Is this allowed? paying crew.

When we go cruising everyone aboard (owner/s and crew) contributes an agreed sum per week to the kitty, slightly more if there are fewer people aboard, this year we expect the rate to be around £120 a week towards food (mostly not out of tins), beer etc., diesel, gas, harbour & mooring fees. £250 weekly or £55 daily with no mention of beer or other refreshments is clearly much more than the running costs of a smaller, cheaper-to-run boat than ours. We occasionally end a cruise with a few quid in the kitty but we generally owe the boat a cylinder of gas and some diesel at that point so no-one is making a profit, usually the opposite.

If he as it seems, representing this as a cost-sharing 'sailing with friends' arrangement, I think his insurers might take a rather sceptical view in the event of a claim.
 
2009 I advertised Sailing Days on a website and leaflets.

In Kyle of Lochalsh the MCA came to the boat - a 22' Maxi - and said I must remove my advert.
The MCA called the police - who I did not speak to.
Eventually I sailed away.

I had a booking call from Glasgow and Googled the number.
It was the MCA office in Glasgow. I gave the guy hell for being a lying snivelling beast.

A young couple in Oban paid £80 for a days sail round Kerrara.
 
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lustyd said:
I meant safe as in someone with no knowledge of boats at all might "buy a ticket" to go sailing on a boat which has no coding and therefore may or may not meet the safety requirements for such a person to be on board. This goes as far down as clear signage showing where safety kit is, and these regs have been put in place based on previous incidents. The skipper may or may not be qualified to take newbies sailing, but the law is there because the zero experience person wouldn't know he doesn't hold teaching qualifications, again the law is there for a reason.
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If the law wanted all boats taking newbies out to be coded and all skippers taking newbies out to be qualified, the law would presumably insist upon these things. It doesn't, though.

Incidentally, since when has e commercial charter skipper required a teaching qualification?
 
JumbleDuck said:
If the law wanted all boats taking newbies out to be coded and all skippers taking newbies out to be qualified, the law would presumably insist upon these things. It doesn't, though.
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As you say, there is nothing to stop us taking a friend (newbie or otherwise) out on a private boat. However, the law does require any boat working commercially to meet minimum requirements.

If I remember correctly from my time running a charter yacht, working as a commercial skipper and maritime lecturing days the MCA may regard any agreement where money changes hands between owner / skipper and paying passenger / crew as 'commercial'. Likewise, advertising with a day rate could be taken as an indication of a commercial operation. I do know of cases where genuine commercial operators have notified the MCA of people trying to operate on the cheap by not complying with the appropriate codes of practice.

I can and do take friends sailing without needing commercial coding and qualifications, and they may bring some food with them, take me for a meal, or offer to pay for a diesel fill. However, I do not ask for money from them, as doing so could leave me open to an accusation of running a commercial operation. How others may choose to interpret the rules is up to them.
 
srm said:
Likewise, advertising with a day rate could be taken as an indication of a commercial operation.
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When I was having a discussion with trading standards about whether YAPPs required CE marking one of the biggies that indicated that they would was if I was trying to flog them on Ebay to complete strangers that I had no previous dealings with - rather like this bloke is doing.
 
Well you're talking about me little venture, nice to see lots of comments even if they are mixed!

If you take the time to look it does mention on my little website that this is not commercial, not a sailing school and not a charter. It also makes clear that you're not paying to sail but contributing towards the bigger picture of the overall cost of sailing and in light of some of the comments on this page I've now added figures for crew contributions on to the information page. I'll copy and paste that below.

Why do I do it? I was given the opportunity at 8 years old and without it I may have never sailed. In the 4 years I've been doing this little cost sharing initiative I've met some really nice people, most of which are still friends, some really good friends. All walks of life have sailed with me, mixed ages and mixed sailing abilities from novice, mile builders, people getting a bit of experience in before getting their tickets, and even yacht masters just coming for the trip, from people who have never been on boats to people who own their own boats, even people who are buying boats. In fact only this week I've been helping deliver a friends newly bought boat from Portland to Whitehaven and I met this friend through giving him the opportunity to sail on my boat.

Well I hope this post helps answer some question, happy sailing to all.

Dave.
www.solwaysailing.co.uk
facebook/solwaysailing

COST OF SAILING AS CREW.

Your contribution towards sailing as crew is £50.00 per day per crew. For your contribution, when on passage you get to sleep on the boat (need your own sleeping bag/pillow), tea and coffee and meals onboard (usually out of tins) and any marina fees incurred and the fuel used on your passage is paid for.

NON PROFIT MAKING.

Note: This is not commercial operation, a skippered charter or a sailing school. This venture is 'non profit making' and I'm offering you the opportunity to crew and inviting you onboard my boat. I extend this invitation not for love of money but for the love of sailing. Remember you are not paying to come out sailing, you are crew and as crew you are contributing towards a 'kitty' for the overall running costs for the boat and although your contribution is a fixed amount it only makes up a very small percentage of this overall cost.

Recently there has been online speculation in a ybw forum towards my 'non profit making' claim. I'm only to happy to release these figures: Contributions collected from crew toward sailing costs since I started this cost sharing venture is as follows:

2010: £950 2011: £1500 2012: £1550 2013: £1650

To put a little balance into that here's just some of the overall running costs in 2013 alone:

Whitehaven marina fees: £2200, Isle of Man Fees: £160, money spend on repairing, renewing or buying new items for the boat from chandlery £1400, Annual Lift out £350, crane for lifting mast off and on £300, new rigging £1200. Parts for engine service £125. Annual RNLI donation £150. This list still does not include money spent on fuel, visiting marina fees, food or drink purchased for the crew who sailed onboard.

As I mentioned, it's not for the love of money but sailing, it's non profit making and I'll be sailing my boat with or without crew. However, I love meeting new people, I have a real passion for teaching sailing, and I'm happy to give anyone who expresses any interest the opportunity to see, enjoy and experience some of the wonders of sailing on the sea that I'm fortunate enough to see week in and week out. So if you'd like to join me, for a small contribution to the kitty, your welcome.
 
lustyd said:
It's not that negotiable. He states on the website it's a day sail from his own marina and you'll be eating tinned food. That only really leaves diesel as far as costs which he can legally claim for and there is no way in hell that his boat uses that much fuel. Because of this, he needs to have the boat coded, and he and his mate need to be qualified. He doesn't have a mate, so the advert is for an illegal charter service. I won't be reporting him but that doesn't make what he's doing right or safe.
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Crew contributing reasonable costs (typically food/drink/harbour dues etc.) on a non-coded boat is OK, but this looks much more like a day charter business, even though his website claims that no real money is being made. That in itself is not surprising as day charter is a difficult business even in popular locations, which Whitehaven is possibly not.

As owner of a coded charter boat - http://www.yachtsnet.co.uk/boats/charter/moored3.jpg - I sometimes regard some of the minutiae of the coding rules annoying (when did anyone anywhere ever last use the special morse signalling torch) but most of the rules are sensible. Also the website's info on the skipper's experience is a bit worrying: charter skippers (and I've done it) can get thrown into some pretty awkward situations with new and inexperienced crew.
 
From the website:

"Recently there has been online speculation in a ybw forum towards my 'non profit making' claim. I'm only to happy to release these figures: Contributions collected from crew toward sailing costs since I started this cost sharing venture is as follows:



2010: £950 2011: £1500 2012: £1550 2013: £1650



To put a little balance into that here's just some of the overall running costs in 2013 alone:



Whitehaven marina fees: £2200, Isle of Man Fees: £160, money spend on repairing, renewing or buying new items for the boat from chandlery £1400, Annual Lift out £350, crane for lifting mast off and on £300, new rigging £1200. Parts for engine service £125. Annual RNLI donation £150. This list still does not include money spent on fuel, visiting marina fees, food or drink purchased for the crew who sailed onboard.



As I mentioned, it's not for the love of money but sailing, it's non profit making and I'll be sailing my boat with or without crew. However, I love meeting new people, I have a real passion for teaching sailing, and I'm happy to give anyone who expresses any interest the opportunity to see, enjoy and experience some of the wonders of sailing on the sea that I'm fortunate enough to see week in and week out. So if you'd like to join me, for a small contribution to the kitty, your welcome."
 
Whilst in some ways I admire what he is doing, he is on very shaky ground. A .co.uk website, an "info@..." email address, an online schedule, words like "bookings", "deposits", and a fixed daily rate, an ebay auction, records of all monies received from "guests"..in court could it be proven that to the complete novice they didn't realise it was a business regardless of some of the website wording? Just because it's non-profit making doesn't mean it's not a business. I'd be very interested to know if he gets the crew to sign any kind of disclaimer when they go aboard...

If it were me I'd keep the website, rename it to "sailing with Dave" and make it considerably less commercial looking. Nothing wrong with having a Dylan style blog with a banner "Fancy a sail where we split the costs? Give me a buzz to chat". But as things stand I hope the guy has a very good lawyer if anything goes wrong. Disclaimers count for nothing any more.
 
Figures above show how hard it must be to make chartering pay.

lustyd said:
I'd be curious what costs will be incurred in a day sail which add up to £55 per person.
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If he has an attention seeking engine like ours, £55 wouldn't be enough. Saying that, I wouldn't feel right taking financial contributions from any crew, though all generally volunteer maintenance time, food, etc.

I think in the eyes of the MCA, and his insurance company, it becomes a commercial charter when you don't have a pre-existing relationship with the cost sharers. Good luck to him though.

Iain C said:
If it were me I'd keep the website, rename it to "sailing with Dave" and make it considerably less commercial looking. Nothing wrong with having a Dylan style blog with a banner "Fancy a sail where we split the costs? Give me a buzz to chat".
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+1
 
Trop Cher said:
From the website:

"Recently there has been online speculation in a ybw forum towards my 'non profit making' claim. I'm only to happy to release these figures: Contributions collected from crew toward sailing costs since I started this cost sharing venture is as follows:



2010: £950 2011: £1500 2012: £1550 2013: £1650



To put a little balance into that here's just some of the overall running costs in 2013 alone:



Whitehaven marina fees: £2200, Isle of Man Fees: £160, money spend on repairing, renewing or buying new items for the boat from chandlery £1400, Annual Lift out £350, crane for lifting mast off and on £300, new rigging £1200. Parts for engine service £125. Annual RNLI donation £150. This list still does not include money spent on fuel, visiting marina fees, food or drink purchased for the crew who sailed onboard.



As I mentioned, it's not for the love of money but sailing, it's non profit making and I'll be sailing my boat with or without crew. However, I love meeting new people, I have a real passion for teaching sailing, and I'm happy to give anyone who expresses any interest the opportunity to see, enjoy and experience some of the wonders of sailing on the sea that I'm fortunate enough to see week in and week out. So if you'd like to join me, for a small contribution to the kitty, your welcome."
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He's confusing the annual cost of owning his boat with the costs incurred in a days sailing. You cannot justify one with the other.
 
Buck Turgidson said:
He's confusing the annual cost of owning his boat with the costs incurred in a days sailing. You cannot justify one with the other.
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I was just about to post the same. I'm all for reducing bureaucracy in sailing, but this chap is just asking for trouble.

There are very well established rules for cost-sharing in light aviation. If you are simply asking for a proportional share of the cost of a given flight - fuel and landing fees, basically - then it's non commercial and a Private Pilot's Licence is fine. If you want more than that, perhaps to defray fixed costs of aircraft ownership or to subsidize other flying, you need a Commercial Pilot's Licence.

This chap clearly wants his paying crew to subsidize his annual costs - in fact he has admitted it in the quoted post. I'd be fairly surprised if the MCA prosecuted him, despite his further admission that he's been at it for four years now, but I would expect them to jump rather firmly on him.
 
Clearly not within the rules as I understand them, and codeing a boat is not that costly assuming you have decent safety kit already, so why not code a boat if you are going to do this?

I coded my boat for casual income such as this and the rules are there to protect to innocent or those that are new to sailing who don't understand. I commend his ideals in wanting to share and introduce people to sailing in a small cheap way, but there are crewing agencies where you can join as crew for less cost on a range of outings. I'm sure whitehaven sailling association would be very helpful if you wanted to get out on a boat in that area.

You can take friends out, as I do on friends boats and you can share the costs involved in the voyage, that doesn't include a running costs subsidy, it doesn't even cover mooring fees of your home berth as these would be incurred without the voyage. The rules are very clear and this is outside of the rules.
 
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JumbleDuck said:
I was just about to post the same. I'm all for reducing bureaucracy in sailing, but this chap is just asking for trouble.

There are very well established rules for cost-sharing in light aviation. If you are simply asking for a proportional share of the cost of a given flight - fuel and landing fees, basically - then it's non commercial and a Private Pilot's Licence is fine. If you want more than that, perhaps to defray fixed costs of aircraft ownership or to subsidize other flying, you need a Commercial Pilot's Licence.

This chap clearly wants his paying crew to subsidize his annual costs - in fact he has admitted it in the quoted post. I'd be fairly surprised if the MCA prosecuted him, despite his further admission that he's been at it for four years now, but I would expect them to jump rather firmly on him.
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The MCA rules for boating are pretty well identical to what you say for aviation and the quote from the website confirms that he's breaking the law.
I think the difference is that when going out with a mate whether it's in a plane or a boat you know the person and so know the risk of putting your life into their hands. When it's a stranger it's hard to gauge the risks since you don't know them, how they treat their kit, how experienced they are etc. If there is really no incentive for them to take you out (i.e. a genuine cost share) then you have no expectations of the above. Where the cost is clearly higher than what it costs to run the boat for the day then it looks like a business and so the expectation can easily become that the equipment is safe and maintained to a proper standard, and that the person is qualified to take you out.
 
lustyd said:
I think the difference is that when going out with a mate whether it's in a plane or a boat you know the person and so know the risk of putting your life into their hands. When it's a stranger it's hard to gauge the risks since you don't know them, how they treat their kit, how experienced they are etc. ...
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Well put.
 
Buck Turgidson said:
He's confusing the annual cost of owning his boat with the costs incurred in a days sailing. You cannot justify one with the other.
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+1 This guy abviously has no idea of the legal position regarding what constitutes a Commercial operation. The link I put up previously includes a letter from an MCA legal chap setting out clear guideline, which this chap does not meet.
 
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