It doesn't matter where the hull was built as long as it's registered
properly. The Jones Act is primarily for merchant shipping, crews,
passengers, and cargo and is 'protectionest' in nature. Even so there are
some exceptions. An example is Norwegian Cruise Lines which now sails out
of Seattle to Alaska. Far as I know they are still officered by Norwegians
and crewed by people from many countries. There ship in Hawaii however,
that stays primarily within the islands has a US union crew. Another
exception is in crew make up itself. I've shipped on US Navy ships with
sailors from the Phillipines on a Phillipine passport. Both in the underway
replenishment fleet and in the contract fleet. A 'green card' is required
however for the latter. For the former, a peculiarity is the stated
requirement of Military Sealift Command that all crew be citizens and
english speaking...in practicality this does not apply to at least
Phillipine citizens. I think it's a left over sweetheart deal from the
McArthur/WWII days. A probable reason for these exceptions is the lack of
people in the US willing to go to work at sea, even though the jobs enjoy
fairly high pay not to mention the extras. ALL of these MSC ships come
under both Naval regulations (sorry no grog) and civil regulations.
Inspections by the Navy, the Coast Guard and the American Bureau of
Shipping. Coast guard has several types of articles for crew to sign.
Layberth where the ship doesn't go anywhere and has a minium caretake crew.
US Port to US Port on the same coast. US Port to US Port on a different
coast, and Foreign Articles. Rules are different for each. Cargo is another
strange area. For example for a US Navy contract crewed ship (USNS Bob Hope
a ro-ro for example) to crew up and haul cargo to the middle east the cargo
must first be offered to strictly commercial US vessels, then to other than
US commercial vessels, then to the ships you all paid for to do that job.
The way it's handled is the bid writing is so tight only ships like the
Hopeless can do the job in the time specified. Don't ask me.congress wrote
the laws. The Jones Act regularly comes under attack by the Representatives
and Senators from Hawaii who believe allowing foreign owned, flagged, and
crewed vessels to haul 48 to the islands will lower costs. That's some of
the ins and outs but none of it applies to Jon and his Bene Fleet and don't
mention it to loudly or it will be like Red Ron Dellums all over again
trying to tax recreational boats by the square footage of their sails. True
story. He thought it wasn't fair that sailboats didn't pay fuel tax.

Hope that helps a bit. It's not an easy issue but another source besides
the Coasties are the union halls, might try asking them SUP for example in
San Francisco.

M.


"JG" wrote in message
...
After a read of this... The Jones Act and related statutes require that
vessels used to transport cargo and passengers between U.S. ports be owned
by U.S. citizens, built in U.S. shipyards, and manned by U.S. citizen
crews... it seems like this doesn't really apply to the various clubs that
rent boats. Many, if not most, of the boats that are in charter fleets in
the US are foreign made (Bene's and such), although I'm pretty sure
they're
owned and operated by US citizens. I'm wondering if there is some
distinction between "between U.S ports" and returning to the same port,
but
even that seems like it wouldn't hold for several clubs that have multiple
facilities.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com