A ship's registered number and flag of registration

[Brenda Shackleton]

Hello
I know that a ship does not change her registration number; regardless of new owners and names
Can she have a new flag or does that always stay the same?
Thanks
Brenda

[John Arton]

Brenda
When a ship is built or changes its flag of registration, a carving note giving it's registration number is issued by the flag state authority and that number is permanently marked (carved) onto the ships main beam. Should the ship change it flag then that new flag state will issue a new registration number for its flag state register. The registered number appears on the ships certificate of registry and if it's owners change without a change of flag then that registered number does not change, the certificate of registry is just endorsed with the new owners name.
Additionally, since a SOLAS amendment in the 80's came into force, all ships have been assigned an IMO number which is permanently marked on the ships stern and on a flat surface that is visible from above. This IMO number does not change throughout the vessels life, irrespective of flag and or owners. The document in the ships official papers that carries that number is called continuous certificate of management (or something similar) and should the ship change management then the ships master can enter the new manager's/owners onto the certificate.
Rgds
J.A.

[Brenda Shackleton]

Thank you, John.

My enquiry is around a ship registered in St. Vincent & Grenadines. The same number from 'birth' through 3 changes of name. She is now Russian owned but obviously no Russian flag to be seen.

The UK will not allow her to operate in UK waters. Fine.

The EU have said that she can operate in the Mediterranean. She will be paid in euros and not roubles so that is, apparently, OK

It morally stinks.

Brenda

To go back to..... "Should the ship change its flag then that new flag state will issue a new registration number for its flag state register."
Would that appear on the stern markings? I always look at the stern ensign and where a ship is registered. Why should she be allowed to change her flag? Doesn't that end up being a flag of convenience ?

[Doc Vernon]

Just for Interest Brenda , i know the question has been answered!
Cheers

https://www.shippingandfreightresour...ship-register/

[Kenneth Crawford]

A bit of trivia maybe but worth mentioning here. Any IMO number can be checked to find out if it is genuine or not (this is assuming the scallywags operating the ship illegally don’t know about this…so don’t tell them….)

The IMO number is a six digit number plus a check digit. You multiply the first of the 6 digits by 7, the second by 6, and so on until you multiply the last digit by 2. Then add it all up, and the last digit of the sum is the seventh digit of the IMO number.

One of my first ships – Somers Isle – was IMO9375147.

So we check – (9*7)+(3*6)+(7*5)+(5*4)+(1*3)+(4*2) this equals 147, so we take the last digit of the total (7) and put it on the end of the first 6 numbers. Yes – it was a genuine IMO number. ��

[J Gowers]

Hi Brenda, Here is an example of a, Change of Flag, from my discharge book, the drillship GSF Explorer was owned by Transocean of Houston and later they moved their head office to Switzerland , this for tax reasons, so you had a Swiss owned drillship under the USA flag which later this was changed to Vanuatu flag. The offical number does not appear anywhere except in the documentation as far as I know, although from memory I think there was a plaque on the bridge with the O.N. and as you can see from my discharge book a new offical number was issued when it was reflagged. The ship was built in 1974 by the CIA to lift a Russian sub that had sunk in the Pacific. After lifting part of the sub it was mothballed for 20 years before being converted to a drill ship and the name changed from Hughes Glomar Explorer to GSF Explorer. GSF stands for Global Santa Fae who ran the ship before merging with Transocean, I worked on for about three years sadly it was scrapped about 5 years ago.

Story is here makes and interesting reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian https://irp.fas.org/program/collect/jennifer.htm

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