Loss of propulsion (ship)

Loss of propulsion is the stoppage of a ship's propulsion or steering gear while under way, most often after an electrical blackout, a machinery breakdown or a fuel supply fault. On the high seas it is first a machinery incident: the ship drifts, the crew restarts the generators, a tug may be called. Near a coast, in a channel or approaching a structure, it becomes within minutes a grounding, a collision or an allision with a fixed object. Insurance therefore reads it on three levels. Damage to the ship itself falls under hull and machinery, but the failed part is paid only within the clauses: under English law, the so-called Inchmaree clause of the Institute Time Clauses Hulls covers damage caused by a latent defect or by crew negligence, subject to the owner's due diligence, and as a rule leaves the repair of the defective part itself with the owner. Towage or salvage, then general average if ship and cargo were saved from a common peril, are shared between hull and cargo. Liability to third parties, finally, is the heaviest layer: striking a bridge, a quay or a port installation falls in the English market to the protection and indemnity club, not to the hull policy, which generally takes only three quarters of collision liability between ships. For the underwriter, the signals can be read before the loss: blackout history, port state control detentions, classification society conditions, breaker and automatic restart settings, fuel changeover procedures. Not to be confused with the electric propulsion failure of a satellite, which goes by the same English name and is an entirely different risk.