TT Live

🚢 What happens when a ship in distress needs somewhere safe to go?In the latest episode of TT Live, TT Club's Josh Finch is joined by experts from the Virginia Port Authority to explore the critical role of "places of refuge" and why ports must be prepared to receive and manage vessels facing emergencies.

Vehicle deck operations are among the most familiar activities in the Ro-Ro and ferry environment. Trailers are marshalled, reversed, parked, trestled, lashed and released countless times each day across ports and terminals around the world. Precisely because these tasks are so familiar, risk tolerance can increase through over-familiarisation, where repeated exposure to a hazard without a negative outcome reduces the perception the associated risk The recent UK P&I Club “Lessons Learnt” animation, developed as part of the collaborative work between TT Club and UK P&I Club, provides a powerful reminder that routine operations can rapidly become high-consequence events when visibility, communication, supervision and segregation fail.

Josh Finch and Alison Wixley, Senior Claims Executive at TT Club discuss the importance of standard trading terms and conditions in the logistics industry, focusing on their incorporation into contracts and the implications of limitations of liability. They touch on: Role of standard termsCommon incorporation issueCase example of ambiguityLegal status of email contracts Updating termsLimitation of liability rationaleEducation and communicationExceptions to limitations

Cases like Overseas Medical Supplies v Orient Transport remind us that when forwarders take on extra roles, such as arranging insurance, additional due diligence and care is required to avoid unexpected losses.

In our latest episode of TT Live, Josh Finch sat down with Jen Maddison, Health, Safety and Culture Lead at Port Skills and Safety (PSS). It was packed with golden nuggets on container handling safety and the newly revised SIP #3 guidance.Ports are complex: vast, ever changing, and brimming with hazards, making this update a timely one.As ship sizes grow and operations and technologies advance, keeping crews, stevedores, and visiting drivers safe becomes both more challenging and more essential.

The world’s supply chains are facing a growing threat of disruption from flooding. Climate change, together with instances of inadequate drainage or insufficient maintenance in some locations, means that ports, terminals and warehouses — many of which are situated in low‑lying areas — are increasingly exposed to extreme rainfall, flash floods, storm surges and “weather bombs. This article offers practical advice and solutions to reduce risks posed by extreme flooding.