C V Scheepvaartonderneming Flintermar v Sea Malta Company Ltd (The "Flintermar") - Court of Appeal (Waller and Rix LJJ and Sir Martin Nourse) - 25 January 2005

Charterparty - Baltime form - Vessel's chief officer injured during cargo discharge operations - Injury caused by negligence of charterers' stevedores - Stevedores using shore crane to replace ship's pontoon - Owners compensating chief officer - Whether charterers liable to indemnify owners - Whether stevedores performing owners' work at time of incident

The vessel Flintermar was chartered on the Baltime 1939 form. She was built in 1994 and designed for flexible, multi-purpose operations, having a single hold capable of being sub-divided by removable bulkheads into two or three single-deck holds. The hatch cover to the hold comprised eleven interlocking pontoons, ten of which were 5.45 metres wide, while the central or "baby" pontoon measured 2.2 metres. The purpose of the baby pontoon was to strengthen the vessel by remaining in place during loading and discharging operations, but in certain circumstances it needed to be removed. If the central section of the hold needed to be accessed, pontoons had to be removed in the sequence (numbering from forwards): 4, 7, 5, 6 and then the baby pontoon. The vessel was equipped with a hatch gantry crane. Its sole purpose was the opening and closing of the hatch. It had no role in the movement of containers or other cargo.