Boat Buddies. Illegal Charters or not?

[cascars]

I am not a lawyer but i don't think a court is going to allow charter companies to hire out their boats and skipper simply by getting the customers to pay the fees to a third party.

Charities have to comply with the law just like the rest of us!

Coding regulations have been put in place to protect the general public when the pay for a charter. The safety equipment that must be carried and the training that is required to comply with manning requirements are based on what the MCA have learnt from previous accidents.

If you donate you fees to charity you do not suddenly become exempt from fire, grounding, abandonment etc. You and your passengers face the same problems as everyone else that goes to sea. If the auction is selling a skippered charter then the charter surely needs to comply with the law.

This is not a charter company, we are talking about my private boat. Not sure if that makes any difference?
A third party (not the charity) offered my boat and I for the day on a fishing forum to raise funds for charity. This is something I have done several times before with nobody ever questioning it. The winning bidder was to pay the money direct to the charity involved. I had promised to buy the winner breakfast and supply all bait required, and was not going to receive any money for the trip whatsoever.
Going by the previous responses then the fact that I was going to have breakfast with them first would mean that we could be considered friends afterwards, however the winner was somebody that has previously been fishing with me anyway, and that can be proved with a catch report on the same forum from January last year. However I accept that it could just as easily have been someone I had never physically met, although it is likely I would have had some form of contact with them previously.
Maybe a better way would have been to to auction breakfast with me and enough bait for a fishing trip for the day? If we happened to fancy a fishing trip after breakfast then surely that would have been a perfectly normal activity for friends to do anyway

PS Due to the furore that this has caused a local well regarded charter skipper has offered his boat and services for the day free of charge to me so that this trip can be fulfilled, should it be necessary. However the winner would prefer that he comes on my boat as that is what he was bidding for.

 

[jfm]

That was my take on it too, but there has been a very vocal counter argument presented on the other forum quoting this line of the law:

"on a voyage or excursion which is one for which the owner does not receive money for or in connection with operating the vessel or carrying any person"

The counter argument is that the owner didn't receive any money (as it went straight to charity)........

There is some serious misunderstnading of the law going on, on the other forum. Two importnat points:

1. The "no profit" and "friends or family" are *and* conditions, not *or*. So if the passenger isn't a friend (which will generally be the case with the charity case, except in a coincidence) the question of money/profit is academic. The trip is still in breach of the law

2. I cannot believe folks are even debating a loophole along the lines of "the owner didn't receive any money (as it went straight to charity)". Read subpara (c) of the defn of "pleasure vessel" in para 2(1) of the regs (= law) I linked to above. It specifically covers this scenario. There is no loophole; it is still unlawful if the owner doesn't get the money. And refer para 1 above: if the passenger isn't a friend the money thing is academic anyhow

 

[Grey-Viking]

There is some serious misunderstnading of the law going on, on the other forum. Two importnat points:

1. The "no profit" and "friends or family" are *and* conditions, not *or*. So if the passenger isn't a friend (which will generally be the case with the charity case, except in a coincidence) the question of money/profit is academic. The trip is still in breach of the law

2. I cannot believe folks are even debating a loophole along the lines of "the owner didn't receive any money (as it went straight to charity)". Read subpara (c) of the defn of "pleasure vessel" in para 2(1) of the regs (= law) I linked to above. It specifically covers this scenario. There is no loophole; it is still unlawful if the owner doesn't get the money. And refer para 1 above: if the passenger isn't a friend the money thing is academic anyhow

Thank you for providing a definitive answer regarding the law in this specific scenario, it is extremely helpful and much appreciated.

 

[jfm]

This is not a charter company, we are talking about my private boat. Not sure if that makes any difference?

No it doesn't, ffs. Read the law. The law makes no mention of "private boat" or "charter company", which are just bar-talk concepts. Completely forget about those things. The only conditions stipulated by the law are that (a) there must be no payment of money beyond fair share of variable costs AND (b) the passengers must all be friends/family.

I have highlighted the AND. You must comply with both (a) and (b). A failure to comply with either one of them, even if you comply with the other, makes the trip unlawful. That is all there is on this; all these mentiones of "private boat", "skippered charter" or "charter company" as relevant concepts in breaking/complying with the law are nonsense.

It's as, er, simple as that. You seem to be perfectly ok on the money front. The only genuine issue of doubt (as opposed to red herrings of which the other forum is becoming a bit full) is the grey area of wheter a person you have "met" on a forum is a "friend" or not. We aren't going to crack that one for sure on here; we can merely exchange views. Best to stay on safe side, imho, becuase as explained above MCA enforcement unit is trigger happy imho..

The charity auction winner isn't (except if there is a coincidence) going to be a friend so the charity trip is, generally, going to be unlawful. That makes perfect sense btw: there is obviously good public policy in requiring the charity winner to have the safeguard of a coded boat

 

[PaulGooch]

No it doesn't, ffs. Read the law. The law makes no mention of "private boat" or "charter company", which are just bar-talk concepts. Completely forget about those things. The only conditions stipulated by the law are that (a) there must be no payment of money beyond fair share of variable costs AND (b) the passengers must all be friends/family.

I have highlighted the AND. You must comply with both (a) and (b). A failure to comply with either one of them, even if you comply with the other, makes the trip unlawful. That is all there is on this; all these mentiones of "private boat", "skippered charter" or "charter company" as relevant concepts in breaking/complying with the law are nonsense.

It's as, er, simple as that. You seem to be perfectly ok on the money front. The only genuine issue of doubt (as opposed to red herrings of which the other forum is becoming a bit full) is the grey area of wheter a person you have "met" on a forum is a "friend" or not. We aren't going to crack that one for sure on here; we can merely exchange views. Best to stay on safe side, imho, becuase as explained above MCA enforcement unit is trigger happy imho..

The charity auction winner isn't (except if there is a coincidence) going to be a friend so the charity trip is, generally, going to be unlawful. That makes perfect sense btw: there is obviously good public policy in requiring the charity winner to have the safeguard of a coded boat

Can't disagree with any of that John, but......

I'm in the pub on a Friday night and one of my mates (i drink with him every Friday night) asks if i'd take him out for a days fishing when i have some space. "Sure", i tell him. He then asks if it's OK for his mate Harry to come too, as him and Harry usually go beach fishing together.

Looks like i have to spend the night in the pub with Harry too

How does this fit into the law ? :

http://www.crewseekers.net/yacht_crew_europe.aspx

 

[Grey-Viking]

Maybe a better way would have been to to auction breakfast with me and enough bait for a fishing trip for the day? If we happened to fancy a fishing trip after breakfast then surely that would have been a perfectly normal activity for friends to do anyway

You've had yet more advice since you posted this. You strike me as a man of reasonable intelligence, please don't "lose the plot" on this one clutching at straws hoping somebody will agree with you. This is not WSF, it's the real world, and increasingly desperate "angles" to justify yourself won't cut it.

PS... realistically would it stand up in court that a WSF member paid £300 for breakfast with you Terry? VIP complex? ..... hmmmmm

 

[jfm]

You've had yet more advice since you posted this. You strike me as a man of reasonable intelligence, please don't "lose the plot" on this one clutching at straws hoping somebody will agree with you. This is not WSF, it's the real world, and increasingly desperate "angles" to justify yourself won't cut it.

PS... realistically would it stand up in court that a WSF member paid £300 for breakfast with you Terry? VIP complex? ..... hmmmmm

I completley agree Gery-Viking. There are perhaps 100 bits of good caselaw in the UK where a payment dressed up (usually cackhandedly) as being for item A has been easily held by the courts to be a payment for item B. So the breakfast idea just doesn't work and will serve only to increase the sentence/penalty

 

[jfm]

I'm in the pub on a Friday night and one of my mates (i drink with him every Friday night) asks if i'd take him out for a days fishing when i have some space. "Sure", i tell him. He then asks if it's OK for his mate Harry to come too, as him and Harry usually go beach fishing together.

I'm not your jury but imho a friend of a friend can be a friend of yours in a matter of minutes. I mean, much faster than a stranger can become a friend. So I'd find you not guilty

The only caution I keep coming back to is that I happen to know for sure that MCA are a trigger happy lot and like pursuing cases that are imho trivial. So have a coffee and biscuits with Harry before casting off. And establish rapport - like discover you are both Man City supporters or something. And have a packet of Rolos on board with only one left, and offer it to him - juries like humour

I'll read the crewseekers thing later - gotta rush out now...

 

[cascars]

My last post was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek, you need to stop taking things so seriously Ray, but at the end of the day the only people that are going to suffer from this as far as I am concerned are the charities. Over the past six years I have probably raised around £3-4k for charity, mainly the RNLI, but clearly I can no longer do that without risk of prosecution.
As for taking friends out, that will not be a problem, I have dozens, if not hundreds that have fished with me before. It does mean though that I will not be taking anyone out for a taster of boat fishing. These people will probably not bother even trying it now if it means that they have to find ten other people to make up a charter crew, or risk being ill and not being able to come in early because they have all the others on the boat to consider.
What a shame, as these would have been the charter crews of the future.

 

[benjenbav]

My last post was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek, you need to stop taking things so seriously Ray, but at the end of the day the only people that are going to suffer from this as far as I am concerned are the charities. Over the past six years I have probably raised around £3-4k for charity, mainly the RNLI, but clearly I can no longer do that without risk of prosecution.
As for taking friends out, that will not be a problem, I have dozens, if not hundreds that have fished with me before. It does mean though that I will not be taking anyone out for a taster of boat fishing. These people will probably not bother even trying it now if it means that they have to find ten other people to make up a charter crew, or risk being ill and not being able to come in early because they have all the others on the boat to consider.
What a shame.

True. But let's say there's an accident on an illegal charter and someone gets gets paralysed. Insurers won't pay. Skipper declares himself bankrupt. The poor soul gets to live the rest of his life without the ability to buy the support he now needs.

 

[dt4134]

Looking at this from a raggie's perspective, in particular a racing raggie's perspective, any attempt to impose a strict definition of 'friend' would be pretty destructive to the sport.

A 40' racing boat would easily need 8, 9 or 10 crew to race, depending upon the conditions, and given the way things work in life, the owner might need a pool of 15 or 20 crew on which to draw.

I don't know of any boat that has taken the traditional approach of sending a party of existing crew members up to town armed with short truncheons to recruit new crew members as they came out of the pub, but there's always some that are desperate for new crew.

Advertising on regatta websites, or club websites or club notice boards is common practice. Even a boat with a settled crew might advertise a space or two locally when travelling to an event, because someone can't make the trip or they want some local knowledge.

It's not unknown to take out new crew that just happened to be wandering the pontoons.

It's also not unknown for the tactician or crew boss to organise the crew and for the owner to just turn up from time to time to do major regattas. I've certainly sailed on a boat like that.

All the focus of the organisers of racing events is on insuring that crew aren't paid (except of course the cases where that's allowed).

 

[Grey-Viking]

My last post was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek, you need to stop taking things so seriously Ray, but at the end of the day the only people that are going to suffer from this as far as I am concerned are the charities. Over the past six years I have probably raised around £3-4k for charity, mainly the RNLI, but clearly I can no longer do that without risk of prosecution.

Terry, it's not that I need to stop taking things so seriously, it's that YOU need to START taking things more seriously and respect the law (as it's now been explained to you). You've come here to ask advice and gotten some SERIOUSLY high powered advice from chaps who don't know you from Adam but nevertheless have taken lots of their time to give you comprehensive, expensive advice FOR FREE.

I'm speechless that you are choosing to have a pop at me instead of taking time to offer big thanks to the guys here.

And BTW chaps I AM truly grateful

Furthermore Terry, it's frankly despicable to insinuate that charities are being deprived due to my actions!! Simply redirect your fundraising pursuits down different (lawful) avenues, simples!

 

[jfm]

My last post was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek, you need to stop taking things so seriously Ray, but at the end of the day the only people that are going to suffer from this as far as I am concerned are the charities. Over the past six years I have probably raised around £3-4k for charity, mainly the RNLI, but clearly I can no longer do that without risk of prosecution.
As for taking friends out, that will not be a problem, I have dozens, if not hundreds that have fished with me before. It does mean though that I will not be taking anyone out for a taster of boat fishing. These people will probably not bother even trying it now if it means that they have to find ten other people to make up a charter crew, or risk being ill and not being able to come in early because they have all the others on the boat to consider.
What a shame, as these would have been the charter crews of the future.

Cascars I have to say I am with Grey Viking on this. There is an insinuation in your post above that folks on here merely giving you a considered view on what the law of the UK says are somehow responsible for charities not getting money. No-one on here made the law - it's parliament who do that, and MCA who enforce it. You are shooting, and insulting, messengers

 

[cascars]

I am grateful for the advice given here, seriously I am. I will also be taking heed of it. However until only a couple of weeks ago when somebody that I had considered a mate dragged a charity fundraising thread into the legal why's and wherefore's publicly, I and others had been raising charity funds this way for several years without anyone ever making a fuss about it.
I appreciate now that if one of these trips had gone tits up then there could have been serious repercussions, but would rather this person had called me (he has my number) and discussed it in private first before going public.
From the original discussion on the other forum of the charity trip came the discussion of whether taking mates out and getting a contribution towards the days expenses.
I am also disappointed that despite sending two emails in two weeks to the MCA asking them for clarification of the legalities that they have not had the courtesy to reply
If they do not have the decency to reply then how can they even consider taking legal action against someone who may be within what they believe to be the law?
Many thanks to you JFM (and others) for your advice

 

[mikefleetwood]

Looking at this from a raggie's perspective, in particular a racing raggie's perspective, any attempt to impose a strict definition of 'friend' would be pretty destructive to the sport.

A 40' racing boat would easily need 8, 9 or 10 crew to race, depending upon the conditions, and given the way things work in life, the owner might need a pool of 15 or 20 crew on which to draw.

I don't know of any boat that has taken the traditional approach of sending a party of existing crew members up to town armed with short truncheons to recruit new crew members as they came out of the pub, but there's always some that are desperate for new crew.

Advertising on regatta websites, or club websites or club notice boards is common practice. Even a boat with a settled crew might advertise a space or two locally when travelling to an event, because someone can't make the trip or they want some local knowledge.

It's not unknown to take out new crew that just happened to be wandering the pontoons.

It's also not unknown for the tactician or crew boss to organise the crew and for the owner to just turn up from time to time to do major regattas. I've certainly sailed on a boat like that.

All the focus of the organisers of racing events is on insuring that crew aren't paid (except of course the cases where that's allowed).

It's not a matter of the crew being paid. It only becomes illegal (unless the boat is coded, etc for commercial use) if the crew pay for their berths. So, it shouldn't affect racing crews.

By the way, it's not a new law - it's been the case for years!

 

[jfm]

It only becomes illegal (unless the boat is coded, etc for commercial use) if the crew pay for their berths. So, it shouldn't affect racing crews.

By the way, it's not a new law - it's been the case for years!

It's amazing how people can get the law wrong even after having the original actual law linked to and the whole thing explained at great length. It is illegal merely if the people on board are not the owner or friends/family of the owner

 

[mikefleetwood]

oops - sorry

 

[dt4134]

It's amazing how people can get the law wrong even after having the original actual law linked to and the whole thing explained at great length. It is illegal merely if the people on board are not the owner or friends/family of the owner

That's the thing. If you take the view that strangers are only friends you haven't met yet, the racing boat fraternity are fine. But, if you/someone/the authorities try to lay down a definition of friend that relies on knowing someone for more than a few minutes, that could have a major impact on yacht racing in the UK.

 

[Doug_Stormforce]

Racing is exempt from coding anyway as long as the event is a puka ( ISAF recognised) event

 

[alant]

It's not a matter of the crew being paid. It only becomes illegal (unless the boat is coded, etc for commercial use) if the crew pay for their berths. So, it shouldn't affect racing crews.

By the way, it's not a new law - it's been the case for years!

If a vessel is "going to a race, in a race or returning from a race", many of the usual MCA rules do not apply.

(oops, missed Dougs post)