Arnold v Halcyon Yachts Ltd [2022] EWHC 2858 (Admlty)
In late 2017, Mr Arnold purchased a newly constructed yacht, the M/Y VLARODA, from a shipyard in France. He then contracted with Halcyon Yachts Ltd (who were not involved in the yacht's construction) to sail the yacht from La Rochelle, France, to his home in Delaware, USA, on what would be her maiden voyage.
The yacht first was sailed by Halcyon from La Rochelle to Ponta Delgada, Azores (via Spain). The crew then intended to proceed on a leg from Ponta Delgada to Bermuda, across the North Atlantic in late November/early December 2017. At some point during that leg, the crew made the decision to turn back to the Azores. When the yacht arrived back at the Azores, she had faced significant damage, primarily to her carpentry and joinery. Mr Arnold hired another company to complete the voyage the following year.
Mr Arnold brought a claim against Halcyon, claiming repair costs and the cost of hiring the alternative carriage. He alleged that the yacht had been negligently navigated into rough weather in breach of contract and bailment; that the yacht had been damaged thereby; and the crew had been forced to turn back to minimise that damage. Halcyon disputed the claim, alleging that the navigation of the yacht had not been negligent; that the yacht ought to have been able to withstand the weather conditions she in fact faced; and the crew turned back because the yacht had been poorly constructed and was flexing dangerously, rendering it unsafe to continue the voyage.
Each party relied upon expert evidence in the fields of yacht construction and transatlantic navigation.
Strikingly, none of the crew members who were actually on board the yacht during the abandoned voyage gave evidence. One junior crew member adduced a witness statement several days before trial, many months after the deadline for adducing witness statements; the Court agreed not to admit that evidence, as it was tendered too late without sufficient good reason. The failure of the skipper to offer any evidence meant that the primary decision maker, whose decision-making was accused of being negligent, was unable to be cross-examined.
Accordingly the Court was left to attempt to reconstruct what had happened to the yacht, based on its positioning and decision-making as stated in the skipper's contemporaneous logbook, third party weather reports, and various surveys of the yacht after the event.
The Admiralty Registrar nonetheless held that the crew had not been negligent in its planning or decision-making, and thus Mr Arnold's claim failed. Rather, the decision to turn back to the Azores was the crew's reasonable response to the yacht's construction defects (albeit those defects were, in the event, not major). This was so notwithstanding that the burden was upon Halcyon, as bailees, to disprove the crew's negligence. This is a clear example of the Admiralty Court being willing to "grasp the nettle" and make subtle and contested inferences based on documentary evidence, even when the major first hand witnesses choose not to give evidence.
Tom Nixon acted for Andrew Arnold instructed by James Wingfield of Howard Kennedy LLP.
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