U.K. flag

[John Arton]

Apparently the chancellor is making plans for tax breaks for ship owners to register their vessels in the U.K.
Rgds
J.A.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...freedom-plans/

[vic mcclymont]

Didn't two shags bring I a tonnage tax many years ago?
If so what happened to it?
Vic

[j.sabourn]

The 50 years I spent in the shipping industry I did not put too much thought into the nationality of the ships I served on. Unlike some in shipping it was my method of earning a living , and I was fortuanate enough to get sufficient job satisfaction from. I was not there purely for a good time and a laugh , if they came by all well and good, but there was more to going to sea than that. To be on a British ship in my earlier days one expected to see British seamen and this was also in the small print in the regulations of the times. This was altered in time by the British shipowner himself for material gain and the governments of the day went along with it. The loss of the Red Ensign and the rules and regulations that went with it are purely due to poor government and material short term personal gain. The only western style government that still holds a semblance of national pride the last time I
Looked is the United States who still insist on a percentage of US nationals on their US registered ships. The UK once a well known seafaring nation lost it , or gave it away some years ago. They have no credibility whatsoever in my eyes . Cheers JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Lewis.
While unions employed better lawyers to get better wages so did the employers, but theyre's were much better educated in the art of stripping or changing the structures of wages.
Des

[Keith Adams]

#5. Hello JS. The US merchant Marine capability of manning of our own flag vessels is hanging on by a
thread. In fact, if it wasn’t for Matson’s Hawaiian service, a very small segment of APL’s (American President Lines’) massive international fleet, Chevron”s small Tanker fleet, and the Military Sealift Command vessels, we would not have any foreign going American flagged ships at all. The Unions for each class of service are basically working together nationally but the East and West Coasts tend to compete for contracts which can be detrimental, especially for the Deck crowd and there is competition between the States to have their crews man the few remaking ships in service so they can be played one against the other. The future does not look good.
My concern is we are loosing the knowledge and skill pool in all departments, including management just as we have in Ship Building trades. Here we are, a single country with three coasts comprising thousands of miles of sea and ocean, and probably fewer than a hundred American flagged foreign going vessels to support it. We spend trillions of dollars on Naval vessels and military and hardly anything on the Merchant Marine. I know we probably have the highest paid seagoing staff but our cost of living is equally high (not that I am complaining), just a fact of life. The government needs to subsidized the Merchant fleet and cut back on Military spending to do that. Otherwise other countries will be able to dictate how much they will charge for their service or even with hold it. We will be dog meat if we ever get embargoed ! I witnessed what happened to Canada’s Merchant Navy in 1950’s

[happy daze john in oz]

We have a similar problem here in Oz.
There is little shipping industry here now, unless you count the Tassie ferry, as most of the bulk we export in on ships with foreign crew.
If they employ Australian seamen on ships sailing from Australian ports then they must pay Australian wages and super contributions.
So mainly over seas for them, much cheaper.

[j.sabourn]

As said John Australian flagged ships in my short time ( never got an all nighter) of 11 years were the best conditions and even passed or surpassed the US . I got this from the American master of the Dickerson Tide who I had to re-sign on as 2 mate to keep up the US presence on board. The Australian ABs were in excess of his wages in the Gulf of Mexico. Offshore seaman’s wages and conditions were always behind rig workers in the North Sea , not so the case in Australia. Today however is a different ball game , and the see saw has gone the other way since. Due primary to the loss of union power if you want to call it that , and a government with a different viewpoint which means the rich get richer. As I said I went to sea to earn a living and the better the living the more job satisfaction. If I was still at sea I would be very mercenary about it and go to the highest bidder. Pleased I don’t have to now as wouldn’t get much today. Cheers JS.

[j.sabourn]

#7 True or False it was gossip among seafarers of my earlier days , that the size of that countries war vessels was corresponding to the size of its merchant fleets. Based mainly on both size and Tonnage and numbers . If such is or was the case with the British Royal Navy , it will stand as a good excuse for the decline of such as well. Going back century’s that was the obvious reason for naval vessels was the protection of its commerce. Cheers JS.

[cappy]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/g...the-red-duster never read so much drivel. and this was 2017.

Is this the article you are thinking about Vic ? P&O were to flag 50 vessels back under the Red Duster in 1999. Not sure how many they did before the flogged of the fleet. I think the P&O cruise ships are under Bermudian flag again.

P&O Ferries Dover operation competes directly with that of DFDS who operate to both Calais and Dunkirk with vessels flagged in the UK and France. The move means that UK based (but Dubai owned) P&O Ferries will no longer have any UK flagged ferries in its fleet. In addition to the six Dover vessels flagged in Cyprus, the company have five vessels registered in The Bahamas (including EUROPEAN HIGHLANDER and EUROPEAN CAUSEWAY ), three in The Netherlands, and one ( NORBAY) registered in Bermuda.

lewis i stopped reading sea breezes magazine some 35 years ago .....some time before that it had been a great and interestingread about vessels uk owned mainly but many stories worldwide also .......it then slowly got less and less interesting as more and more shipping companies had dissapeared and cruise liners and ferries filled page after page ......the merchant navy as i had seen it was gone ......our lefty members blame the greedy shipowners ......but if there was a profit in it we would have still had many shipping companies with vessels trading world wide .....the return on capital outlay had disappered......the money was spent elswere ....i recall being in singapore in the 60s the hammer and scycle vessels outnumbered any other nation by far .....the container vessels were on the cards carrying many more cargoes and quicker loading and unloading ......our 5 hatch tramps etc were as much good as a clipper ship in todays world .....tankers were going to such giant sizes ....with few seamen aboard .....poorer nations were flagging there own vessels ..nigeria ......india ...pakistan ....malta .....japan was building them again and flagging them ....the day of our merchant seaman was going going gone ....who on this site would wish to honestly go to sea on a container with 11 or twelve hands and after coming up from the far east ....turn round in a few hours to go back again..we had sometimes weeks in port ...bigger crews ....more shipmates...i think no camerararderie on a container ship ......would rather not bother going to sea today ......adventure for young men gone .....with there benefits they can fly to oz japan malaysia kiwi in a day .....and the sad thing is ....every foriegn city looks the same now .....the individual differences are gone ....naw cappy goes to shields regular now .....and gets sad looking at was once the coaly tyne .....one filled with british merchantmen coming from every were and going every where ....tankers in smiths colliers at the staithes dry cargoes in brighams the tde readheads and many others ...its a dream gone.....red duster blown away a long time ago now.....weep for it yes but it will never come back .....i only say jeez i saw the best of it.......cappy

[Tony Taylor]

#7 True or False it was gossip among seafarers of my earlier days , that the size of that countries war vessels was corresponding to the size of its merchant fleets. Based mainly on both size and Tonnage and numbers . If such is or was the case with the British Royal Navy , it will stand as a good excuse for the decline of such as well. Going back century’s that was the obvious reason for naval vessels was the protection of its commerce. Cheers JS.

never saw many Panamanian, Greek, or Liberian navy vessels.