A Study Of Ship Design Based On Shipbuilding Contract

Ship building is complicate system engineering,especially in the special period with the slowdown of global economic growth and fluctuation of the shipping market and shipping industry.The ship owners bear more responsibilities and it is more difficult to perform the duties.Chinese shipyards often put themselves at a very disadvantageous position due to loopholes in the shipbuilding contract and its appendices or because they do not understand the British laws while performing duties in the contract,so they have to further face very huge crises in lawsuits.Shipbuilding contract is a contract of economic relationship between the ship owners and shipyards with legal binding on both ship owners and shipyards.In the international shipbuilding industry,the British law occupies a dominating position in shipbuilding contracts.Compared with shipyards in Japan,Korea and Europe,China's shipbuilding industry has not been engaged in the international market for a long time,so due to its lack of experience,during the process of signing and performing contracts,shipyards will often neglect this or that.According to the British law,shipbuilding contract is classified as a contract for the sales of goods,so shipyard need to bear the responsibilities stipulated in the implied terms of the “Sale of Goods Act 1979”,and shipyards shall build ships according to the contract and rules.Based on shipyards' practices in business management,this paper analyzes the basic property and main technical conditions of the shipbuilding contract.After negotiation of technical specification and construction contract terms,the ship owners and shipyards reach an effective contract,and after the contract comes into effect,the shipyards begin to design ships by themselves or entrust a design company to do it according to shipping technical specifications.Shipbuilding contract has strict requirement for delivery date and technical matters and shipyards need to effectively control design schedule and quality,this paper studies and summarizes ship design issues centered on shipbuilding contract.