ABSTRACT
Fitted or fit for the service implies more than seaworthiness 8.12 However the obligation to provide a ship that is ‘‘in every way fitted’’ for the charter
the particular service which the ship is to perform. In The Derby [1985] 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 325 (C.A.), at page 333, Sir Denys Buckley said, ‘‘Counsel have tended throughout the argument to treat ‘seaworthy’ and ‘seaworthiness’ as synonym or perhaps as convenient forms of shorthand for the requirement at Lines 21 and 22 of the charter-party that the vessel should be ‘in every way fitted for the service’. I do not suggest that such a course is inappropriate, but it seems to me to be wiser in deciding whether the owners ought to be held liable for a breach of that requirement to pay regard to the precise language used and to ask what is the significance of the words ‘the service’ in this context . . . For my part, I feel no doubt that ‘the service’ referred to at Line 22 is that service which the owners became bound under the charterparty to render to the charterers.’’
