Conference unifix::sailing

Ashikin,

I wish I could go with you...

A few points:

>    Having made calls to the U.S. Coast Guard and read some literature on the 
>    subject, we are told that only U.S. built vessels may take on paying
>    passengers from or to the States.

I don't think this is correct. I believe the restriction applies to voyages
BETWEEN U.S. ports. A voyage from or to the U.S. is not restricted to US
vessels. So, for example, you could take on paying passengers in FLA and
go island-hopping to Venezuela, and thence to the canal.

Also, if you rely on your passengers only for sharing of expenses, you may
be able to avoid the need for a licensed skipper altogether. However, the
expense-sharing had better be exactly that, and no more, to avoid all manner
of insurance and legal troubles.

There are some references to charter brokers in this conference. A charter
broker may be able to give you some helpful information, especially about
the process of finding passengers and skippers.

--Reinhard

re .0:

The question of whether or not a captain's license is needed is 
discussed in other notes (see especially Notes 1134.1 and 1134.6). From 
a legal viewpoint, taking crew with you, paying or not, greatly adds to 
the risk of the trip. You, as owner, might well be sued for any mishap 
that injures someone. 

See also the little gray book entitled "The Psychology of Sailing" (I
think it is). It has a most interesting discussion of the psychological
dynamics of captain and crew on a small vessel. Having read it, I would
be very cautious about being either crew or captain on a long passage
with people I didn't not know well beforehand. 

Alan

[Moved by the moderator to consolidate this discussion in one place and 
note title changed.]

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Note 1134.1                  Boston to St Croix crew                     1 of 13
CDR::SPENCER "John Spencer"                          17 lines  23-FEB-1989 16:40
                           -< Passengers for hire? >-
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Jeff,

Best wishes on your trip.  

One thought you may wish to consider:  The USCG recently considers *any*
payment made to the owner of a vessel (bringing the beer, for instance) to 
be cause for considering those on board, other than the permanent crew, to 
be passengers for hire.  And therefore requiring a licensed captain.

It's a sticky situation, one that many are protesting for obvious reasons. 
But for now, it's what they're enforcing.  If anything went wrong....
Advertising a ride for a price mightn't help your case.

Parade-rainer-on,

J.

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Note 1134.6                  Boston to St Croix crew                     6 of 13
MAMIE::ADUNNIGAN                                     15 lines  27-FEB-1989 09:07
                         -< Valuable Considerations? >-
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    For what its worth......the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR),
    Subchapter C, 46 CFR, Part 24.10-3, defines carrying passengers
    for hire as:
    
    "The carriage of any person or persons by a vessel for a valuable
    consideration, whether directly or indirectly flowing to the owner,
    charterer, operator, agent, or any other person interested in the
    vessel."
    
    I am sure that a lawyer could provide many interesting interpretations
    for this law.
    
    Al
    
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Note 1134.12                 Boston to St Croix crew                    12 of 13
ICS::WANNOOR                                         28 lines  18-MAR-1993 00:06
         -< Maritime lawyer needed. After all, they wrote the book... >-
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    Anyway, back to the subject. Here's an excerpt from Chapman's, under
    "Commercial operation":
    
    "The Coast Guard has ruled that the following situations...constitute
    instances of carrying passengers for hire:
    
    [4 instances given I quote one of them here]:
    
    If there is a prearranged plan or agreement in advance that the guests
    are to pay their proportionate share, or any specific amount, of the
    cruise expenses"
    
    Immediately below, however, there is the following passage:
    
    "If the participants in an expense-sharing cruise are members of a
    bona-fide "joint venture", they are then all considered under the law
    to be "owners" and not "passengers", and thus no licensed operator
    would be required"
    
    Chapmans goes on to state that this must all be set down in writing,
    that each person must have the right to full posession, control and
    navigation of the craft. A mere "share the expenses" is not enough to
    establish a joint venture, and liability must also be considered.
    
    How this can be legally achieved completely escapes me, let alone
    allowing everyone on any craft have the right to demand control and
    navigation!! This whole thing is either insane, arcane or inane, or all
    three.

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Note 1134.13                 Boston to St Croix crew                    13 of 13
MAST::SCHUMANN "The MOSFET: over 1,000,000,000,000," 14 lines  18-MAR-1993 10:02
              -< long-distance cruising is for the self-reliant >-
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Personally, I'm of the opinion that lawyers should be consulted less, not more.
Of course, that exposes you to some added legal risk. But then, if you're
willing to sail from Boston to S.F. taking passengers along the way, you can't
be completely risk-averse...

If your boat sinks, and somebody drowns, you will probably be sued and will
end up penniless, regardless of the lawyerly details. Even so, you'll presumably
feel much worse about the companion who drowned than about the personal
fortune you've lost.

If you're willing to take the risks, go ahead and take the risks.

--RS

I find this quite astonishing. (possibility/probability of being sued). 
Unfortunately the result of this for me is that I'll have to keep clear
of the USA when looking for crewing positions. Pity. 

Or is it different in practice and possible to find crew/boats?

Linda

re .4:

Ah, well, one of the less nice parts about living in the United States
is the propensity of people to sue for damages when disaster happens.
The ethic of personal responsibility seems to have in large measure
vanished. 

Anyway, the logic behind crew suing owners runs more or less as follows:

If I take someone on my boat as crew, that person has the right to 
expect that I (as owner and captain) will take all reasonable care to
ensure that the boat is seaworthy and that all equipment is properly 
maintained. For example, liferafts must be serviced annually (common 
sense and the manufacturers say they should). Assume that I have not had 
my liferaft serviced in three years, that my boat sinks, that the liferaft 
fails to inflate, and that as a result a crewperson dies. The heirs of 
the dead crewperson would almost certainly (and rightly) sue me for 
negligence, and would likely win. 

Now make the same assumptions except that my liferaft has been serviced 
every year and that at the time of the sinking the inspection 
certificate is still valid. I would still likely be sued, but now I 
would argue, wrongly. Going to sea is dangerous and mishaps happen in 
spite of all reasonable care. Crew must accept responsibility, too. (By 
the way, this would include not sailing on a boat that is not seaworthy 
or properly maintained. It could be argued that if the liferaft has not
been serviced and you go to sea anyway, you should accept responsibility
for the consequences, especially if you knew it had not been serviced.)

I've used the example of a liferaft malfunction because there was an 
actual lawsuit some years ago in which the yacht's owners and Avon were
sued when a crewperson died after a sinking. I don't recall the exact
outcome, but I vaguely recall that the owners and Avon paid something. 

Alan

Remember, you must have an actual disaster before you are likely
to be sued. The liability risk for a crew member is very low. It's the
captain and owner who take most of the liability risk.

There are in fact many sailors, both skippers and crew, who do just fine
without worrying too much about the legal risks . It's more important
to worry about the safety of the boat and crew.

--RS

    A question of etiquette... Is a tip customary when chartering?? How
    much??

Based on all of the charterers that I have taken out in the last five years, 
tipping is the exception rather than the rule.  I have only worked with one
charter agent that suggests a 10% gratuity for satisfactory service.  The 10%
gratuity enables me to offset the 10% commission that the agent charges.

On overnight charters tipping is greatly appreciated since besides being Captain
and Crew, my wife and I share the cooking, serving and "bunkmaking" for our 
quests.  On land, payment for these services is usually accompanied with a 
gratuity for satisfactory service.

Al

Here's a related question that sprang to mind recently:

I recently heard about a charter trip to St. Martin/St. Maarten which
was being put together by a group of folks in Cambridge.  The price 
sounded high ($1600/wk, not including airfare!), so I called to find
out where all the money was going.  It turns out that none of the skippers
were paying.  I'm not sure whether they were getting air fare or other
money also, because I didn't ask for details.

This is the first time that I've run into this kind of setup and I'm
curious as to how prevalent it is.  On all the trips I've been on, the
skipper's just the poor sap who has to do the customs paper, but is
otherwise nothing special.

Just to clarify, these were bareboat charters with amateur skippers from
the New England area.  For instance, the boat that they were trying to
get me to go on would have been skippered by a jeweler from Maine.

If this is a common practice, how do I get my name on the list to have
my charters paid for?!

Tom

    It's not only not right, it's illegal and a possible infinite black
    hole for laywers to crawl into.

    If the skipper takes any remuneration from passengers then it is a
    payed charter and the skipper requires the appropriate license (e.g. a
    six or a newer 12 pack). The CG can define remuneration as being as
    simple as the passenger just filling the fuel tanks for the skipper.

    I organized many charters in the seventies with fellow decies and
    always payed my equal share. I was completely responsible for the boat
    as is any skipper, but i also had to do the dishes when it was my turn.
    Of course I was learning to skipper a boat, so the rest of the crew
    wasn't getting any bargin either...

    If anything were to happen, the exosure of the skipper and possibly
    the chartering company would be quite high. For example, the charter
    agreement states that the charterrer cannot engage in trade, which a
    free ride certainly is. The CG would be quite pissed about the
    arrangement, and might prosecute.

    If they stay in non-US waters, the license rules may be different, but
    i'll bet the charter agreement is similar to US ones.

    And besides would you want to charter with a Jeweler as opposed to a
    Decie :-) Although that reminds me of a story about chartering a boat
    that had gold-plated winches (and to quote Dave Barry, I'm not making
    this up)

    Organize your own charter.

    paul

re .9 and .10:

I may be wrong, but it is my impression that the usual license is 
limited to near coastal waters in a rather restricted geography. A 
Coast Guard license valid for offshore waters from Maine to the 
Carribbean would not be usual.

Some reputable sailing schools (the Annapolis one comes to mind) do 
advertise ocean passage classes. It might be interesting to call them 
and ask about the licensing of their captains and what insurance they 
have. 

Going offshore with an unknown and possibly/likely inexperienced captain 
can be interesting. Some years ago an acquaintance crewed on a Valiant 40
from Gloucester, MA, to England. The owner/skipper ran the batteries so 
far down that the engine couldn't be started. There was no backup 
battery charging system. So there they were, sailing into the English 
channel at night with no lights and no radio and a not very happy and 
very worried crew. Oh yes, no large scale charts of the English coast
were aboard, either. 

Alan

re .10

Seems to me the referenced charter will be in the Carribean somewhere, on a
vessel flying a foreign flag, so U.S. law is largely irrelevant.

Of course that doesn't change the fact that this is a scumbag way to organize
a charter :-)

--RS

      re .11

      There are no geographical limits with my 100-Ton, Near Coastal, Master's 
      License as long as I remain within 200 miles of the US Coast or sail less 
      than 400 miles from the US coast to a US territory or possession.  Which 
      means that I could legally run a charter from Boston to the Bahamas (my 
      insurance company may object).  I don't have a chart or atlas in front of
      me, but I don't think there is a US possession within 400 miles of the US
      coast.  However, once in the US Virgin Islands I could run charters to the
      British Virgins or any other island within a 200 mile radius of the US 
      Virgins.  

      Al

re: several

U.S. law doesn't enter into the equation here (as some people pointed out).
The relevant laws, if any, would be French and possibly English & Dutch
depending on the cruising destinations.

I was really more curious as to how prevalent the practice was and it sounds
like the answer is "not very."  I guess I'll have to think up some other
way to get others to pay for my vacations!

Tom

    in the german speaking part of Europe, this is quite common. The
    amateur skipper does not pay for fare or food.
    
    A lot of charter companies, called "sailing schools", are employing
    amateurs to skipper the boat. Even across the Atlantic.
    
    Peter