Unity Ship Group S.A. v Euroins Insurance JSC

A vessel is unseaworthy where the Master’s conduct demonstrates a disabling lack of skill, knowledge or application, assessed by asking whether a prudent owner would have required the defect to be remedied before sailing. Multiple serious navigational failures, viewed cumulatively, may establish incompetence even though an isolated mistake would not necessarily do so.

The carrier bears the burden of proving due diligence in appointing and supervising a competent Master. A defective passage plan may constitute unseaworthiness, but the defect must be causative before it defeats reliance on the navigation exception.

The claimant shipowner sought payment under an average guarantee for cargo interests’ general average contribution following the grounding of the bulk carrier The “Happy Aras”. The defendant insurer resisted payment, alleging that the vessel was unseaworthy because the Master was incompetent and because the passage plan was defective.

The claim was tried in the Admiralty Court. The central issues were whether the Master’s conduct demonstrated incompetence, whether the carrier had proved due diligence under the Hague Rules, and whether the passage-planning defects were causative.

1. Claim dismissed. The claimant failed to prove that it had exercised due diligence in relation to the Master’s competence.
2. The distinction between negligence and incompetence was material. A single mistake, or even several mistakes, will not necessarily establish incompetence. Here, however, the Master failed repeatedly to fix the vessel’s position, departed from the passage plan without recording the departure, removed the lookout at night, failed to alter course at the relevant waypoint, failed to keep a proper lookout, failed to monitor the radar and effectively ignored the BNWAS. The subsequent inaccurate log entries aggravated the overall picture. These were systemic failures rather than an isolated error.
3. The applicable test was whether a prudent owner, knowing the relevant facts, would have required the defect to be remedied before sending the vessel to sea. On that test the Master was incompetent and the vessel was unseaworthy.
4. The burden under Article IV rule 1 of the Hague Rules lay on the carrier. Certificates of competence and a general positive reference were insufficient. The claimant provided inadequate evidence of the Master’s appointment, specific competence for the vessel and voyage, instruction, supervision and subsequent departure from employment. Due diligence was therefore not established.
5. The passage plan was basic and defective, but the defects were not causative because both experts agreed that the grounding would not have occurred if the plan had been followed. The Supreme Court’s reasoning in The CMA CGM Libra did not remove the requirement for causation. The passage plan, taken alone, did not render the vessel unseaworthy.
6. Had liability been established, the court would have awarded the general average expenses claimed. That issue did not affect the dismissal of the claim.