Which Ensign?

[Guest]

Sorry, you can't fly the Red Ensign:

Qualified Owners are:

British citizens; or
British Dependent Territories Citizens; or
British Overseas Citizens; or
Companies incorporated in an EEA country; or
Companies incorporated in any British overseas possession which has its principal place of business in the UK or the possession; or
European Economic Interest Groupings

So if your co-owner was an Irish company, you'd be OK, but because he/she's an individual, you're not. Oddly, if you had a fishing vessel registrable under Part 2 he/she would also be a "Qualified Owner".

 

[cruisingsam]

And therein lies the problem! If you are on the full register you can be of any nationality and it doesn't matter but the ISA Cert means all owners must be Irish to fly the Tricolour, whilst the UK regs say all owners must be British (or equiv) so we slip between the rules.
BTW the Irish rules read the same except replacing British with Irish so I would imagine this scenario would be a problem anywhere in the EU

 

[cruisingsam]

Mike, that would be logical to me but the ISA state that for that to be the case you have to be on the full register at a cost of many hundreds of euro which is something we're not prepared to do so I guess we'll just fly the flag of whoever is on board & in command!

 

[Guest]

Yup, it does seem a bit of a hiatus. One possibility is if both owners are resident in the UK or (if Ireland has the same legislation as the UK) both are resident in Ireland. Part 3 registration would be possible because the residency rules are different from Part 1 registration.

Another alternative would be to have one owner as legal owner holding on behalf of both of them as beneficial owners, in other words set up a trust. In my experience the Part 1 Registry people are only interested in legal ownership.

I think that they are wrong legally, but that is another story. Of course in theory it doesn't matter what the Registry people think, it's what the court thinks that matters, but a trust would fudge the issue sufficiently to give you a good basis to fly the flag only of the legal owner.

As a pragmatic measure, painting a home port on the stern and sticking to the flag of that home port means that no one will ever take the point. But if you're switching flag from time to time there's a good chance someone will notice.

 

[cruisingsam]

Thanks Simon, I think the last paragraph sounds the best idea. I'll get the paint brush out before we launch!