Baltimore Bridge Allison Insurance case

[ombugge]

Predictably, General Average appears to have been declared:

Insurance pay-outs from Baltimore bridge disaster in the spotlight - Splash247

Records look set to be broken in terms of shipping insurance payouts for the Dali incident.
To date, the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruiseship in 2012 and 2021’s Ever Given incident stand out as the largest casualty pay-outs this century, but early estimates are that the total costs from Tuesday’s extraordinary accident involving the 9,962 teu Dali containership could dwarf those infamous accidents.

The head of Lloyd’s of London warned last month that the Dali could prove to be the largest marine pay-out in insurance history.

[spowiednick]

The figures may get even bigger if the ship will brake it’s spine during salvage operations.

I do not understand why the salvage teams are remowving containers first from Hold no 1 , instead of removing the superheavy remanants of bridge constuction , which hava their LCGb in relation to ships aft perpenicular much bigger then resultant LCGh of hold No.1 .LCGb>>LCGh.

On the recent video clip posted by Ausmariner Dali has a pronounced /huge trim by the head. I am worried that by removing cargo from hold no 1 first and heavy construction as second, the ships bending moment will increase . once she regains buoyancy solely by the removal of cargo with bridge cinstruction still sitting on the bow.

Of course they have engineers /specialist there that kniow what they are doing and i am may be a bit too hysterical about it.

Any thoughts on that

[spowiednick]

@ombugge

General Average appears to have been declared:

Which by no means may be contested by at least some cargo owners if vsl unseaworthiness due to technical matters is proven. I may be wrong of course.

Addendum: what turns out it can not be contested due to New Jason cl which is an American thing , and is incorporated into the bills of lading. Hence it seems America is very convinient as a place to declar G.A.

[Capt_Phoenix]

@spowiednick

Any thoughts on that

I’m guessing they want to clear the containers out of the way of the work of removing the bridge. I can’t say whether that’s smart or not, I’m not a structural engineer or a salvage expert.

[Hogsnort]

The video clip I saw showed them lifting 3 boxes at a time , lifting 2 of them on the twist locks. They would have been empties.

[spowiednick]

Part of this podcast discusses the issue of G.A. Luckily at the begining .
The reminder is off topic but interesting as well.

Baltimore blame game, shadow boxing on the Transpacific and Hong Kong’s...

[ombugge]

This Bloomberg article, quoted on gCaptain Newsletters today, appears to confirms that General Average has been declared :

Shippers In Baltimore Disaster Face ‘General Average,’ MSC Says

A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S has indicated that the process, known as “general average,” was declared by Singapore-based Grace Ocean, according to a customer advisory Friday from Geneva, Switzerland-based MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co. SA.

Richards Hogg Lindley, a maritime claims adviser in the UK, was appointed as general adjuster, MSC said. “They notified us of their intention to keep all containers, including MSC’s containers, under their control until security arrangements have been made with the average adjusters, both for general average and salvage,” according to the advisory.

“Hopefully shippers with cargo on the Dali all have proper insurance, as otherwise they will be liable for their share of what is likely going to be a very large salvage bill,” shipping analyst Lars Jensen wrote in a LinkedIn post on Saturday.

Since 54% of the n\boxes carried on M/V Dali was “empties” that raises one question;
Will the owners of the empty boxes be regarded as part of the GA?

PS> Assuming that the “empties” are carried free of charge as part of a “repositioning scheme” agreed between the partners in whichever “alliance”, or “slot shearing agreement”, this voyage was made.

[Hogsnort]

That is the kind of question that excites legal eagles and will occupy many to their pension. This case has a very good chance of taking an important place in legal text books when it is settled.