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Before we go on to hear about Andrew Craig-Bennett's struggle with beaurocracy, let us briefly introduce the rest of the commercial shipping section...

Carrying On takes us into the world of cargo shipping, from the schooner traders still plying their trade in the islands to the supertankers which measure their decks in acres.

Digging Deep will have us venture into the field of exploitation of natural resources, such as oil, from beneath the sea.

Fishy Business is our commercial fishing page.

Tugs Barge In here we'll take an interest in the work of those who service the larger vessels.

Here's a link to a wealth of shipping links outside this site too:

Ships Vessels Sale Purchase - marketplace

Meanwhile, it would seem that paperwork still hounds us all, wherever we may be and wherever we may go... 

Confounded Yachtsmen!
by Andrew Craig-Bennett

We were in the process of registering a new British Ship, built in Japan, under the new Tonnage Tax scheme. The MCA were on side and helpful. The people who were not helpful are the Radio Licensing Authority - bureaucrats and 'jobsworths' of the deepest dye. (Ed: from "It's more than my job's worth to do you what you ask" or, in other words, no I can't make any effort to speed up the process by being efficient.)

The station licence only costs twenty quid (Ed: £20), but the ship cannot sail without one. You have to apply in writing, allowing five clear days for the bit of paper to come through, and they then send it to you by second class mail. The idea that merchant ships get built on the other side of the world and are ready when they are ready, costing thousands of pounds for each day that they are not earning, does not occur to these people, any more than does the idea of accepting applications by fax. "E-mail, what's e-mail?". 

We applied. Nothing happened, so we rang up. They agreed to accept a faxed photocopy of the application they had lost. Next they lost the photocopy. We rang again. 
"I'm not going to waste time looking for your application amongst the eight thousand applications waiting to be processed; I could do half a dozen in the time that would take" said Jobsworth.

We tried to point out that Her Majesty's Government were trying to encourage merchant shipping under the Red Ensign (Ed: the ensign of British registered commercial and recreational shipping, the red flag with a small red white and blue British National flag in the top left-hand corner, seen on many yachts).

"I don't care if you are the Duke of Edinburgh" said Jobsworth, "You'll have to wait your turn like everyone else!" 

The station licence arrrived, by second class post. Wrong address and details. We applied again. Same mistake. You get massively fined for this sort of error in the USA, the Republic of Dementia, etc., so it could not just be ignored. 

Time was now critical. We despatched a motor cycle courier, at a cost of £268, to their HQ to wait for our £20 bit of paper so that we could courier it to Tokyo, where a despatch rider would whizz it to the yard and allow the M/V 'Saucy Sue' to get on with her business in life. 

"Don't know why you think you're so special" said Jobsworth, "Everyone wants their licence for the Easter holiday!" 

Only then did we realise that Jobsworth had no clue that the tonnage figures on the form indicated a pretty big motor cruiser and, whilst the other eight thousand odd applications were for yachts, ours was for a real ship. Indeed, he obviously had no idea what a ship is! 

Until the Tonnage Tax was introduced, nobody used this sort of radio station licence on the British register for proper ships. 
You don't know the details that you will write on the form until the ship has been measured, and she cannot be measured before she is almost finished ... and you don't know exactly when she will be finished ... but you will gather that we DID apply in ample time and NO other ship registry in the commercial world, not Liberia, not Panama, not Honduras, not Malta, or even Cambodia, makes such a donkey's breakfast of it! 

Our thanks to Andrew Craig Bennett for letting us repeat this story here. How sad to see that the worst things about our homeland appear to remain entirely unchanged whilst some of her better qualities appear to be eroding fast.