Remember, we are the client’s eyes and ears on the ground. A detailed time log is vital to our clients when processing demurrage claims. Our clients really do not want to be performing their own review of times in scenarios where only an inaccurate or ambiguous time log has been provided. If we make the operators life easy for them, then they will use our services more frequently. Sometimes it’s the little things that you may not deem so important that impresses our clients. Some entries on our time logs, particularly those relating to the vessel prior to us boarding, are submitted to us. While it is acceptable for us to include submitted times on our time logs, they must be clearly identified as being submitted. SAT has a box that can be ticked to indicate when a time has been submitted by either the terminal or vessel and should be ticked for all submitted times. This then indicates (by way of an asterisk) that the specific time was submitted when the time log is generated. When compiling time logs outside of SAT, ensure that all submitted times (i.e. times that we cannot verify) are marked with an asterisk. Notice of Readiness (NOR) times are typical of this.
Time logs are required on every job, regardless of size and must be complete, accurate and reflect a common reality. It is important to record events as close as possible to the time at which they took place (i.e. in real time as they occur), as waiting to record the times and basing the events off memory can lead to inaccurate times being recorded.
events as a logical sequence. The events may overlap but time only moves in one direction so the start of each event will occur in sequence. Accordingly, do not record sampling and gauging as one time i.e. gauging, and sampling of vessel commenced or completed, try to be specific and itemise when the gauging started and completed and when the sampling started and completed and report as two sperate entries. The simple rule of thumb is for each individual activity such as gauging a shore tank, sampling ships tanks, there should be a specific time log event “start x” and “completed x”, not an entry that is combined into a single period entry “sampling and gauging between x and y”. One subject that is raised very often is how to record times. Please consider that we are employed as an independent Inspector and our time sheet is not required to match the ship or the terminal time sheet exactly. It should be genuinely independent. One part of this is that many terminals and ships round of times in some way, to the nearest 5, 6,10, or even 15 minutes. This has been called into question during claim scenarios and court cases many times. Clearly events do not all happen at regular intervals, and if time sheets from anyone (including the Inspection company) all show nice neat time intervals then it casts suspicion immediately on how correct and accurate, they are. Please remember it is our job to be independent and accurate, it is not our job to always agree with somebody else.
16.3 Conclusion
The first requirement of any time log is that it accurately reflects the events that took place. This relies on the Inspector in the field recording all of the necessary times and delays in his / her raw data.
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