In The Wondrous, the ship of that name was chartered to load and carry a full cargo of molasses from Bandar Abbas to Europe. Thirty-five days were initially allowed to the charterer as laytime. The vessel arrived on 10 March 1987 and left some 18 months later on 17 October 1988. The underlying reason for this extraordinary delay was the impecuniosity of the charterer, a privately owned Iranian company with no substantial assets. Against this background, the High Court1 and latterly the Court of Appeal2 were asked to consider whether the owners were entitled to