While leaving Harlingen port in the direction of Vlieland on 12 March 2020 at around 9h00, the ferry Vlieland, belonging to BV Terschelling Stoomboot Maatschappij (TSM), collided with the quay. This caused a hole in the hull of the engine room on the starboard side. The engine room filled with water, after which two of the ship's propulsion engines and the electricity to the ship stopped working. The bow thruster and VHF radio also stopped working. After leaving the port in the direction of the Kimstergat, the ferry's master requested the master of the tugboat Theo, owned by Sleepdienst Tuinman BV (ST) to assist the ferry back into the port. The Theo towed the ferry (which was listing somewhat) back to the port of Harlingen, where the ferry was moored at the cruise pier and the passengers disembarked. When the tugs Jenny and Anita, also owned by TS, arrived at the scene, the ferry was towed to the Veerbootkade, where the cars were offloaded. Subsequently, the tugs towed the ferry to the dock of Damen Shiprepair for inspection and repair of the damage to the ferry. ST claimed an amount of EUR 200,000 from TSM as a salvage reward.

Held: A salvage reward of EUR 35,000 plus interest is appropriate.

Salvage is defined as any act or activity undertaken to assist a vessel in danger in navigable waters. There is danger when there is a real threat of damage, and the vessel cannot, by its own power and without external assistance, save itself from the dangerous situation. Even a relatively small degree of danger may be sufficient to assume the existence of danger. The question whether there was danger must be assessed according to the moment at which the assistance started. Salvage continues as long as there is danger.

The ferry was in danger at the moment that the assistance (requested by the ferry's master) by the tugboat Theo started. Although there was no danger that the ferry would sink, the failure of the starboard engines and the bow thruster made it less manoeuvrable by definition. In addition, there was a strong onshore wind. As a result, there was a risk that the ferry would not be able to maintain its position in the Kimstergat and could drift towards the quay. That could have led to further damage. The ferry's master apparently recognised this; he did not let the situation take its course, but requested assistance. Moreover, in the busy port there was little room to manoeuvre, while the ferry no longer had proper means of communication at its disposal to maintain contact with other ships and with the port authority. Because of the limited manoeuvrability, entering the port without the assistance of the Theo would diminish the safety of the shipping in the port and give rise to the risk of both further damage to the ferry and damage caused by the ferry to vessels or other property of third parties.

There is a right to a salvage reward where assistance has been rendered to the vessel in danger with useful result. There shall be a useful result if at the conclusion of the assistance the vessel in danger or the goods have been salved, or if the assistance contributed to their salvage. That is what happened in this case: thanks to the assistance of the Theo the ferry was safely moored - without the risk of further damage - in the port and the passengers and vehicles could safely disembark. A right to a salvage reward only exists if the services rendered go beyond what can reasonably be regarded as a usual performance of a contract (for example a towage or pilotage agreement) that had been entered into before the danger existed. The criterion is whether the person who has rendered the service to the endangered vessel has rendered a performance which exceeded the due performance of that agreement, and was not foreseen by the parties at the time of entering into the agreement. The efforts of the Theo in this case went beyond the usual tug assistance/towage work that ST regularly performed for TSM on the basis of a framework agreement existing between the parties.

Because the parties did not enter into an agreement in which the amount of the salvage reward was fixed, the Court itself fixes the amount of the salvage reward, taking into account the applicable criteria from art 8:563(2) of the Dutch Civil Code (which gives domestic effect to art 13 of the Salvage Convention 1989).