When it goes wrong · the ship left without your box · read 07/26–07/29/2026
Port omit, rollover and blank sailing are three different failures, and each has a different payer
- Port omit, rollover and blank sailing are three different events and people use the words interchangeably. A port omit is the ship skipping your discharge port. A rollover is your box not loading onto the ship it was booked on. A blank sailing is the whole voyage being cancelled before either can happen.
- Rolled cargo liability turns on the cause, not on the delay. If the carrier overbooked or changed the schedule, the carrier carries it. If the gate-in was late or the paperwork was missing, the shipper does. That distinction is what any claim is argued on.
- Port omit moves your clock to a port you did not choose. The box is discharged somewhere else and comes back overland, and the free time, the demurrage rate and the hour the count starts are the ones belonging to the port it actually landed at.
- Rollover compensation is not the default. Standard carrier contracts do not pay for a rollover unless a guaranteed-loading product was bought, and the named example on the market is Maersk Spot Rollable. Read your own contract before assuming otherwise.
Port omit, rollover, blank sailing — and three things this page is not about
Port omit, rollover and blank sailing are three different failures. A port omit is a call the vessel skips: the ship sails past the port your box was routed to and discharges it somewhere else. A rollover is your container left behind on the quay while the ship sails on schedule. A blank sailing is the whole voyage cancelled before it starts.
Three things this page is not about, and they arrive here constantly: telephone number porting, cruise ships missing a port of call, and cargo falling off a truck. On one of the queries that leads here, six of the seven results belong to the first of those.
Who carries the cost of each failure
Who carries the cost depends on which of the three happened and, in two of the three, on what caused it.
How this page is built · what we are paid
- Liability rows on this page are marked rather than filled where the document that would settle them has not been read. Carrier rollover and guaranteed-loading terms are unread.
- The blank-sailing figure below is a volatile third-party count and carries its capture date every time it appears. It never enters a ranking column.
- Every rate comes from a carrier tariff with the date we read it.
- No carrier has paid to appear here, and no link on this site is a referral link.
| What happened | The cause that decides | Who carries it | How well we know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rollover — overbooking or a schedule change | the carrier’s own decision | the carrier | from the published answer on this query, not from a contract we read |
| Rollover — late gate-in or missing paperwork | the shipper’s side | the shipper or the forwarder | same source |
| Rollover with a guaranteed-loading product | the product you paid for, if any | the carrier, on the product’s terms | the named example is a carrier’s own rollable product; terms unread — gap R |
| Port omit | the carrier’s routing decision | not checked yetthe bill of lading terms and the carriers’ rollover terms are unread — gap R | not established — and standard contracts generally do not compensate a rollover without a guaranteed-loading product |
| Blank sailing | the voyage cancelled before it starts | not checked yet | the same unread terms decide it |
What the failure costs once the box is on the ground
The failure itself may cost you nothing directly. What it costs is decided where the box lands, because the tariff that applies is the one at the port it actually reached.
| What changes | What now governs |
|---|---|
| Whose free time applies | the port the box actually reached — not the one on your routingten tariffs plus three start-hour documents · read 07/26–07/29/2026 |
| What the first paid day costs there | $125–$390 across eight of the nine tariffs, and the spread between two ports can be larger than the whole cost of the diversionnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026 |
| When the count starts | on that port’s hour — 12:01 AM at Savannah, 3:00 AM with Maersk in California, 08:00 on the first working day with Seaboard Marinethree tariffs · read 07/26/2026 |
How many free days you had at the port you were routed to: how many free days each port allows. How the clock runs wherever the box lands: how the demurrage clock runs. What each carrier charges after it: what each ocean carrier charges after free time.
The invoice that follows a diverted box
A diverted box still produces a demurrage invoice, and that invoice answers to 46 CFR Part 541, in force since 05/28/2024 and before the D.C. Circuit twice since. Note what the rule is and is not about: it governs how the charge is billed, not whether the carrier owed you the call in the first place. The second question lives in your contract of carriage.
How to test the invoice that arrives: the federal rules your invoice has to meet.
Descriptive, not legal advice. The bill of lading in your own file governs the routing question.
What to do in the first day after you find out
The first day is about evidence and re-planning, in that order.
- Establish which of the three it is, from the carrier, in writing. Omitted call, rolled container or cancelled sailing. The three have different consequences and the answer is the first line of any later argument.
- Find out where the box now is, and get that in writing too. The port of discharge on the paperwork may no longer be the port of discharge in fact, and everything about the clock follows from where it landed.
- Re-plan the clock against that port, today. New free time, new rate, new start hour. This is the step that saves money, and it is usually done last.
- Document the cause while it is fresh. Gate-in times, paperwork completion times, the carrier’s own notices. Who pays turns on cause, and cause becomes unprovable within weeks.
- Check whether you bought a guaranteed-loading product. Standard terms generally do not compensate a rollover; a paid loading guarantee is a different contract, and its terms are the ones to read.
- Arrange collection where the box actually is. A diverted container that nobody re-plans for becomes a stuck one — what to do when the box will not move.
Where the words mean something else
The words on this page mean something else in four places, and the results for these queries are full of all four.
- Number porting. On one query six of seven results are about refusing to transfer a telephone number between carriers. Same word, different industry.
- Cruise ships. A passenger vessel skipping a port of call is a different subject with different remedies; two of the sources answering this question are cruise forums, the oldest from 2008.
- Cargo falling off a truck. “Rolled cargo” brings in personal-injury firms writing about road accidents.
- A missed transhipment connection. The box was not rolled at your port at all: it missed the second leg, and the party to ask is the one that controls that leg.
The answers to these questions are mostly about something else
The answers to these questions are mostly about something else, and that is measurable rather than rhetorical.
| What we measured | Value |
|---|---|
| Unique addresses across the queries | 41, of which 18 carry a date |
| On one query, results about telephone numbers or postal mail | six of seven, including the quick answer at the top |
| Cruise sources answering a cargo question | two, the oldest a 2008 forum thread |
| Personal-injury law firms on the rollover query | two |
| What holds position 1 on two of the queries | a page dated 06/19/2018 |
| The one answer that is genuinely about freight | the who-pays split by cause, which is where this page starts |
our own capture of the omit and rollover queries, Google US, 07/26/2026
A subject where the top answer belongs to a different industry is not a competitive subject. It is an unanswered one.
How every figure here is sourced, and the full list of what has not been read: how every figure here is sourced.
- Not legal advice. A description of a federal rule is a description of it, and the rule as in force on your date governs.
- Not a quote. The tariff and the bill of lading in your own file decide what you owe, not a number on this page.
- Not a filing service. We do not act for you, contact your carrier, or take a share of anything recovered.
Questions about omits, rolls and cancelled sailings
What is port omit?
A carrier dropping a scheduled port call from a voyage, usually to recover schedule time. Your container stays on the ship to the next port and comes back overland, arriving late and under a different port's tariff. Vessel omission means the same thing.
Why do vessels omit ports?
To recover a slipping schedule. It is an operational decision by the carrier rather than an act of nature, which is why the bill of lading rather than a force majeure argument is where the consequences are set out.
What does container rolled mean?
Your box did not load onto the ship it was booked on and waits for the next one. Overbooking, a blank sailing, a vessel omission or a weight problem all produce it, and the liability turns on which of those it was.
Who pays when a container is rolled?
By cause. If the carrier overbooked or changed the schedule, the carrier pays. If the gate-in was late or the paperwork was missing, the shipper or forwarder pays. Establish the cause before arguing the amount, because the amount follows from it.
Is there compensation for rolled cargo?
Not by default. Standard carrier contracts do not compensate a rollover unless a guaranteed-loading product was purchased — Maersk Spot Rollable is the named example on the market. We have not read the carriers' terms ourselves, so treat this as the market position rather than as your contract.
What are blank sailings in shipping?
An entire voyage removed from the schedule rather than one call skipped. They cluster: 57 cancellations were scheduled across the major East-West trades from late July through August 2026, per Drewry's tracker as read on 07/26/2026.
Why do carriers do blank sailings?
To manage capacity when demand falls, so that vessel supply matches the cargo on offer. The effect on you is not the cancellation itself but the roll it causes and what the new arrival date does to your free time.
My carrier skipped my port — why do I keep getting phone company results?
Because carrier and port are also telecom terms. On the query 'carrier skipped my discharge port' six of the seven results we captured concern phone-number porting or postal mail, and the answer shown above them is about refusing to port a number. The ocean-freight answer is in the table above.
An omitted call, a rolled box and a cancelled sailing all end the same way: a container on the ground somewhere, with a clock running under a tariff you did not plan for. The pages that price that clock are linked above.