Maritime Protocol You Might be Unaware of

Considering the fact that there perhaps aren’t as many sea vessels as there are road vehicles queuing up at the appropriate authority offices as part of regulatory measures, one would quite correctly assume that such authorities associated with the maritime aren’t quite as busy as those associated with road vehicles. Still, it gets busy enough though, but things get really busy at the ports of entry operated by the designated officials of the countries you’re entering, leaving or even just cruising by.

Things can get rather interesting for those who aren’t too familiar with all the maritime protocols, so I thought I might share a bit of what happens when one is out at sea and particularly when they’re approaching dry land to dock.

Paperwork, more paperwork and even more paperwork!

Fortunately there seems to be a bit of a digitisation revolution going on in the maritime world, but some countries insist on gaining access to physical records of the likes of your navigation path as part of the conditions to be granted entry into their territories.

Constant communication and “checking-in”

If you look at it from that point of view, you could very well report to constantly having to check-in with the maritime authorities as being in a bit of a maritime prison, or perhaps being on parole or something. You have to constantly be in communication with the authorities holding jurisdiction over specific ocean territories, so too those who are part of a joint sea patrol mission of which many countries are signatories. This is basically all about making sure the law is upheld out at sea and that no breeding ground for nefarious activities such as those of pirates is cultivated.

So if your radio loses signal or anything of the sort for example, you will have a lot to answer for when you next dock or enter the territory of the next country.

Strict legal obligations

This is where things start to get back to depicting similar characteristics by way of the legalities surrounding the operation of a road vehicle in comparison to that of a sea vessel. Laws are pretty much the same, which is why if I ever got into trouble of the boat accident kind, whether it was my fault or not, I would probably enlist the services of a Portland car accident attorney. This is because that’s actually where my boat is officially registered as an asset of value.

But yeah, as rare as boating accidents are, pretty much the same laws apply to those which are synonymous with road vehicles. There’s even a DUI equivalent term for the maritime world, which is BUI – Boating Under the Influence (I swear), often used to charge inland water body boaters admittedly, over the likes of the Independence Day celebrations when some boaters have a bit too much to drink and get involved in boating accidents.

So yes, this would imply that as much as sailors are historically associated with being stupid drinkers, boating under the influence is in fact illegal.