Citizenship and documentation. Recent changes.

[weavis]

If I recall, the BVI will accept European registered vessels to do charter work. YOu can also register the vessel there.

[CSY Man]

. I'm all ears if you care to share some secrets.

No secret really. Not sure if you have a proffesion or a trade you can use while cruising?
Otherwise, bartender, dive master, whatever.
I flew airplanes while living on a boat in the Caribbean. If one company went out of business, I sailed to the next island and anchored, rowed to shore with the CV in my pocket and started flying puddle jumpers from the local airport. Had 5 flying jobs in 4 years and it kept food on the table and the boat equipped.
To pay for flight school I drove taxi cabs at night.
Many different ways to skin a cat.

[Chachacha]

Originally Posted by TonyBe

This will mean that you won't have to contact CBP every time you go from one port to another.

I've seen conflicting info in this. I need to do more research on this topic. As far as I've understood, the process is easier with a cruising permit, but it's still a lot more complicated than if the boat was US registered.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by TonyBe

This will mean that you won't have to contact CBP every time you go from one port to another.

This is not true. The photo below is an excerpt of my Cruising License. I have been warned by CPB not to move to another slip in a marina without notifying them. Also warned to report every time we moved anchorages. We got a written Notice of Violation for stopping to anchor overnight without going ashore and warned that if we did it again there would be a $10k fine.

[Chachacha]

Thanks, that's what I thought. What a hassle, especially when you are in your home stomping grounds which would be my case.

[hpeer]

The cruising permit regulations are understood and enforced differently depending upon which district you are in. The Baltimore district allowed me, dual US/Canadian citizenship, to hand in my permit each year when I hauled my Canadian flagged boat. They then gave me a new permit in the spring.

I think they interpreted the rules differently for non-US citizens. I understand the Florida district allows Canadians to keep Canadian register boats in Florida for many years.

The take away is the rules are not uniformly alllied and are subject to change without notice. It’s a royal PITA.

BTW, your analysis on renouncing citizenship is spot on. My German wife had to renounce because of GERMAN requirements and our daughter has no claim to German citizenship. There are many US/Canadian citizens and we don’t have to renounce in either country- despite being told contrary by “experts”.

[CSY Man]

I never renounced my Scandinavian citizenship when I became a US Citizen back in 1995. Just didn’t tell anybody. Easy.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by hpeer

I think they interpreted the rules differently for non-US citizens. I understand the Florida district allows Canadians to keep Canadian register boats in Florida for many years.

There are thousands of such boats in Florida but we know one Canadian couple who were recently (3 mnths ago) told by FWC that they were not allowed to own a US State registered boat. There is now law supporting that position but arguing is a long and difficult process. As a foreign vessel travelling US waters it is becoming extremely difficult to comply with US laws because the FWC, local Leo's deputized to Homeland security (yes we've run into a couple of these) and CPB seem to have no consistent understanding of their own rules.

I've been cruising US waters for 25yrs as a Canadian Citizen on a Canadian flagged vessel. The previous 24yrs were problem free. The last 16 months have been a friggin' nightmare. Times they are a changin'

[jmschmidt]

Lots of bad information here. You guys are making this way too complicated. The correct information has mostly been available here but one would have to read every single post and cross out the 1% to 99% wrong information contained in each and understand what was left. If you could do that you wouldn't be asking the questions anyway, you'd be sailing.

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

There are thousands of such boats in Florida but we know one Canadian couple who were recently (3 mnths ago) told by FWC that they were not allowed to own a US State registered boat. There is now law supporting that position but arguing is a long and difficult process. As a foreign vessel travelling US waters it is becoming extremely difficult to comply with US laws because the FWC, local Leo's deputized to Homeland security (yes we've run into a couple of these) and CPB seem to have no consistent understanding of their own rules.

I've been cruising US waters for 25yrs as a Canadian Citizen on a Canadian flagged vessel. The previous 24yrs were problem free. The last 16 months have been a friggin' nightmare. Times they are a changin'

Sorry ... second line should read "no law" not "now law".

[TonyBe]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

This is not true. The photo below is an excerpt of my Cruising License. I have been warned by CPB not to move to another slip in a marina without notifying them. Also warned to report every time we moved anchorages. We got a written Notice of Violation for stopping to anchor overnight without going ashore and warned that if we did it again there would be a $10k fine.

Thanks. Sorry that my information was out of date.

[jmschmidt]

I have a South African build boat (duty free to US Flag) which is US flagged and which holds a BVI "Commercial Recreational Vessel License" in charter in the BVI. French Polynesia also allows US flag recreation vessels in charter service but the red-tape is considerable.
I am sure there are many other small countries with tourist oriented economies who allow the same thing.

[citizen0215]

I don’t know the precise answer as to how many people support an end to birthright citizenship. The matter is not really an issue for public opinion. The United States Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship. That will remain the law of the land unless the Constitution is amended in that regard. A Constitutional Amendment requires either a 2/3 vote of the U.S. House of Representatives, a 2/3 vote of the U.S. Senate, and the ratification of at least a majority of the legislatures, both upper and lower houses, of 3/4 or 38 states; or a Constitutional Convention called by 38 states and the ratification of at least a majority the legislatures of 3/4 or 38 states.

In other words, whatever the number of people who might support an end to birthright citizenship, that number is far from enough.
To get more information about USA citizenship read here

[TrentePieds]

Chachacha:

For a benchmark, my 30 footer, 40 years old and designed in a conservative cruising idiom, calculates to 7.7 gross tonnes. Her displacement is 9K lbs light, call her a "five tonner".

Here is how you calculate to gross tonnage of any sailboat: (Length x beam on deck x depth of hold x .57)/100.

Length is measured from stemhead to aftermost point of transom, in feet.

Beam is measured from outside rail to outside rail at widest point of hull, in feet.

Depth of hull is measured from top of rail to top of keel, in feet

The .57 figure in the formula is a constant technically called the "volume coefficient" and compensates for the fact that the "prism" whose volume we seek is not the rectangular block defined by L x B x DofH.

The divisor ("100") is another constant that working in conjunction with the volume coefficient empirically - in the days of windbag cargo carriers - brought the volume determined by this calculation near to the actual number of tons, by weight, of cargo + "appurtenances" the vessel could safely carry, but the purpose of it was really only to permit the comparison of the "burthen" of one vessel with that of another. Not of much consequence to us Sunday sailors :-)

Now you can easily determine the gross tonnage of any vessel you may contemplate buying :-)!

I might perhaps offer a comment that by it's nature is vaguely political though I don't mean it to be. Setting a low limit for vessels you can skipper WITHOUT the six-pack-license is sound policy in terms of finance and in terms of safety at sea. In Canada limits came in at the time of "Expo 86" in Vancouver. Every Tom Dick and Harry, regardless of competence, was making plans to make pots of money off selling day charters to the anticipated mobs of visitors Those plans were scuppered via the imposition of requirements for Certificates of Competency for day-chartering skippers and, much more onerous, via imposition of Hull construction standards for vessels in the charter trade. These regulations could not be met within the strictures of any reasonable business plan for a day chartering business. Cunning, these bureaucrats :-)!

These new regulations put the cap on any dream such as yours - and mine too :-) And I'm sure the Canadian Coast Guard, to this day, thanks the government of the day for imposing those regulations!

As for your complicated citizenship/residency circumstances, all I can offer is the opinion that they seem unnecessarily muddled, and were you a resident of Canada, I should advise you to take fairly immediate steps to "regularize" them - PARTICULARLY if you plan to go globetrotting :-)

All the best

TrentePieds

[jmschmidt]

There is no such animal as "US registered." The nomenclature is "US Documented" or State Registered or both if required by state tax laws. This only applies to the United States and its states and territories. Other countries have different systems and use different wording and titles. If writers to this forum can keep this simple fact straight it will greatly clarify many misconceptions.