas.
VLSFO
Very low sulphur fuel oil — residual or blended fuel oil with no more than 0.50% sulphur, the main compliant fuel since the IMO 2020 global sulphur cap.

06 · 8 terms

Safety, security & ship regulation

The conventions, codes and authorities that decide what a ship must carry and who checks it.

Classification society
An organisation that sets technical rules for the design, construction and maintenance of ships, surveys ships against them, and keeps them "in class" — usually also acting for the flag state.
Flag state
The state in which a ship is registered and whose flag she flies — the government responsible for her safety, crewing and certification wherever she trades.
ISM Code
The International Safety Management Code — the SOLAS chapter IX requirement that ship operators run an audited safety management system ashore and on board.
ISPS Code
The International Ship and Port Facility Security Code, the mandatory security regime under SOLAS chapter XI-2 for ships and the port facilities that serve them.
LSA Code
The International Life-Saving Appliance Code — the technical standards that lifejackets, lifebuoys, immersion suits, pyrotechnics, liferafts and lifeboats required by SOLAS must meet.
MED wheel mark
The steering-wheel symbol showing that marine equipment conforms to the EU Marine Equipment Directive (2014/90/EU) — required for listed equipment on EU-flagged ships.
Port state control
Inspection of foreign ships in a country's ports to check they comply with the conventions — with the power to detain a ship until serious deficiencies are fixed.
SOLAS
The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, 1974 — IMO's main treaty on the safety of merchant ships, from construction and fire protection to life-saving appliances and security.
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