The TOWCON (the most widely used contract to tow on ocean towages) includes standard terms that the tug owner is obliged to exercise due diligence to make the tug seaworthy and use best endeavours to perform the tow. It also includes the infamous "knock-for-knock" clause under which loss or damage of whatsoever nature, however caused or sustained, to the tow is to be the sole account of the hirer. Indirect and consequential losses are also mutually excluded and the right to limit liability reserved. In a recent case the tug owner was clearly in breach of his basic obligation to provide a seaworthy tug but still invoked in Court the protection of the knock-for-knock provisions. Can the hirers and their underwriters break through the knock-for-knock protection? In a recent court case the Judge of the English Court followed precedent that the knock for knock agreement is a workable allocation of risk and responsibility and should be upheld despite the tug owners' failure to measure up the fundamental obigation of seaworthiness.

It is however uncertain whether the Courts will continue to uphold the doctrine. And it is certain that in many jurisdictions where the hirer will purport to arrest the tug owner will not be granted protection on the basis of this clause which most likely be found to contradict public order provisions of many civil law jurisdictions in the event of breach of the basic tug's obligations.