I’ve just been through all this while preparing for a 6 month
cruise around the
Med. I’m an Aussie, and have an Australian
boat license, but was concerned about what the authorities in
Europe would require, as I had already booked a
charter in
Croatia for 2010 before deciding to buy the
boat, and the
Charter company informed me that I would now need a Captain’s certificate (i.e. ICC) and
VHF operator’s certificate in order to take the charter in
Croatia. The course that the charter company offered in order to meet this requirement was approximately 2-3 days long, and I would have done the course at the charter base in Croatia, just before starting the charter. In the end I bought the boat and cancelled the charter, so then figured that I would need some certificates for the 6 month sailing adventure which was now in the works.
I was told that generally an RYA
ICC rating was required, however, I was then clearly told that as I am not an EU citizen, I was not eligible to receive an RYA
ICC. So after searching the net for a solution, and not receiving any firm information on what certificate could be used in lieu of the RYA ICC for non-EU types, I decided that I would just attend an ‘International Yacht Training’,
Bareboat Skipper course, and a
VHF Operators course, in order to have some ‘International’ certificates on hand in case I was asked.
Since then we have cruised for 4 months in the South of
France, the
West coast of
Italy,
Corsica, Sardinia,
Sicily, the south Coast of
Italy, and
Greece, and have never been asked for any ‘skipper’s’ or ‘VHF’ certificates as such, however, we have been stopped and had the boat documents checked by various authorities around 6 times during our
cruise, but all they were interested in was the boat
registration,
insurance, and were we
legal with respect to the VAT on the boat. Additionally, my
insurance company didn’t care about my certificates. I sent them copies for their reference, but I don’t think they even read them, just filed them.
The courses were a heap of fun, and I'm happy to have the certificates, because you never know what grumpy official you might meet. So if someone does ask to see my ‘ICC’, I will just have to try and explain that I'm not eligible for an ICC, but I have these other international certificates ..........