In September this year, an award was rendered in London arbitration on the question whether half demurrage under the Asbatankvoy charter party applied when the stoppage occurred during laytime as opposed to during demurrage. Two issues were in fact decided in the arbitration. The first dealt with whether there was a breakdown within the meaning of clause 8 of the Asbatankvoy form. It should be noted that this award was rendered before the decision of the Court of Appeal in ”the Afrapearl” the same year, which decided this question. This decision will be mentioned later in this article. Suffice to say here that the tribunal found that there was indeed a breakdown within the meaning of this clause. Turning to the second issue, the tribunal agreed with owners that clause 8 is an exceptions clause and it is for charterers to bring themselves squarely within it, and any ambiguity would have to be resolved against them. However, the tribunal did not find any ambiguity in the clause. Demurrage was incurred because laytime was exceeded because of the breakdown to the shore’s equipment during laytime. Thus, the resulting demurrage would have to split between demurrage accrued due to the breakdown, which would count half, and demurrage accrued regardless of the breakdown, which would count in full. In reaching this decision, the tribunal could not rely on any existing authority, but relied instead primarily on another arbitration award, LMLN [1989] 247, London Arbitration 10/89, which reached the same conclusion. Based on these two awards, we can say that there is at least an indication that a breakdown or another cause contained in clause 8 of the Asbatankvoy form does not have to occur during demurrage to trigger half demurrage, but may also occur during laytime and be completed before laytime ends and still trigger half demurrage for any demurrage period caused by this breakdown. But what happens if the breakdown occurs before laytime begins and even before conclusion of t