Time Charter
A Time Charter is the type of charter party where the charterer hires a vessel for an agreed period — anything from one voyage to many years — paying the shipowner a daily hire rate. The shipowner provides the vessel fully manned, victualled and maintained; the charterer pays for the bunker fuel, port charges and stevedoring, and decides where the vessel trades.
Time charters introduce concepts not found in voyage charters: delivery and redelivery (the vessel is "delivered" to the charterer at trip start and "redelivered" at end), hire paid in advance (typically monthly or 15-day periods), off-hire for unavailability, and warranted speed/consumption performance criteria.
Standardised forms include NYPE (New York Produce Exchange — most common globally), BALTIME, SHELLTIME (tankers), and BOXTIME (containers).
A time charter rents commercial control of a ship without owning it. The charterer decides where the vessel trades and takes the upside or downside of the freight market, while paying a fixed daily hire plus the voyage costs. Off-hire clauses are the key protection — they stop the hire clock whenever the ship is unavailable.
Under an NYPE time charter at $15,000/day, the charterer directs the vessel's voyages and pays for bunkers and port charges, with hire paid in advance. If the ship breaks down it goes off-hire — the hire clock stops until it is available and performing again.
What is off-hire?
A period when the vessel is unavailable to the charterer — for breakdown, repairs or under-performance — during which the daily hire is suspended.
What is the difference between a time and voyage charter?
A voyage charter buys a single carriage with the owner in control; a time charter hires the whole vessel for a period, with the charterer directing its trading and paying daily hire plus fuel and port costs.