She's got no class!

"What's the cost of these 5 year inspections?"

How long is a piece of string?

How long has it been out of class? The longer since class was dropped, the more expensive to return. Was that 2105-16 "big refit" done without class surveyor involvement? If so and major changes were made the cost may be breathtaking.

"What are demands that make owners give up?"

One major reason is the realization that there are few benefits to classing a small boat. Unless the type of operation is completely dependent on holding a class certificate there is little to gain and imposes much higher costs to maintain the certificate.

Why do you want to put such a small boat in class?

Contact the yacht's flag state maritime administration and those of the nations whose waters you intend to operate. They are the best source of reliable information and legal advice.

The regulatory overhead demands serious consideration of international commercial operations. The crewing regs alone can be staggering.

If you intend to have the boat under the umbrella of a management company (and you may have to) they can provide a great deal of assistance in all areas.They are your representative in matters involving flag state, port state, and class. Pick a well established firm with professionals in all departments.

The days of one-man management of anything other than a small private boat are gone.

Personally, I just ran two 98' Yachts one was classed but far from being classed these days and another brand new Rina classed. IMO, unless it is ultimately necessary for some reason I would care less about it being classed. In fact I don't like a lot of the RINA classed stuff (on a yacht this size anyways). Metal racor fuel bowls, no thanks, I'd rather have see through ones so you can see the water in them. things like that, for example. If the yacht was a lot larger I could see the benefits of being classed. As to the chartering aspect of it, I have no knowledge in that realm and what the requirements are or aren't.

Metal filter bowls might actually save your bacon when running along with an unmanned engine room on one of these little boats

Regardless of the size the fuel burns well and folks die every year through shortcuts and plain stupidity

I've never heard of an issue with the Racor standard plastic? see-through bowls that are on millions of yachts. If the fire is bad enough/large enough/or hot enough to melt the fuel bowl, you have a lot larger issues to worry about as there's no putting it out at that point.

The requirement is not related to who or how many have heard of an issue, it is a fire safety matter formalized by regulation. Not following the rule is most certainly a stupid shortcut that could lead to insurance and legal problems for an owner.

The intent of the rule is to provide at least a 2 1/2 minute period before the filter contents and maybe the fuel tank are dumped into the bilge. It is no different than the rules controlling fuel hoses.

For boats operating under USCG rules and ABYC recommendations, using a metal heat shield and drain plug will satisfy the regulations. You can still see the fuel in the bowl. Either the heat shield or a metal bowl will satisfy the regs, your choice. Even if a metal bowl is used, a water detection probe will warn of water long before it is visible to a casual visitor to the engine room.

Is this just in Europe or in the United States as well?

In the United States the flag state maritime authority is called the U.S. Coast Guard. It is charged with enforcing compliance with a set of rules called the Code of Federal Regulations (CFRs) that describe in great detail exactly what legal, technical, and operational standards must be met to place a vessel in commercial trade.

There is no equivalent to a commercial yacht in the US. There are commercial passenger vessels that may or may not be "inspected" and under the supervision of a class society member. It is the responsibility of the owner and operator to know, understand, and comply with all applicable regulations. Knowledge of applicable regulations is a fundamental component of obtaining and exercising the authority and privileges of the professional license holder.

A Captain cannot be knowledgable on every aspect of what his/her license is capable of being used for. A 1600 ton master that normally operates DP boats in the oil fields is not expected to be knowledgable of what goes on, on charter yachts. Same with a 1600 ton master push boat Captain is not going to know what goes on, on a cruise ship. There are so many different CFR's and regulations and changes, it's impossible to know all of them outside of the ones in your field. That is, if you know, you're busy being a Captain!

On the charter yachts I'm familiar with, they all fall under the uninspected 12 pack deal. There are no such regulations for the vessel to be classed, or for it to be USCG inspected. I'm talking a typical charter yacht that generally has 12 or less guests, not the water taxi with 40 paying passengers and also under 500 GT.

They must be some pretty small boats operating under a USCG or similar quirk.

If your operating elsewhere in the world commercially as a charter boat carrying fare paying passengers be prepared to comply with a whole more regulations that what it appears you do now.

Are any of these commercial vessels you operate/manage subject to PSC?

I don't run charter yachts, nor do I run commercial boats. I typically run private yachts only (for customers) and new yachts for various manufacturers. I've done the odd delivery on a commercial boat, last one was a 78' crew boat from Mississippi to Fort Lauderdale a few years ago to be loaded on a ship to take it to Seattle.

Any yacht doing charters is almost always going to have full time crew to keep consistency. I have no interest in going full time on a single yacht, nor doing charters. Been there, done that, not interested. I prefer managing/maintaining 10 yachts/boats and doing trips on those with/for the owners I work for, deliveries and daily captaining for manufacturers and yacht shipping companies.

What does having a fulltime crew have to do with having rules and regulations to comply with?

I don't run charter yachts nor do charters. So why would knowing their rules and regulations have anything to do with what I do? I have enough trouble keeping up with all of the current Jan 1, 2017 updates that they recently implemented, which I did complete. I work a lot of hours managing and maintaining yachts, also a lot of days of seatime Captaining and delivering yachts all over this hemisphere. I am VERY knowledgable in my sector of the industry that I deal with on a daily basis or even once in a while. But knowing the ins and outs of a charter is not something I deal with nor ever will deal with.

In situations that I'm not familiar with I refer it to someone else. Recently got asked if I knew how to run a Z drive on a yacht under 70', while I've run about every single propulsion system and am proficient with all of them (outdrive, jet, arneson, single shaft, twin shafts, sail drive, outboard, Zues, IPS, etc. etc.) and engine combination on a yacht that size, Z drives are the one I have not. So therefore I did not take the job and referred it to someone who I know is very knowledgable with them.

I understand you're an engineer, Are you well versed on Nuclear powerplants or Steam? If it isn't what you deal with in your normal scope of your license or career path, you probably know the basics but not the ins and outs of every regulation change regarding something that is not in your line of work.

So why did you feel it necessary to chime in on this thread which was purely about commercial charter operations and classification issues related to European charter regulations?

If you read my post, It was requesting information for my own curiosity. I did not post anything of knowledge referring to commercial charter operations other than an inquiry.