Reflagging new-to-us boat in Med - which flag?

[Tranona]

I have been informed that after 10 years the boat needs an out of water survey before renewing Part 1 reg. The Polish option needs no survey (they will accept Part 1 reg details - like LOA etc) and it lasts a lifetime. So no renews (even renewing Part 1 after 5 years was a pain).

Informed by whom? that is simply not true. As I suggested earlier you really need to base your decisions on facts. As Forty_Two suggests you are perhaps confusing the regular, typically 10 year survey that is increasingly required by insurers - but an insurance condition survey is nothing like a tonnage survey as I explained in post #91.There is absolutely no advantage in letting your Part 1 lapse and paying a huge some of money to register your boat in Poland. UK Part 1 is the most established and credible form of registration for yachts available.

 

[wwalsh]

In case the Part 1 is lapsed then a tonnage survey will be required for re-registration.
The length for registration (register length) is the length of the hull without any added parts (pulpit, bowsprit, stern platform that is not part of the hull). Checking can be made with tape measure but it is not reliable for the actual length measurement (most often at least 0.10m off) therefore the builder data would mostly be used.
The polish registration card looks a bit like SSR rather than a Part 1 certificate.

 

[Chris_Robb]

I have been informed that after 10 years the boat needs an out of water survey before renewing Part 1 reg. The Polish option needs no survey (they will accept Part 1 reg details - like LOA etc) and it lasts a lifetime. So no renews (even renewing Part 1 after 5 years was a pain).

I am onto my 3rd renewal of my part 1. No remeasurement necessary. I don't know where you get your info from, but I seriously suggest you stop listening to that source, because its complete rubbish.

As for your reasons to change flag - well thats up to you. I know for me it would create a problem on Insurance as I wish to be insured by a UK regulated organisation. And I am proud to fly the Red Ensign.

If your worries are about the issues of Greek rules, I suspect that these will be all ironed out by the time we go sailing this year. There is a major change in the shipping laws coming - will it ditch the Transit Log? That we are certainly pushing for at the CA. As for the other issues - like Rhodes and the Dodecanese has not given any UK vessel RGR this year no matter what documentation it has - I believe we will have sorted all this by the time of the summer season again. So why change? I can see no possible reason.

 

[Chris_Robb]

However, UK insurance companies will usually want to see a survey every 10 years or so. That is not a hard and fast rule, but seems pretty common practice.

Any Insurer who will take on a yacht after 10 years without a survey is guilty of crap underwriting and risk management. I personally do not want to be insured by a company that takes that attitude to risk. As William Walsh what kind of shit he has seen over the years......

 

[Koeketiene]

As for your reasons to change flag - well thats up to you. I know for me it would create a problem on Insurance as I wish to be insured by a UK regulated organisation. And I am proud to fly the Red Ensign.

Your boat does not have to be UK registered to be insured with a UK regulated insurance company.
My Belgian registered boat, kept in France, is insured with Pants UK.

 

[Graham376]

Any Insurer who will take on a yacht after 10 years without a survey is guilty of crap underwriting and risk management. I personally do not want to be insured by a company that takes that attitude to risk. As William Walsh what kind of shit he has seen over the years......

Insurance market has changed, many UK insurers are no longer licensed to insure EU flagged boats. We (UK flagged, EU based) had problems finding cover this year and changed to Navigators & General at October renewal and need survey before 2022 renewal, last one was 7 years ago. Pants wanted survey before agreeing cover.

 

[Atakan]

The wife and I are in the process of negotiating the purchase of a used boat, currently in Italy. The boat is currently US flagged, but has VAT paid status after being imported into Sweden by the current owner - we will of course verify this prior to completion. We are both UK citizens and resident in Spain. Note that I've confirmed that there is no longer any requirement for Spanish residents to flag the boat in Spain, and that we are well aware of the issues around Matriculation tax in spain, for which we are seeking professional advice. I've seen plenty of threads here on these subjects and don't wish to add further to that!

The topic I'd love to get any insight on is the question of how to flag the boat. I've read numerous posts on here about whether to reflag boats in the Med to an EU flag in the hope of "flying under the radar" and attracting less interest from customs and immigration people, most of which seem to end with the conclusion that its not worth the agro of changing and they would be as well to stick with the red duster.

However the position we are in is that the boat is not currently UK registered, and as UK citizens but not UK residents we would appear to be eligible for Part 1 but not SSR registration. As my wife is also a US citizen we could actually keep the current US flag if the boat was owned solely by her, although I'm not convinced that's necessarily the ideal flag to have in the EU either.

Firstly does anyone have experience of how strictly the residence requirement of SSR is applied? For example is it one of those situations where we could provide a relative's address on the registration docs and nobody would care, or could that create all sorts of problems? The last thing I would want to do would be to have our papers rejected by a foreign customs official because we weren't a UK resident - bearing in mind that we may be relying on our Spanish residence in order to remain in Spanish waters.

If we decided that SSR was not an option that would leave Part 1, which I understand is rather more onerous and expensive; it seems like we shouldn't have too much difficulty proving a trail of ownership but flying a tonnage surveyor out to Italy sounds like it wouldn't be cheap!

Against this there is the perception I have that a UK flagged boat is more likely to attract interest from customs and immigration people around the Med. This may be all in my mind, and I would love to hear anyone that has experiences that support or refute this, but I suspect given the pandemic this year is probably too soon to know for sure. For the avoidance of doubt we fully intend to comply with all immigration requirements, monitor our Schengen time etc - but it sure would be nice to avoid having to prove this to local officials any more frequently than strictly necessary.

So given that we are starting from a blank slate I wonder if it would be worth finding a friendly EU flag; Poland is one that I've heard mentioned but I would be open to other suggestions. Spain is not under consideration given how onerous their regime is.

Does anyone here have experience with having a boat flagged in another EU country (without a citizenship or residence requirement) that they can recommend or caution against?

Thanks
Neil

I bought a boat which is registered in Spain. I applied for deregistration (dropping the Spanish flag)
about 45 days ago and I did not receive an answer yet. How can I speed up the process?

 

[Irish Rover]

I bought a boat which is registered in Spain. I applied for deregistration (dropping the Spanish flag)
about 45 days ago and I did not receive an answer yet. How can I speed up the process?

I'm not familiar with the Spanish system, but in my experience in a number of other countries, it's the person who registered the boat i.e. the previous owner, who needs to make the application for deregistration.

 

[Lorrendraaier]

I bought a boat which is registered in Spain. I applied for deregistration (dropping the Spanish flag)
about 45 days ago and I did not receive an answer yet. How can I speed up the process?

Depending on where you submitted the application for withdrawal, it can take many months in Spain. Six+ months is certainly no exception. If, however, the person under whose name the vessel was registered would apply for the withdrawal, I understand it goes a lot quicker.