European CE Rating/ Category Question

Often with extremely light and high boats the limiting factor for Cat A is the stability aspect concerning resistance against wind and wave combined. with a high profile and low weight obviously the static stability can be well sufficient while the "wind and wave" criterium is not met.
An other aspect is openings in the superstructure such as doors, sliding doors and so on. Or sill heights on doors. For Cat A these equipment parts can become extremely costly or change the design concept at the expense of stiling and comfort while there is very little practical need or use to excessively overbuild such components for common boaters.

That makes a lot of sense.

Nice link, 67 pages, I will put that on my to read list. Fantastic.

Hello,
New member here. I have a question about CE classifications and how they might apply to different uses. I have a 50' Sunseeker with an A CE rating and a carrying capacity of 10 (passengers & crew). As I understand it, if I operate in a Class B or C CE environment, the carrying capacity may be increased?

If this is the case, does anyone know about the process requirements to operate in the new classification? Is it an insurance thing, or an government inspection (in the EU)?
Any insights would be helpful.

Thank you.

There are some cases where builders have submitted initial plans and boats for approval at various levels of passengers. Beneteau does this regularly. I am not aware of Sunseeker doing so. It's always seemed like game playing to me. I also question why you'd care as in why you'd want to carry more than 10 persons on a 50' Sunseeker in any waters.

As far as I know, it must be stated in the boats certification. Something like 10 persons at Cat A, 12 persons at Cat B and may be 14 at Cat C (including crew, means souls on board). Otherwise it would be the same number at all Cats. But as said, would You like to take more 10 people on a 50 ft boat?

Interesting discussion. Got me think about Sunseeker CE rating. Older article: SUNSEEKER VIOLATING CE DESIGN RULES? on YachtForums. Apparently they was a lawsuit because visibility from helm was much below CE standard and claimed to contribute to running over a surfer. Also seems likely that flybridge height with higher CG, lowers stability and likely CE rating. Pershing and Riva may have an advantage get an A CE rating for most of their designs vs. a 60ft flybridge. Also, in the discussions above, if the significant wave height, in a forecast, would be more like is 8 ft, a 1:1000 wave would be >12 ft. An 8 ft forecast should be considered upper limits for CE ratings of B. That is more than I want to be in for “pleasure” boating. So for me, a B CE rating would be legally adequate. Build quality and over-design of all components is additionally comforting.

The different numbers of people have their reason in the different stability requirementss for different categories. If you have to consider a certain percentage of poeple aboard on the flybridge for example it obviously allowes a higher number of passengers in lesser requirements. There are strict rules of beeing able to accomodate a certain percentage of the total passenger number on each deck level in the stability requirements.

With all due respect to the previous posts, the fact is that categorising & classifying machinery or vehicles or vessels, is a way to attempt to control a set standard that we do need. Personal & professional opinions on what can be sustained in passenger numbers or sea conditions, are just that, opinions.
Whether a builder decides to relinquish attaining a category “A” for their vessel to save on costs, yet still builds the same standard is an assumption we make at our own risk.

For the sake of this argument, the boat that the OP is keen on is not graded to the category he feels safe with, yet he is possibly trying to convince himself that this does not matter because it is due to x,y,z & therefore does not matter safety wise.

Fact is the Galeon 640 is rated as a “B” category & the buyer needs to consider whether he wants to use it in an environment where he really would prefer a category "A".

The OP mentions Nordhavn. Well if you want that sort of “peace of mind” then there is a cost. That price comes with the comfort of knowing what standard you are buying.

Whether classifications become degraded or corrupted over time by red tape or technology, or not, they are there for a purpose & in this case I feel that it’s best to trust the system rather than assume the boat is up to the standard because it seems that way to you.

Welcome back, Kafue! You've been missed - so have your posts like the one above.

Hi Judy, good to be back. Hope you are well & enjoying life...

Ditto on Judy's remarks. Welcome back Kafue!

Hi Carl,
Thanks for the welcome. There have been quite a few new additions available on your site. Great to be back.
Cheers.

The main difference between a CE A and B is stability. Any CE B can get a CE A but its max person rating will be reduced. Usually it is 2 persons, sometimes it is more.
The basis of stability and its righting movement is how they get the rough sea condition number. And it is the same principle used in large commercial ships to be fair, so the idea behind it makes sense.

As for RINA I wish Italian boat yards still build to this standard (like they did till 97), when they had a lot of strict rules like height of bathing platform, water empty time of aft deck etc.
When Italian build to RINA, they where as far as I know the only nation that had pleasure boats build to a class rules, then another formed entity.
Americans have NMMA for example.

Ferretti as well as Raffaelli, used to have Class A1 Cross of Malta design standard up until 97. Meaning that the designs where approved to this regulation.
The build however was not Cross of Malta supervised. Possibly Ferretti offered this only on its large 225 / 80 model in that time. Not sure about this.
Ferretti had BV CoM, while Raffaelli had Nippon and American Bureau of Shipping if I remember well.
That is why both Ferretti and Raffaelli got easy CE A when the transition was made.
Since there is a standard to comply I do not see any harm in boasting about a CE A rating versus the B.
To be fair Raffaelli had always a good name for its seakeeping and construction, especially for the short and tall Adriatic wave.
Another fact is that most custom and semi-custom Viareggio and area builders (Sanlorenzo/Falcon/Admiral/Leopard/Mangusta/Cantieri di Pisa/Mondomarine etc) always build or offered to build to Class A1 Class of Malta rule.
This is not so easy as some might think, as when Sunseeker had an order to design a Predator 80 (at the time its flagship) to a CoM rules, they had to delay the build by about six months.

INTERESTING FACT
Back in when CE launched in 1998 the Italian regulator made a mistake and instead of putting 250 nautical miles as limit, put 50 nautical mile on the CE B standard.
This made all Italian boat builders having to comply with CE A in the 1998 and 99 year, until the error was fixed, which if I remember well was in the fall of 99.
For them at the time was easy as they where coming from RINA no limit rules.

The Load Line Length measurement is going back to the times of the old the Tall Ships and was invented by UK shipowners. Reason were the docking fees in commercial harbours. At that time, the docking fee was calculated by the overall length of the large square riggers.

But these tall square riggers had long, very long bowsprits in relation to the overall length of the sips. By excluding those large for and aft overhangs and measuring the length of the remaining hull at a certain height below the main deck, they saved a lot of docking costs. And most probably taxes too.

The only part of this old rule, which really helps in designing boats today, is with the 24 meter CE upper limit. With the LLL measurement, one can really design pretty large 24 meter boats.

But removable bows are really bending the rule to or even beyond its limit .

IMO, the 24 meter border should be removed and for example be replaced by a flexible limit, depending on the handling characteristics, caused by weight, maneuver characteristics due to design (hull area, side decks and visibility from the steering position, etc.).

That could turn a 20 meter boat into a classed yacht with minimum crew requirement and could allow a 30 meter boat to be still operated with a leasure boat licence and by a family crew.

Two examples come here into my mind, a Delta Power Boats Delta 100 (if it would excist ) with multiple IPS drives and bow thruster as the positive example and a Pershing 64 with twin Arneson waterjets as the other extrem. Take a guess which boat would be easier to be handled by a family crew.

The main advantage of the CE rating of pleasure boats are the safety standards, material strenght, quality standards (to some extend ) and the enviromental standards. The sub classification A, B, C or D is (for us) of secondary importance. The number of persons, we take on board and the distance off shore, my children will take their boats, will always be on the safe side. One can take any floating device accross large bodies of water in a good weather window. Does this make sense, obviously no.

In my younger days, I have crossed the pond via the Azores on the wooden A&R Yawl of our family. I was bearly 16, my older brother 19 and the skipper and the rest of the crew were professional sailors out of our shipping company. This was the delivery tripp to the buyer of the boat with the destination Nassau, Bahamas. The boat is still in great shape and sailing along the southeastern coast of the US of A. Great memories but I must admid, at that time, I was a little bit scared. Since then I have crossed the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean several times on large sailing boats, my larger yachts and mainly as the captain of our commercial vessels. Now as an older guy, I let my yachts cross the oceans only with their crews and I follow the boat to the destination in my Jet.
Not out of fear but due to lack of time.

As I am known for being a big fan of Nordhavn full displacement boats up to to 80 ft, I could think of crossing a larger body of water with one of those. With the new Nordhavn 80 it might be different. This beautiful large yacht within the CE regime was not designed for the circumnavigation of the globe. The example of the Hamilton couple with their Nordhavn 52 is a great example of the capabilities of this design.

Life is just to short to buy a stupid and/or ugly boat.

Ladies and gentlemens, YF (and JF) are the absolutely greatest websites for boats, yachts and Mega Yachts and planes, their enthusiasts, owners an operators on the net. The example with the Grohe shower handle in the other post is a great proof. Within shortest time, the order number was posted.

Carl and his mods are doing a great job for all of us.

Just my 2 (Euro) cents.

Most if not all planning motor boats can't cross the ocean because of range.
If a Bavaria 12 meter sailing yacht can do it, and or Beneteau Oceanis did it, most motor boats can do it on the basis of strength and construction.
Would you feel safe in a planning motor boat in a Force 8, surely a lot more then in the a sailing yacht especially when the wind makes it impossible for you to sail anymore.
Would you feel safer in a planning motor boat in a Force 8 then a full displacement like Nordhavn. In head sea I will take the later, in following give me the first any time.
If stabilizers go on most displacement boat is not fun at all....