As with cars and aeroplanes all yachts, ships and boats have to be registered. All of them. An aeroplane will have it’s registration number on the underpart of its’ wing, a car will have a number plate and a yacht, simplistically, will fly a flag.

Another place to see where a yacht is registered is her transom (the bit at the back near the waterline), where you will probably see her name and below that the name of a town or country; for example, Rhode Island, Jersey or Cayman Islands. This is usually the name of the place where the boat is registered. Not all yachts have this name printed but all must fly the appropriate flag.

Essentially a yacht’s registration is her passport. There is some peace of mind to be obtained in flying an internationally well known and recognised flag. Should your yacht be sailing outside of ‘normal’ yachting areas, your flag, and thus embassy or even warship, will assist and protect you should you be wrongfully arrested or attacked.

Most yachts sail under flags of convenience. This usually means that although the yacht is, for example, built in America, owned by an Australian and is sailing in European waters, it might be registered in the Channel Islands.

Why is this? Because it is ‘convenient’. Registering a yacht under a flag where you may, for example, not be asked to pay taxation on charter fees can be very convenient indeed. It may also be easier, for example, for an American Yacht to be registered out of American jurisdiction (USCG) because the manning requirements may be more relaxed and the yacht can take on crew of any nationality. Thus making it significantly easier to find crew.

When you register your yacht, the flag that you register under carries with it certain rules and regulations to which you, your crew and the yacht are bound. These rules cover subjects, besides taxation, like safety equipment, general seaworthiness, construction and manning.
Fortunately all countries capable of registering yachts are signatories of the International Maritime Organization (the IMO) and thus agree to enforce certain conventions such as SOLAS, MARPOL and the International Convention on Load Lines devised by the IMO themselves. Because these conventions are internationally standard it makes them considerably easier to monitor and impose.

The flag that the yacht has registered under doesn’t only impose the rules and regulations defined by the IMO, it also gathers up a whole lot of their own rules which they then add on top. Some of these rules can be much more stringent than those outlined by the IMO. This is not a bad thing because most of the rules are for safety, for all concerned, crew, passengers and the environment. But it does make finding out whether you have the right qualifications to work on a yacht a little more difficult!