Free Alongside Ship and delivery at the quay

Alongside means physically next to the ship

The goods have to reach the quay, the barge or the lighter at the point the vessel can take them, at the named port and within the agreed period. Delivery is not achieved by getting the cargo into the port area or into a warehouse near the berth. Because berths shift and vessels are renominated, the practical burden on the seller includes tracking where the ship will actually be, which is why the rule works best where the buyer communicates nomination details reliably.

The lift is the buyer's problem

The buyer arranges and pays for loading onto the vessel and carries the exposure from the moment the cargo is alongside. That includes anything that happens during a crane cycle, which for heavy or awkward cargo is precisely when damage occurs. The allocation only makes commercial sense where the buyer has genuine control over the loading operation, which is normal in chartered bulk trades and unusual elsewhere.

Export formalities and port charges

Clearance for export is the seller's obligation under this rule, along with the cost of getting the goods to the quay. Port charges divide awkwardly, since quay dues, wharfage and handling are levied under local tariffs that do not map neatly onto the delivery point. The contract benefits from listing which port charges each side expects to pay rather than leaving them to be inferred from the term.

Why containers break it

A container is delivered to a terminal, sits in a stack, and is loaded when the terminal decides. Nobody puts a box alongside a ship, and a seller has no access to the stack once the box is gated in. Applying this rule to a container leaves the seller notionally exposed during a period it cannot observe or control, which is exactly the situation a delivery-to-carrier term was designed to solve.

Frequently asked questions

Who clears the goods for export?

The seller. This is a point of difference from a factory-gate arrangement and one of the reasons the maritime rules remain usable in commodity trades where the buyer is foreign and could not act as exporter locally.

What happens if the vessel is late or is changed?

The seller has still to deliver alongside within the agreed period, so a nomination that moves creates real cost and real exposure. Commodity contracts normally deal with this expressly through laytime, nomination and demurrage provisions, which sit alongside the trade term rather than inside it.