Pleasure Craft Report Service (sPCR) - Gotcha

MontyMariner

MontyMariner

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montymariner.co.uk
"You must complete and submit a pleasure craft report using the digital service or an alternative at least two hours before you depart, but no more than 24 hours before you depart".
This is all well and good if your plans go to the plan. If the plan changes the sPCR can't handle it.

On my last trip the plan was to go St PP - Cherbourg - Poole so I would submit my sPCR in Cherbourg, but I got to the top of the Alderney race a little late and a bit further West than ideal, hence when I turned East I was making slow progress. Change of plan, forget going to Cherbourg and continue passage straight to Poole.
This is where the system falls down, when I got in phone range of Poole I logged into Tell Border Force and HMRC you are sailing to or from the UK in a pleasure craft to complete the return form.
Q1 - Place and Time of departure - St PP yesterday
Gotcha - Time has to be in the future, the system won't accept a time in the past, so I had to put in a fictitious time and the current date, I could then complete the form.
I have emailed them to point this problem out but have had no reply.
 
MontyMariner said:
"You must complete and submit a pleasure craft report using the digital service or an alternative at least two hours before you depart, but no more than 24 hours before you depart".
This is all well and good if your plans go to the plan. If the plan changes the sPCR can't handle it.

On my last trip the plan was to go St PP - Cherbourg - Poole so I would submit my sPCR in Cherbourg, but I got to the top of the Alderney race a little late and a bit further West than ideal, hence when I turned East I was making slow progress. Change of plan, forget going to Cherbourg and continue passage straight to Poole.
This is where the system falls down, when I got in phone range of Poole I logged into Tell Border Force and HMRC you are sailing to or from the UK in a pleasure craft to complete the return form.
Q1 - Place and Time of departure - St PP yesterday
Gotcha - Time has to be in the future, the system won't accept a time in the past, so I had to put in a fictitious time and the current date, I could then complete the form.
I have emailed them to point this problem out but have had no reply.
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The issue is that it hasn't really been thought through. It's better than the trial version, where you had to give the exact lat and long you would pass the 12 mile limit at and a 15 min window.

Rather than change the software to match what happens in reality, they expect you to change how you operate. They can send you a request to check paperwork (you the skipper have to check the paperwork is valid and not a fake) or you can be told to offload the person. That's what the 2 hour delay is for.
 
Jonny A said:
I'm still waiting for them to contact me to tell me I can drop my Q flag from a cross-channel trip in July.
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They never contacted me, so I went with the advice given by a sailor which was wait 2 hours from your latest predicted time, then go home. So we slept from 5am till Brunch time then packed up boat and went back to Bristol. As I have commented elsewhere we actually motored past the Border Force launches on the Plym so we were not not furtive or hidden, they just cant be bothered with their new complexity for yachts, they would rather cruise near the Eddistone Lighthouse and repel at need any illegal immigrants that try and do the 120 mile crossing from France in a rubber dinghy
 
I’ve read you need to call them, but the gov.uk site doesn’t say that. As a result I haven’t been told yet to take my Q flag down either, got back 2 weeks ago. RYA guidance I’ve read also says you have to let them know if you’re coming back from Channel Islands, but form doesn’t accept that.

I’m not bothered though, a whole lot of unnecessary rowlocks.
 
doug748 said:
I still like to submit the 1331 form by post, laid back and vague like sailing itself.
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On a previous trip I couldn't get the online form to work so posted the 1331 form.
I got a very poorly written reply stating that I should have done it on line.
There was no name or signature, no date, no reference, no addressee. I don't think the writer has ever had any schooling in letter writing.A poor example of officialdom.
 
DanTribe said:
On a previous trip I couldn't get the online form to work so posted the 1331 form.
I got a very poorly written reply stating that I should have done it on line.
There was no name or signature, no date, no reference, no addressee. I don't think the writer has ever had any schooling in letter writing.A poor example of officialdom.
Click to expand...

Does not surprise me, years ago I was in contact with a junior civil servant in one of the large ministries, he would have struggled in the back office of a Turkish pig farm.

I am sure they would dearly like to be rid of the postal service, but I do like to wack one into the post and then you can forget about it till the anchor is down on your return.

.
 
doug748 said:
Does not surprise me, years ago I was in contact with a junior civil servant in one of the large ministries, he would have struggled in the back office of a Turkish pig farm.

I am sure they would dearly like to be rid of the postal service, but I do like to wack one into the post and then you can forget about it till the anchor is down on your return.

.
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The post is perfect for a wind up. Reminds me of the dear departed Sir Patrick Moore, who used to wind up the post office itself by post. They were livid with him for sticking the stamp in the wrong place🤣
 
Do the Civil Service Exams still exist?

The time problem is nuts. last week we set off from Roscoff for Guernsey but as we arrived at Peter Port we found ourselves at slack water withg a poor forecast for the next day so we decided to continue to Hamble without stopping. So how is the system to cope with that? buy the time I reached UK waters I had left Roscoff 25 hours before. I submitted an SPCr where I declared that I had dome Roscoff - Hamble in something like 4 hours. I could have simply filled out a C1331 but if you do the paper form you have to call yacht line. If you fill out the SPCr you don't have to call anyone.

Personally I thing that border force is a joke, I think that customs should be on a VHF channel and everyone entering UK waters should be required to call on the VHF and border force should have patrol vessels randomly checking passports etc. What I don't believe in is the stupid way SPCr has been implemented by people who don't know the difference between a boat and a bath tub. We cannot give a two hour arrival time in advance, we can't give a destination either particularly if you are in a sailing boat. The system need to be m,ore flexible and allow you to declare what you did so that you can back date departures and correct arrival times too if you have the need to.
 
Seven Spades said:
The system need to be m,ore flexible and allow you to declare what you did so that you can back date departures and correct arrival times too if you have the need to.
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How would that work though? The entire point of connecting the form to the immigration database is so that they can tell you that a member of the crew should be offloaded or to send you a 96 page document to check their passport against.
 
st599 said:
How would that work though? The entire point of connecting the form to the immigration database is so that they can tell you that a member of the crew should be offloaded or to send you a 96 page document to check their passport against.
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99 times out of 100 the crew you arrive back inthe uk with is the one that you left with, if immigration sanction their departure they can hardly deny their readmittance.
 
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