Understanding the case is not easy, since the court gave no reason for its decision. The case is cited by some as one of the last vestiges of a subjective approach to intention. The real intentions of the parties (assuming that the court had discovered their real intentions) did not coincide, so that there never was any agreement. Equally, however, a reasonable person (or objective bystander) in the defendants’ shoes would have had no way of knowing from the words used by the parties which of the two ships was intended. Lord Phillips MR, in Great Peace Shipping Ltd v Tsavliris Salvage (International) Ltd [2003] EWCA Civ 1407, [2003] QB 679, at [29], treated Raffles v Wichelhaus as a case of latent ambiguity (an ambiguity that is not immediately apparent, but is revealed, when at a later stage, it is clear that the parties were always at cross purposes) and, on the facts, the court in Raffles also recognized this ambiguity. This type of ambiguity could not, in this case, be resolved by resort to any objective standard. The court was therefore left with no alternative other than to conclude that there was no contract.