Simon Campbell
Musings from an eclectic, eccentric, well travelled and generally funny bloke
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Finding a boat: Flagging Felicity?
Much has happened since my last article. I made the foolish mistake of becoming emotionally attached to the Arctic Janus. More of a problem was that Joe (my youngest) and Angela did too…
We decided to pursue the vessel and following a further meeting with Wolfgang, this time in Denmark, we finally arrived on a figure which we were prepared to pay.
Contrary to popular opinion, we are not made of money and therefore we needed to look at finance for the ship. Following an abortive attempt to secure such capital from our friendly HSBC (even though they couldn’t help on this occasion, they are a great friendly and supportive bank) we went to see a contact of our Commercial Manager at competitor Lombard Manx, who specialise in these types of deals. Unfortunately some years ago the word LOMBARD was the acronym for ‘Loads Of Money But A Right Dick’; I was hoping this wasn’t the case here.
Following a very good meeting, the main man at Lombard outlined the terms on which he was prepared to part finance the vessel. Buried in the general bumf was the seemingly innocuous phrase ‘The vessel would need to Red Ensign part one flagged’. I also understood that to work the vessel commercially in UK waters (but not the local Isle of Man waters) the vessel would have to be coded by the MCA (Maritime & Coastguard Agency). But first, let’s deal with the small matter of the flag.
The Janus is currently under the Danish flag which is not a problem except to work the vessel, the skipper / owner has to be Danish. Well I like the Danes, but don’t fancy becoming a national – not a lager drinker you see… But of course the main issue is that for the finance it has to be transferred from Danish flag to a Red Ensign flag. What does this mean?
Well, the Red Ensign Group are a body representing a number of British Crown Dependencies that have a variation of the UK’s Red Ensign. “Any vessel registered in the UK, Crown Dependency or UK Overseas Territory, is a “British ship” and is entitled to fly the Red Ensign flag.” There are two groups:
- Category one registers (operate unrestricted type and size of ship registers): Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Isle of Man and the United Kingdom
- Category two registers (operate small and locally registered vessels): Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Falkland Islands, Guernsey, Jersey, Montserrat, St Helena and Turks& Caicos Islands.
Of course, as per the little phrase, I would need to register the vessel Category one. No problem, I made a few calls…
I first approached the Isle of Man: logical as I live here now and will want to berth the vessel on the Island. “It’s over 15 years old, we cant register it here”. Following a bit of discussion (one minute) “too small, too old, wrong colour” – conversation over. Hmmm. OK, lets try Gibraltar, deemed to be part of Europe. “What, over 15 years old, sorry.” OK, let’s try the UK they register millions of bloody ships here…
The UK Register is one the oldest and most prestigious shipping registers in the world. The UK Register is operated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) who provide a flexible, responsive and customer focussed approach to those companies who wish to fly the Red Ensign.
Sounds perfect so I called them up. “Ah, you need to fill out a proforma”. Excellent, looks like a professional organisation so I duly complete the on-line form. Two days later I receive an email back “Before we proceed with your application, please can you confirm the classification status of the vessel. Is she classed with one of our recognised organisations: LR, DNV, BV, ABS, RINA, NKK or GL?”. International Association of Classification Societies, better look into these…
Simon thinks: She must be classed internationally as she’s just come back from a commercial, 7000NM round trip to Spitzburgen. So I check with Wolfgang and he informs me: “The ship operates under rules of the ‘Danish Maritime Authorities’ (DMA), that means unclassed”
I send the information back to the UK Ship Register and they tell me that they have to send the proformer to the ‘Flag-in’ (I take it in their spare time to do drives and patio’s) panel who will make a decision.
“All vessels which apply for UK Registration are subject to a paper based pre flag-in quality check. Your vessel has been through our matrix and discussed by our Flag-in Panel, but unfortunately does not pass this quality check. Therefore we are unable to accept her for UK registration.”
Of course while all this is going on the mighty British Pound loses 30% of its value against the Euro, and guess what, the Janus is priced in Euro’s.
So, where does that leave us, well nowhere, that’s where. A very disappointed Campbell clan.
Lessons learned here: If you are buying in Sterling and going to buy a ship to work commercially in the UK / European waters, before even thinking of going to visit make sure it’s:
- flagged in the UK or Crown Dependencies
- Classed in the UK with the MCA or Internationally Classed with one of the recognised International Societies (LR, DNV, BV, ABS, RINA, NKK or GL)
- preferably less than 15 years old
- for sale in good old UK Pounds…
They say that as one door shuts, another opens. In our case this is always true. In the next edition we will hear more from Arne and see some new and very interesting vessels…
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“Finding a boat”
Chapters
I have always loved the sea and since my passion for Diving took a grip of our lives (this of course includes Angela – yep, by default she is also in the grip) we have considered buying a boat. As things have developed and the boys are now leaving home we think it’s an increasingly good idea.
People say that the two best days of your life are the day you buy and the day you sell. This may be true but what’s the worse thing that can happen?
Of course, in the usual Campbell gung-ho style, we don’t just want to sail on it we are going to live on it! The associated articles are a brief resume of our adventures to date…
