Shipping

In considering whether damage to cargo had been caused by inherent vice, even if the question to be considered was whether the cause of the damage was an inability to withstand the ordinary incidents of the voyage, the answer could not be found by reference to what might be reasonably foreseeable as the ordinary incidents of that voyage.

Rather, it had to be found by reference to wind or wave which, it would be the common understanding, would be bound to occur as the ordinary incidents on any normal voyage of the kind being undertaken. That was not equating inherent vice with certainty, but rather it was recognising that an insurer would not cover damage to cargo flowing from the motion of a vessel in such seas, even if it was not certain to occur.