20 thoughts on “The Montauk Catamaran Company Chronicles, 12/03/14: Regulations

  1. I’m really enjoying these posts, Mr. Ryan.

    As a former employee of a sailing operation I can surely attest to the necessity of working closely with the CG. Our company had a boat that could easily carry 40, but was uninspected. The owner flew under the radar for several years, but the inevitable boarding occurred, and we got busted down to 12, which was a huge revenue hit for us. As you say, the costs of doing things right are the cost of doing business.Report

    1. 12 is the limit for bareboat charters. An inspected boat can be chartered “as is” to a group, and that group can hire a captain and crew, but the total passenger count including crew on an uninspected bareboat charter is 12.

      A key provision is that the crew cannot be specified by the owner. If the crew is specified by the owner, SPV regulations attach. As you can imagine there’s a lot of hanky-panky that goes on around this provision and what “specified by the owner” means. What it really comes down to is what you’re insurance carrier will underwrite, and that really only comes up when there’s a mishap. I’ll get further into this in future posts.Report

      1. Yep, that’s how it worked with our charter company. You got to pick whichever captain you wanted off our list, and he picked the crew. All of our captains were CG licensed.Report

  2. I always enjoyed working with the Pond Patrol back when I was wearing a Dixie Cup, and later with the CG Aux. When it comes to regulatory enforcement, they always struck me as honestly concerned about safety and not just out to make life difficult for people, taking the time to explain why things are the way they are.

    Not sure if your Naval Architect is doing this, but if you want a CFD analysis of the Pahi 63 & have some CAD of the hull, I can do some fun simulations for you.Report

    1. When we were having our first inspection one of the things we got wrong was we didn’t have our lifejackets labeled. So there we were, about 1/2 before that picture above was taken, all sitting on deck, marking each of Mon Tiki’s 57 lifejackets (49 passengers + 2 crew + 10% child’s size jackets) with “Mon Tiki” in broad-tipped permanent marker.

      “Well I suppose this makes sense. If there was a catastrophic accident, you’d want some vessel markings in the debris field,” as I said this in my mind I had that shot from an old Hollywood movie were the torpedoed ship’s life ring comes bobbing into frame.

      “Well yes, I suppose,” replied our inspector, “but mostly it’s because back in the day when we’d do these inspections we’d notice the same lifejackets showing up on different boats on different inspection days.”Report

    2. @david-ryan

      If the idea of some CFD interests you, you can get my email from Mr. Kelly or Mr. Truman. I like doing Marine simulations, they’re fun. And you don’t just get boring numbers, but slick animations of 6-degree of freedom motion, complete with the water surface visible. Last Marine sim I did was a seakeeping sim of a floating drilling platform in heavy seas. Got some fun animations out of that.Report

  3. When Mon Tiki Largo is completed, you’ll own and have command of more than one vessel. More than one vessel under the same flag is a “fleet,” as I understand nautical terminology. We’ll have to promote you to Commodore David Ryan then!Report

    1. The US doesn’t officially use Commodore anymore as a rank, it’s Rear Admiral, Lower Half (which is mind-boggling stupid, IMHO – Commodore sounds much cooler).

      It is still used as a title, however, for senior captains in command of more than one Naval asset.Report

      1. According to your source, only since 1997, so the Brits have only recently deviated from tradition. That makes me even prouder that we Amurricans are going back to doing it the right way, out-Britishing the British!Report

      2. We stopped using it because people kept getting confused between the title & the rank, which I suppose is understandable.

        But Read Admiral, Lower Half is still stupid. Makes the rank sound like the ass end of a Rear Admiral. Hell, Rear Admiral sound stupid…Report

  4. Okay, so you’ve upsized from a Tie Fighter (Intemperance) to a Imperial Shuttle (Mon Tiki) and now you’re in Star Destroyer territory (Largo).

    So we all know where this is headed…Report

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