How to take your boat outside Australian waters

One of the more significant hurdles is ensuring your boat has the right registration to let it leave Australian waters.

If you plan on leaving Australia and motoring or sailing the world, you’ll need to first ensure your boat is listed on the Australian Register of Ships administered by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) – the same government group that coordinates all Australia’s marine search and rescue services.

The register is a list of boats that have a certificate of registration allowing them to leave Australian waters, as well as providing a legal and internationally recognisable Australian nationality for a boat. 

Your boat is eligible to be listed on the Australian Register of Ships if it is Australian-owned. Without it, you will not have access to Australian diplomatic protection such as access to consular support if your vessel is seized.

What is the process? Let’s go through it step-by-step.

Even before you can start processing an application, AMSA wants you to first find out if your boat is eligible to be a part of the register.

In that respect, it asks everyone considering an application to send it an email with details including the boat’s age, its vital statistics such as length and beam and so on, if it has any current certification, and what you plan on doing with the boat – in this instance, venture out of Australian waters on a relaxing holiday.

You then need to wait for a response, which will either give you the green light to go ahead with your application, let you know you’re not eligible, or even ask for you to supply a bit more information to help make the decision.

Once you have AMSA’s approval to go ahead with listing on the ships register, it’s time to make a formal application.

Getting your boat listed on the Australian Register of Ships is a little complicated, so it pays to have done your homework before you sit down to fill out the paperwork.

In short, you need to know a lot about your boat, including when and where it was built, who built it, if it had any previous registrations in other states or territories, and the complete ownership history from the day it first hit the water.

The first document is a notice of intention to register a ship. It’s a fairly basic document that, among other things, provides the registrar with three options for what name you want your boat to be known by.

It comes with a mandatory 30-day wait as AMSA needs to publish the notice on its website and then wait to see if anyone appeals the registration.

Another of the key documents is a builder’s certificate, filled out by the very person who made your boat.

This is where it gets complicated because in some instances, the boat’s builder may have gone out of business, has retired or just can’t be contacted.

If that is the case, you will need a statutory declaration for the builder’s certificate, which needs to be filled in by whoever is making the application if they know the boat quite well, or a boatbuilder, surveyor, shipwright or someone else who knows the ins and outs of a boat.

You will also need to fill out a notice of appointment of registered agent (ship’s manager) as part of the application process. For a recreational boat, this is usually just the boat’s owner.

Another requirement is a bill of sale to submit with your application, which shows how much you paid for your ride.

Your boat will be typecast as a particular kind of vessel. Examples include “Sailing vessel” or “Private yacht” if it hangs laundry, or a “Yacht (Recreational)”, “Catamaran” or “Pleasure craft vessel” if it burns oil to get around.

Once the boat’s listing on the Australian Register of Ships is approved, boat owners are issued with a marking note.

The marking note includes a registration number that must be permanently affixed to the bulkhead along with the boat’s overall length. Owners will also need to apply the ship’s name to either side of the bow, and the boat’s name and its home port on the stern.

Once you’ve done all this it will need to be witnessed and signed off by a third party.

Once this form is returned and the fees paid, your boat will be officially listed on the Australian Register of Ships.

Unfortunately, adding your boat to the Australian ships register isn’t free. As of the time of writing, AMSA charges $1554 to list a recreational boat.

For new owners who have bought a boat already listed on the Australian Register of Ships, transferring the registration to your name only costs $444. If you also want to change the boat’s name or give it a new home port, that’s an extra $111.

If the previous owner can’t find the certificate showing the boat’s registration to pass onto you, it’s $222 for a new one.

The next stage in getting your boat into international waters is to ensure that you meet all the needs of the Australian Border Force, only one of which is a certificate showing your boat is listed on the register of ships.

You’ll also need all your travel documents such as a valid Australian passport and the appropriate visa for where the boat is headed.

If you’re leaving Australia by boat, each person is charged $60 in what is called a

Owners will also need to provide the Australian Border Force with a list of equipment carried on their boat when they leave, with the risk being that they may need to pay import duty when bringing the gear back into Australia.

If you have a dog or cat aboard, you’ll need to have a health certificate issued via the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry for the animal. However, remember that Australia has very strict biosecurity measures that may make it tricky to reintroduce the animal once you're back home.