Let's say a licensed master decides to offer to donate a boat ride to a
charitable organization's service auction. This group gets the money
when someone pays for the ride, the buyer gets the boat ride, the
captain gets nothing but a warm fuzzy feeling for contributing to the
charity. This is clearly not a part of any business, and the captain is
not in this business anyway.

Has the captain received compensation for this according to USCG
regulations? Does this mean s/he needs chartering insurance, has to be
documented, etc. to do this annually?

Capt. Jeff