Charter Party

A document of contract, or agreement, by which a ship- owner agrees to lease, and a charterer agrees to hire, an entire ship, or all or part of the cargo space to carry cargo for an agreed sum under certain conditions.

This is the document that contains the details of the charter or contract. While the shipowner and charterer are called the “parties to the charter”, the word “party” in “charterparty” originates from the old Latin phrase for the contract to use a ship. The phrase was “carta (or “charts”) partita” which signified that it was a divided document in more than one “part” because facilities for making copies were not easily available in those times.