TTM03500 - Qualifying companies and ships: Qualifying ship

Meaning

A ship is any vessel used in navigation. Navigation is the art or science of conducting a ship from one point to another.  The phrase ‘used in navigation' conveys the concept of transporting passengers or goods by water to an intended destination.  Navigation is not synonymous with movement on water; it is planned and orderly movement from one place to another.  Formerly it was thought that to be used in navigation a vessel had to have its own means of propulsion and direction used to move it from one place to another.  This view has now been withdrawn.  See Global Marine Drilling Company v Triton Holdings Ltd [1999] ScotCS 277, applying an old authority The Mac (1882) 7 PD 126 (where the Court of Appeal overturned the decision of Phillimore J).

A ship will not be a qualifying ship unless it satisfies all of the following conditions:

Ship Guidance

It is ‘seagoing’.

See TTM03510 for the meaning of ‘seagoing’.  The normal commercial operations of the ship must be undertaken at sea for the ship to be a qualifying ship.

It is of 100 tons or more gross tonnage and it has either a valid International Tonnage Crtificate (1969) or a valid certificate recording its tonnage as measured in accordance with domestic tonnage regulations.

See TTM01330 for details of how tonnage is to be measured and the tonnage certificates required.

It is used for one or more of the following:

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Carriage of passengers by sea See TTM03545
Carriage of cargo by sea See TTM03550
Towage, salvage or other marine assistance carried out at sea - See TTM03560
Transport in connection with other services of a kind necessarily provided at sea. See TTM03570

It is not used for the provision of goods or services of a kind normally provided on land.

See TTM03610

It is not the type of vessel excluded from being qualifying ships.

See TTM03620

See TTM03595 for further guidance on the meaning of ‘sea’.

First qualifying

For when a new ship first becomes a qualifying ship, see TTM03580.

Ceasing to qualify

For when a ship ceases to be qualifying, see TTM03590.

Special rules for offshore activities

See TTM11001 onwards for special rules applying to vessels engaged in ‘offshore activities’ (mainly in the North Sea oil and gas industries).

End user of ship

It is necessary to consider the end user of a chartered ship if considering whether the activities qualify, see TTM03675.

References

  • FA00/SCH22/PARA19 (qualifying ships)                    TTM17101
  • Examples of qualifying and non-qualifying ships     TTM03695