The forgotten tug costs

A Scandinavian port agent was asked by the owners of a ship to provide a proforma disbursement account for a call at their port. When the final disbursement account was sent to the owners, they questioned the fact that it included a charge of US$ 17,500 for tugs that had not been part of the proforma disbursement account. The original proforma disbursement account was used by the owners when calculating the rate required for the fixture, which meant that the owners had not allowed for the tug charges. The owners claimed the tug charges from the port agent. Although the owners were regular callers at the port and ought to have realised that tugs were required, they claimed to have only read the bottom line when negotiating the fixture and the agent’s omission had therefore caused them a loss.