Intaken measure

This expression can occur especially in charterparties for timber. Timber cargoes are generally measured by volume because the stowage factors of many types of timber are high, especially the softwoods, and also the timber may contain considerable moisture content. These factors cause the ship’s cargo spaces to be filled before loading “down to her marks”, (that is, its deadweight tonnage capacity based on the “loadlines”.) Owing to the number of places of origin of timber, different measurement systems are in use and this can cause problems in chartering if the parties involved are not familiar with the system in use. In most cases, it is probably best to leave the details of measurement to specialists. The freight is payable on the intaken measure.