Last chance to comment on draft regulations for commmercially operated small craft

[Halo]

If you charter in the uk or pay and play on yacht races such as Fastnet you may want to respond to the consultation by M C A below. It closes on 25 February

Consultation Document: The Merchant Shipping (Vessels in Commercial Use for Sport or Pleasure) Regulations 2025 and accompanying Code, The Code of Practice for Small Vessels in Commercial use for Sport or Pleasure (“Sport or Pleasure Vessel Code”)

For what it’s worth my own response is below

“
I am a user of small commercial vessels for sport and pleasure.

It is very clear to me that the complexity of the proposed new regulations will cause serious unintended consequeces for users and the business in general. Charities such as The Tall Ships Trust will be caught up by them. In particular any resriction on the use of boating charts and navigation systems (such as Navionics) on these vessels or a requirement to use high cost specialist navigation equipment rather than the perfectly adequate leisure yachting versions would cause severe problems - especially with the demise of printed charts.

I greatly enjoy the Tall Ships Races which start from and visit UK cities. The vessels come from all over the world and stay for a few days. Are these old and venerable vessels going to be subject to these regulations if they are operated comercially ? If so I suspect many will not come here.

Personally I see little evidence of the need for more regulation in this area. The sfety record of small boat operations seems good.

In light of the above I think Option 1 - maintain the existing regulations would be preferable
“

I may be wasting a little time but at least I have done what I can

 

[dunedin]

The RYA has published its response
HERE

Makes sobering reading, as MCA seem to be applying big ship thinking to creating lots of (often unnecessary) rules to apply to small coded craft.
As currently drafted, could even seem to outlaw a club safety boat towing a Topper, as one proposed rule would mean all towing vessels need to be fully decked (the MCA are clearly thinking tug boats).

 

[RunAgroundHard]

The current draft will very likely be changed.

The initial draft, placed for review by official bodies was incredibly impractical, being more or less a conversation of the work boat code of practise. After various technical working group meetings, much of that has changed. There is a surprise that some of the stuff has remained but expectations is that it will be adjusted. One thing that is a worry, is that MCA are keen to put the act before parliament before the summer recess. The RYA and others have stated that there is no rush, because the current legislation has been in place for +20 years, so no need to rush and make a poor implementation.

The definition of conning area (can't remember the text) suggests that charter boats, sailing school boats, RIBS et cetera, will have to have operating manuals, plotters and a pile of other stuff all at the conning station, the definition being where the boat is helmed from, only one conning station allowed. Currently these things are spread around a boat, quite safely. There is also a requirement for visibility at the conning station, and this might impact centre cockpits with large genoas, where clearly there is a blind spot from the helm when healed and Genoa hauled in for closed hauled.

The RYA have done a great job scaling back a rather amateurish, impractical initial draft to a more pragmatic draft. nThere is still work do be done and one of the tracks being muted is to actually take MCA onto small yachts in commercial operations and show them what to do.

Of bigger concern, if you own a 30' boat and want to put it into charter after the new act, assuming it stays the same, then you will not have the data, no matter where it was built, to obtain a stability certificate. Therefore you will be forced to engage a stability competent person to asses the vessel. The reason for this, is that the data required for stability checks by a competent person is not mandatory under RCD / UK equivalent, only mandatory above 30'. Also current draft is vessel approved, not type approved less than 30'. Happy to be corrected on this, but that is my understanding. The RYA are trying to change this restrictive clause.

Another area on stability is that that the stability calculations have to take into account cranes and spaces where machinery over 1000 kg may exist for the work that the vessel does. This is different from current guidance and is a copy and paste from the work boat legislation. This should be taken out as it is not relevant.

Existing coded vessels will be grandfathered, current claim.

For the majority of boat owners who are not commercial vessels, this has no relevance.

 

[pioneer]

Reading some of the drafts and RYA response (there's a lot to plough through) has what appears to be several responsibilities for the charterer, most will be impossible to verify. Paraphrasing something i read seems to mean that as the skipper of a charter boat you are meant to ensure the boat has been properly maintained. The charter company also has a responsibly. Somewhere it also says that all collisions must be reported to the CA and they will advise. When racing, collisions are not uncommon and even cruising yachts have been known to collide, sometimes with the pontoon. Do they really want us to report each of these events and await their response before proceeding? I may have missed a lot and the above examples may be caveated in other parts. Even so it seems to be a rushed draft cobbled together from other documents without understanding the implications or that amateurs take out vessels deemed to be commercial (the charter company is making it's living from hiring out the boat).