New BIMCO ocean towage and barge contracts released

Published: 04 March 2021

The latest editions of TOWCON, TOWHIRE and BARGEHIRE are now available on SmartCon.

It has been more than a decade since BIMCO’s TOWCON and TOWHIRE for ocean towage services and BARGEHIRE for bareboat chartering unmanned barges were last revised. The drafting teams tasked with the revisions have updated the forms to incorporate common amendments and additions while maintaining the familiarity of the contracts within a simple and robust framework. The latest editions are TOWCON 2021, TOWHIRE 2021 and BARGEHIRE 2021. All three contracts are now available on SmartCon.

New features of TOWCON include a provision for mid-voyage bunkering on longer tows, and a mechanism for calculating compensation due to slow steaming or deviation. The revised BARGEHIRE introduces much clearer wording dealing with off-hire surveys, repairs and redelivery – which has often been a source of dispute in the past.

Both drafting teams were chaired by Dirk Kwantes of LKL Oceantrade. In the revision of TOWCON and TOWHIRE, Dirk was assisted by Maurice Schreurs of Boskalis, Nick Jeffery of Ostensjo Rederi, Charo Coll of Boluda Towage, Clarksons, Ivar Brynildsen of Gard and John Croucher of the Standard Club. The revision of BARGEHIRE involved Merlijn Hijzen of Heerema, Guillaume Vassout of Subsea 7, Tommy Christensen of Ugland, Jonathan Bawden of Cashman Equipment Services and Alexander McCooke of the Shipowners’ Club.

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