Procedures for Radio in a New Boat

[Mike Martin]

While the responses to the original question on the whole were correct I feel I should just clarify one thing.

The ship portable radio licence is ONLY required if the Hand-held is going to be used on another boat/s. The Ship Radio Licence covers both a fixed and handheld (and a RADAR as seen on some of the larger commercial cabined RIBS) on the boat in question.

Mike

[DGR]

Just done this...

I applied online for the SSR No. The Small Ships Register is effectively Part 3 of the UK shipping register (which includes Part 1 and 2 referred to earlier). I then applied (online) for the Radio Licence, covering my fixed DSC Radio and my hand-held (non-DSC) - for which I think you need your SSR No.

That arrived with the MMSI number - which I then programmed into the DSC set. Do it carefully - you can only do it once, and then I think the manufacturer has to reset it.

I found that you need certain bits of information, which means that you need to do it in a certain order - but appart from that it wasn't too difficult.

Cheers,

Dylan...

[jwalker]

Originally Posted by Richard B

JW - If, say, a South coast based UK RIB was to cruise over to the French coast, then a UK SSR registration, an ICC and insurance certificate are the basic documents needed to comply with French regulations. Given that an ICC is quite straigtforward to obtain in the UK, this seems preferable to going through the French certification method, which is compulsory for our European neighbours.

Thanks for the reply, Richard. I know about, and have, an ICC. It's the SSR. I was not sure about. Is its purpose, for a foreign nation, just to confirm the country of origin of the craft?

[Louise]

Hi Jeff,

My research this morning leads me to believe you are correct - the SSR simply confirms the home nation of the vessel.

How's your boat building coming on? You haven't posted any pics for a while!

[jwalker]

Originally Posted by Louise

Hi Jeff,

My research this morning leads me to believe you are correct - the SSR simply confirms the home nation of the vessel.

How's your boat building coming on? You haven't posted any pics for a while!

Thanks Louise. The boat is coming on fine. I've a few more recent pics but I'll not hijack Bruce's thread.

I'm not sure how welcome they now are on Boatmad.

[Louise]

I think pics of boats (even RIBs) are OK - as long as you haven't painted a gigantic fairy on the side!!

[Brian]

JW
Further to Louises reply...........
it would also seem to me, with the French authorities particularly in mind, that the SSR would appear to act as "proof of ownership" to them.
I lent my boat to a mate once who took it to France. First of all they demanded the SSR (which they can also checkout!), and then, when they found out my mate wasn't the owner, they freaked out, assuming the boat to have been nicked!
Anyway for the sake of £12 or £20 or whatever it would seem well worth it. Your baby is then on an internationally checkable database which may serve you well in the future. This is all on top, of course, of the right to call upon the assistance of HM Navy in the event of "trouble".

[jwalker]

Thankyoooo...

[Janet and Bill]

Originally Posted by Louise

You need to display your ship's radio licence (not licence to operate) on, I think, the port side. That's all there is to it - until next year when you'll need to renew it - they will send a renewal notice to you. We always carry our licences to operate when we are on the boat (in an Aquapac bag with other important stuff).

The SSR is needed if you intend to use your boat abroad and, as far as I know, your £12 covers you for as long as you have the boat.

The CG66 is free and I can't see a reason why anyone would not fill it in.

Interested to read all the postings on this thread as I am just getting my head around the rules and regs.

We bought the boat secondhand, and it had already been registered with the Small Ships Registry and has an SSR number (which I will now get some stickers for to display on the boat). However, the £12 fee only covers for 5 years as far as I can tell, and I had to pay again, to change the ownership details to our name.

The CG66 is a voluntary safety database which is held by the Coastguard and keeps as much info as you can given them about the boat, description and size infor, safety equipment on board, shore contact numbers and you can even give them an image of the boat to aid ID in am emergency.

On the subject of jubilee clips, we've got our RIBnet burgee fixed onto the A frame with a metal jubilee clip, like are used to hold pipes together on a car engine etc, and that seems to work fine.

Assuming we can fly a [red?] ensign, which side should we put the ensign and which side the ribnet burgee? Or does it matter

[Louise]

Originally Posted by Janet and Bill

the £12 fee only covers for 5 years as far as I can tell, and I had to pay again, to change the ownership details to our name.

Hi Janet - it looks like they may have changed the rules in 2003. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

[Matthew MacLean]

Wow something that is easier to do in Australia than the UK

Out here you:

a: register the boat at the transport office

b: register the trailer at the transport office

c: do a safe boating course (one day, $130) and then get the endorsement added to your drivers license at the transport office. ($30 AUS for a once off life time license)

(you can do all of the above at the same time, takes 40 minutes)

D: Do a ship radio operators course (1.5 days, $135) and get license for radio

E: install Radio. VHF are covered by a class license out here and require no registration as ship stations and incur no fees. MF and HF set require ship station licenses and associated fees.

If you choose to use a 27 Meg set in a boat out here, you do not need a license at all for the user or the unit.

Both 27 meh and VHF are monitored by all limited coast guard stations, but they are pushing for people to go to VHF.

Apply for MMSI online for free and get it sent to you. Enter into radio.
MMSI is not well supported out here, there is no consistant monitoring of DSC on VHF, only HF frequencies, so not much use to small boaties

Total cost is once off $30 fee for boat license, and yearly rego fee for trailer and boat of $240 for mine but depends on size.

All legal and set to go

Above is valid for QLD rego boat rego. NSW is a bit different

P.S my new Gemini 5.5 RIB with Evinrude 135 hp was delivered last week, fit out this weekend and hopefully sea trial to follow. Photos to come after that

Matthew

[jools]

Hi Matthew

Some of the regs only apply if you want to take your boat abroad - esp. France!!

For use in the UK only then.......

a. No need to register your boat anywhere!! (I never have!)

b. No need to register your trailer - just get a licence plate made the same as your car

c. No need to do any courses or get a licence (although a RYA powerboat course is highly recommended!!)

d. OK - you need a radio licence - 1.5 day course - only if you want to use the radio - you can carry one and use it for emergency use (Mayday, PAN PAN etc) without a licence (but how would you know how to do that properly)

e. Install radio and get "Ships radio licence" - This gives you a callsign, MMSI and RADAR, EPERB registration etc all for £20 a year (but they hope to scrap the yearly registration soon and make it free)


So there you go - if you only going to use the boat in the UK then its just the £20 for your radio licence a year.

Nothing at all for the actual boat / trailer!!

Originally Posted by Matthew MacLean

Wow something that is easier to do in Australia than the UK

Out here you:

a: register the boat at the transport office

b: register the trailer at the transport office

c: do a safe boating course (one day, $130) and then get the endorsement added to your drivers license at the transport office. ($30 AUS for a once off life time license)

(you can do all of the above at the same time, takes 40 minutes)

D: Do a ship radio operators course (1.5 days, $135) and get license for radio

E: install Radio. VHF are covered by a class license out here and require no registration as ship stations and incur no fees. MF and HF set require ship station licenses and associated fees.

If you choose to use a 27 Meg set in a boat out here, you do not need a license at all for the user or the unit.

Both 27 meh and VHF are monitored by all limited coast guard stations, but they are pushing for people to go to VHF.

Apply for MMSI online for free and get it sent to you. Enter into radio.
MMSI is not well supported out here, there is no consistant monitoring of DSC on VHF, only HF frequencies, so not much use to small boaties

Total cost is once off $30 fee for boat license, and yearly rego fee for trailer and boat of $240 for mine but depends on size.

All legal and set to go

Above is valid for QLD rego boat rego. NSW is a bit different

P.S my new Gemini 5.5 RIB with Evinrude 135 hp was delivered last week, fit out this weekend and hopefully sea trial to follow. Photos to come after that

Matthew