Changes

Further, save for exceptional cases, the prudent shipowner test, that is, whether a prudent shipowner would have required the relevant defect to be made good before the vessel was sent to sea had he known of it, is an appropriate test of seaworthiness. That test was well suited to adapt to differing and changing standards. It confirms that a defect that is remediable may mean the vessel is not unseaworthy; this is likely to depend on whether or not the defect in question would reasonably have been expected to be put right before any danger to the vessel or the cargo arose.

On that basis, on the proper interpretation of the Hague Rules, the ‘nautical fault’ exception cannot be relied on as a defence to a causative breach of Owners’ obligation to exercise due diligence to make the vessel seaworthy before and at the beginning of the voyage when, in applying the prudent shipowner test, a vessel is likely to be unseaworthy if she begins her voyage with a defective passage plan that endangers the safety of the vessel.