Commercial fishing under sail and the law

Commercial fishing under sail and the law.

Boats that fish commercially need to be licensed by the Marine Fisheries Agency - unless you fish only for eels, or the boat is less than 10 metres long and has no engine. (see MFA licensing, page 3). Then you don't need a license.

I originally intended to be licensed, so that I could keep the engines the boat came with - 2 x 9.9hp Yamaha outboards, installed each side of the wide cockpit. With such a configuration, manoeuvring is very simple, even enabling the boat to turn in its own length. Without engines, a catamaran is difficult to control in harbour. It is light and has a lot of windage. Gusts of wind in a confined harbour makes sailing a catamaran up to a dock too risky.

I had several discussions with both the Marine Fisheries Agency and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (sometimes at the same time in the same room). The MCA are the people who survey commercial fishing boats and ensure that they comply with safety and sea-worthiness regulations. The MFA issues the license.

The MCA offered to survey the catamaran before I bought it, to make sure that it would be usable as a fishing boat under their terms. I wanted to use a local surveyor who happens to have an unsurpassed reputation when it comes to dealing with multihulls. The MCA insisted I use one of the surveyors on their list, and suggested one based in Brixham. This fellow didn't want to do the job - he was sure that the catamaran could never qualify for a license under the regulations. Though the cat may be sea-worthy and capable of crossing an ocean, it was a different sort of thing to a boat specifically designed as a fishing boat, and the catamaran would fail in many details such as height of hatch coamings etc.

The MCA then suggested another surveyor, who turned out to be more willing. But he had to travel a long way, which I'd have to pay for, he specialised in traditional boats and had surveyed only one other catamaran before, and he would charge me £1200 for the job. I was fairly sure that he would have to fail the catamaran too for the same reasons as the first surveyor would.

So I decided to fish without a license and necessarily without engines. Talking again to the MFA and the MCA they agreed that if I had a small outboard on the boat - something too small to be any use at sea - I could use that to get the boat around the harbour, to pick up the mooring, load ice and unload fish. They'd regard that as 'transport' rather than fishing.

So far, I have sailed without an engine at all. Since I was allowed only a very small engine, I thought it would be nice to try not having one at all. I have previously lived on an engineless 30' trimaran for 5 years, covering 30,000 miles. But that boat manoeuvred as easily as a dinghy. Currently I have my work cut out picking up the mooring. Going alongside to load ice or unload fish is nearly impossible. I've had to row a dinghy-full of ice to the catamaran, and after fishing, row back with the fish boxes to have them unloaded. Too much work. I'll be using a small outboard in future for this.


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	Commercial fishing under sail and the law. Boats that fish commercially need to be licensed by the Marine Fisheries Agency - unless you fish only for eels, or the boat is less than 10 metres long and has no engine. (see MFA licensing, page 3). Then you don't need a license. I originally intended to be licensed, so that I could keep the engines the boat came with - 2 x 9.9hp Yamaha outboards, installed each side of the wide cockpit. With such a configuration, manoeuvring is very simple, even enabling the boat to turn in its own length. Without engines, a catamaran is difficult to control in harbour. It is light and has a lot of windage. Gusts of wind in a confined harbour makes sailing a catamaran up to a dock too risky. I had several discussions with both the Marine Fisheries Agency and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (sometimes at the same time in the same room). The MCA are the people who survey commercial fishing boats and ensure that they comply with safety and sea-worthiness regulations. The MFA issues the license. The MCA offered to survey the catamaran before I bought it, to make sure that it would be usable as a fishing boat under their terms. I wanted to use a local surveyor who happens to have an unsurpassed reputation when it comes to dealing with multihulls. The MCA insisted I use one of the surveyors on their list, and suggested one based in Brixham. This fellow didn't want to do the job - he was sure that the catamaran could never qualify for a license under the regulations. Though the cat may be sea-worthy and capable of crossing an ocean, it was a different sort of thing to a boat specifically designed as a fishing boat, and the catamaran would fail in many details such as height of hatch coamings etc. The MCA then suggested another surveyor, who turned out to be more willing. But he had to travel a long way, which I'd have to pay for, he specialised in traditional boats and had surveyed only one other catamaran before, and he would charge me £1200 for the job. I was fairly sure that he would have to fail the catamaran too for the same reasons as the first surveyor would. So I decided to fish without a license and necessarily without engines. Talking again to the MFA and the MCA they agreed that if I had a small outboard on the boat - something too small to be any use at sea - I could use that to get the boat around the harbour, to pick up the mooring, load ice and unload fish. They'd regard that as 'transport' rather than fishing. So far, I have sailed without an engine at all. Since I was allowed only a very small engine, I thought it would be nice to try not having one at all. I have previously lived on an engineless 30' trimaran for 5 years, covering 30,000 miles. But that boat manoeuvred as easily as a dinghy. Currently I have my work cut out picking up the mooring. Going alongside to load ice or unload fish is nearly impossible. I've had to row a dinghy-full of ice to the catamaran, and after fishing, row back with the fish boxes to have them unloaded. Too much work. I'll be using a small outboard in future for this.
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