I had a little history lesson today. It all started when I suddenly realised that I ought to do something about registering Odyssey somewhere, otherwise I’d be a flagless and thereby lawless fugitive on the high seas, destined to spend my time dodging the authorities and bending my Jolly Roger to the yardarm (insert joke about cabin boy here).
At the moment Odyssey is in theory registered by the US Coast Guard with Key West as her home port, but I have to de-register her as I’m not a US citizen. Well, not yet anyway, but that’s another story. After doing a quick Google I found that all I have to do is send in the old documents and declare that I’m taking her out of the country, and that’s it.
As to where to register her, that’s a whole different kettle of worms. A lot of people register their boats in tax-havens, hidden behind shell companies and shady management agencies in order to avoid paying a little tax. Those who know me will be aware that I’m an upstanding citizen (subject, actually, but as a republican I can pretend for now), eager to contribute my fair share to the state’s coffers, so this is not an option for me.
Besides, if I register Odyssey as a British merchant ship then I enjoy the protection of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy which sounds rather exciting to me. If during my travels I get into a spot of bother with the natives I can call home and they’ll send a gunboat to sort the blighters out with a few shots across the bow. God Save The Queen!!! Oh, hang on, didn’t I just say I was a republican? Hmmm. I need to think this one through a bit more.
Another quick Google soon had me on the phone to the Maritime & Coastguard Agency in sunny Cardiff, and they said they’d be delighted to have me join the British merchant fleet with the good ship Odyssey. Just one stumbling block though – I need to get her surveyed to determine her gross tonnage. But wait a minute, that’s already on the US registration document so surely they can just use that figure? Sorry sir, the Yanks do it differently so we have our own good old British way of measuring things. So there.
A few more Googles and phone calls soon procured an approved local surveyor who by good fortune (I don’t believe in fate) was driving by later today, so he popped round to measure me up. And here’s where the history lesson comes in. Apparently the reason boats have to be surveyed for their tonnage is to do with how much cargo they can carry, which determines how much tax they pay on coming into a port. Way back in the mists of time it was measured in ‘tuns’ of wine or olive oil, with 8 barrels to a tun. Hence tunnage, or more modernly, tonnage.
So basically they need to find out how many tons of wine I can carry, which is great because then I can simply pop along to the off-licence before I leave, wave my certificate at the counter and demand 32 tons of their finest Merlot if you please. How fab!
It didn’t take long, and I even helped by holding one end of the tape measure while Henry, the surveyor, took the business end to the relevant places. For those who are interested in these things the key measurements are overall length and beam on deck, height from top of keel to deck, and height and width of the cabin above the deck. This produces a volume which translates into the tonnage, or how much wine I could pour into Odyssey. Quite a lot, I should think.
Henry departed with a few more pearls of wisdom, and I filled in the rest of the forms and posted them to Cardiff. Apparently there’s already an Odyssey in the UK merchant fleet but I can have “Odyssey Of London”, which is fine by me.
All I have to do now is sit back and wait for the gunboat to arrive. And I might as well have a glass of wine – it would be rude not to. Cheers!