It has famously been said that “ships are but boards”.1 However, the issue of whether something is a ship is not always straightforward, especially when it comes to atypical vessels, platforms, structures or objects, not to mention novel uses or purposes or structural modifications. The Singapore High Court recently grappled with this issue in The Eco Spark.2

The facts were simple. The claimant, a Singapore shipbuilder, agreed to convert a steel barge, which the defendant had purchased in Indonesia, into a “Special Service Floating Fish Farm”, to be fixed at a farm site in Serangoon Harbour, within Singapore territorial waters. The conversion agreement contained a Singapore arbitration clause. Contractual disputes arose between the parties. The claimant had Eco Spark arrested on 14 March 2023.3 The defendant applied to strike out the claimant’s admiralty claim in rem, set aside the warrant of arrest, release Eco Spark, and award damages for wrongful arrest, on the basis that it was no longer a ship at the time of arrest.4

Although there is a decent body of case law and academic literature on the definition of ships in various contexts,5 this is apparently the first time that the issue has arisen in Singapore in the context of the definition of a “ship” for the purposes of admiralty jurisdiction, which “includes any description of vessel used in navigation”.6 After a