What flag is this anyone?

[ArthurWood]

Re: Nonsense talk on tax avoidance

John - thanks for the detailed reply and I apologise for not being clearer with my original question. An example here is of a 100+ foot yacht whose owner is a US citizen and whose permanent address (~$10M house) is here, not a mile from where he keeps his boat, but the yacht/boat flies a CI flag. The yacht disappears for weeks at a time, but for most of the year it is in our marina. I don't think your examples cover this, or do they?

 

[jfm]

Re: Nonsense talk on tax avoidance

Arthur, ship's cat's replies do indeed potentially cover that. The US resident owner could have chosen a CI flag becuase the CI technical requirements as to boat fit out or crewing or whatever are more suited to that size of boat than the USA rules.

 

[robind]

Members of my yacht club, which flies a defaced ensign, pay for a license to wear it? so UK does use defaced ensigns in special cases!
Rob

 

[aswade]

Crew issues a major reason

According to one survey, the number of yachts >80' in length being built annually has tripled since 1997.

In 2005, there are 144 more new orders than the number of new orders in 2004. The entire global market for large yachts in 1992 was barely 150 in build.

With the huge increase in the number of large yachts built in recent years, finding qualified crew is a major problem. There is a particular shortage of qualified American crew. U.S. flagged vessels cannot employ crew from overseas, so if you flag your vessel in the U.S., you are making it exponentially harder for you to find competent crew for your large yacht by eliminating non-U.S. citizens from your pool of potential crew.

This alone is reason enough to choose an offshore flag for a U.S. based yacht owner.

 

[Ships_Cat]

Re: Nonsense talk on tax avoidance

Yes, as JFM says and aswades example shows, it does potentially cover that vessel.

While the following is a unique example as it applies to a much smaller boat (40 foot) and usually the benefits of another flag are not important to them, it serves as a simple demonstration.

As many are aware, here in New Zealand, before a pleasure vessel can get clearance to depart on an international voyage it has to pass an inspection approximately the same as the Cat 1 for race boats. If we were to submit to such an inspection with our own boat and found there were issues the inspector did not like, but with which we (and the professionals that designed and built the boat) were happy with, then I (unusually to most) have the opportunity to reflag the boat into a small flag for very little cost and would probably do so in order to be immune from such an inspection.

A simple example of something which is not allowed on a NZ flagged pleasure boat departing on an international voyage is Spectra lifelines (they have to be ss and may be required to be replaced), whereas Spectra is widely used and in the minds of many an excellent material for lifelines - one may be lucky and strike a sensible inspector, but there again may not.

The usual penalty of going under another flag and then keeping the boat in NZ is that it would have to be periodically briefly relocated to a foreign port (within every 12 months I think it is here) in order to not have to import the vessel into the country and pay the tax to do so. While that is easy to do in North America and Europe, for example, it is not so from here with a small vessel as it entails at least a 10 - 15 day each way voyage to get to a foreign port. However, in our own case the boat is already tax paid in NZ and so would considered imported and so immune, even if reflagged.

As I say, this is an unusual example as the boat is small and some very uncommon rules here, but does show that even with a very small pleasure vessel it is possible that there are inappropriate hassles which one flag can place on it, which would be avoided by choosing another flag if one has an economically sensible route to that flag.

That is not to say that vessels put under flags more friendly to motor or sailing yachts do so in order to get away with being unsafe wrecks or not being well run. I think it is plain that these vessels are almost always far better maintained and fitted out than any of our own more mundane boats.

John

 

[BWI]

Thanks

Thanks to all the sane non racist forun members who have shown that there still is some sanity in Britain. Why can we not embrace the whole world, and understand and enjoy the differences. Some people however need to open their eyes to the wider global view before talking utter bollox /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Thanks to the guys who showed support and thanks for your time, well explained /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Hmmm...now how much tax have I saved so far this month /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[ArthurWood]

Re: Crew issues a major reason

Aswade- it's not a crew issue, as they are Americans. I'll not flog a dead horse - I'll ask someone here. Thanks to you, jfm and Shipscat

 

[DERF]

Racist?

BWI

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks to all the sane non racist forun members

[/ QUOTE ]


Read these posts but didn't pick up any racist slant. Perhaps you'd care to elaborate where or by whom the racist comments were made.

 

[jfm]

Re: Crew issues a major reason

Arthur, i think aswade was commenting on the use of non USA registries by USA owners in general. He wasn't referring to the specific 100footer moored near you

 

[Canboria]

[ QUOTE ]
"You only see what you recognise, and you only recognise what you know"

I know, so I recognise and I can see /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't the above tag line belong to a certain person that was a poster on here some time ago "nice guy", helped him launch his boat at the weekend, now owns various properties in sunnier climates, he was in a Happy mood when I left him after to pints in the local pub, come to think of it his boat was flying a strange looking ensign.

/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif