What SOLAS and Tender Compliance Covers
SOLAS - the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea - does not regulate yacht tenders in a single, self-contained chapter. The obligations arrive from several directions at once: the parent vessel's flag-state certification, the classification society's rules for rescue boats and survival craft, MCA Large Yacht Code requirements if the vessel is coded under LY3 or its successor, and the CE category or RCD classification of the tender itself.
For a captain running a vessel of 500 GT or above under SOLAS Chapter III, the rescue boat is a defined piece of safety equipment with its own carriage, launching, and drill requirements. For a vessel operating under the MCA Large Yacht Code, the equivalent obligation is a rescue boat that meets a specified performance standard - and that standard has direct consequences for the tender you order, how its davit system is engineered, and what documentation travels with the hull. For smaller vessels in the 24-metre-to-500 GT band, the Red Ensign Group or relevant flag state will have its own coded requirements, and these vary more than most owners expect.
The VAT and customs position adds a separate layer of complexity. A tender bought as a rescue boat and permanently attached to the parent vessel can, in certain flag-state and customs arrangements, be treated as ship's equipment rather than a standalone craft - with meaningful consequences for import duty and VAT on delivery. This is not a loophole; it is a documented administrative classification, and it requires the correct build specification and paperwork to sustain.
MCA tender classification matters because the category a vessel is surveyed under determines which performance standards the tender must meet. A rescue tender that satisfies MCA requirements needs a certified launching appliance, a defined minimum speed (typically 6 knots), the ability to manoeuvre in the sea state appropriate to its survey area, and a crew training and drill record. A leisure tender ordered to the same hull specification but without the rescue-boat certification package does not satisfy those requirements, regardless of how capable the hull is in practice.
The Key Decisions
The decisions that recur across almost every brief we handle fall into three groups.
Single tender or split programme. The most common brief we receive asks whether one hull can serve as both the rescue boat and the primary guest tender. The honest answer is: sometimes, within limits. A RIB or open tender that meets the rescue-boat performance standard can carry both roles if the owner accepts certain constraints - a dedicated launching appliance rather than a swim-platform launch, a colour scheme and markings that satisfy survey, and a maintenance and drill schedule that applies to rescue craft. Where the programme includes serious water-toy logistics, sixteen-guest transfers, or a tender that doubles as a chase vessel, the trade-off usually resolves in favour of a dedicated rescue tender alongside a separate guest or chase boat. The garage space this requires is a naval-architecture question that needs to be settled at the new-build or refit brief stage, not after the vessel is in service.
CE category versus SOLAS/MCA compliance. CE category certification under the Recreational Craft Directive covers the tender as a product placed on the EU market. It does not, by itself, satisfy the rescue-boat requirements of SOLAS Chapter III or the MCA Large Yacht Code. Captains who assume that a CE Category C or D tender automatically qualifies as a compliant rescue boat are regularly caught out at port-state control. The RCD and the SOLAS/MCA frameworks run in parallel; you need both sets of paperwork, and the tender specification must be written to satisfy both from the outset.
Davit and launching appliance compliance. The tender itself is only half the system. SOLAS and MCA requirements place obligations on the launching appliance as well - load test certification, annual examination, and compatibility with the rescue-boat's weight and dimensions. We see briefs where the tender has been upgraded to a heavier hull and the existing davit has not been recertified for the new load. That is a deficiency waiting to be written up. The davit, the falls, the release hooks, and the tender must be treated as a single certified system and specified together.
Where most briefs land, in our experience, is a 6.5 metre to 8.5 metre RIB built to a rescue-boat specification - MCA-compliant speed, certified launching gear, full documentation package - alongside a separate guest tender or limousine tender sized to the owner's transfer and hospitality requirements. The rescue tender is then maintained on its drill schedule and the guest tender is managed as a recreational craft. This split costs more in capital terms but avoids the operational compromises that come with trying to make one hull serve both functions under survey.
Where to Start
If you are approaching this subject for the first time - whether as a new owner specifying a build, a captain taking command of a vessel mid-season, or a project manager working up a refit scope - the most useful place to begin is our SOLAS hub, which maps the full compliance landscape and links to the spoke guides covering each sub-topic in detail.
The hub covers rescue tender carriage requirements by vessel size and flag state, the MCA Large Yacht Code classification framework, CE category versus RCD compliance, davit and launching appliance certification, VAT and customs classification for ship's equipment, and the drill and record-keeping obligations that apply once the tender is in service.
For owners and captains who already have a vessel in service and are working out whether the current tender arrangement is compliant, the most pressing questions are usually: does the tender meet the minimum speed requirement for its survey category; is the launching appliance certified to the current weight of the tender (including fuel, crew, and equipment); and is the rescue-boat record - drills, annual examination, davit service - complete and current. If any of those three are uncertain, that is where the review starts.
For project managers specifying a new build or a refit, the specification needs to be written before the tender is ordered, not adjusted after delivery. The build standard, the davit specification, the documentation package, and the customs classification all need to be agreed with the yard and the flag-state surveyor at contract stage. Changes after delivery are expensive and, in the case of the davit-and-tender system, can require a full re-survey.
Talk to Us
We work with owners, captains, and project managers at every stage of the compliance process - from initial brief through tender specification, yard selection, survey support, and delivery. Our role is to translate the regulatory requirements into a specification that is commercially deliverable, correctly documented, and operationally practical for the programme the vessel is actually running.
If you have a specific vessel, a flag state, and a survey date in mind, we can turn a brief into a shortlist of compliant tender options within 48 hours. The brief we ask for is straightforward: vessel GT and flag state, current or proposed coding, garage dimensions and launching appliance type, passenger and transfer requirements, and any existing tenders that need to be retained or replaced.
The compliance picture is more navigable than it appears once the requirements are mapped against a specific vessel and programme. The problems arise when the mapping is left until survey - by which point the options are narrower and the costs are higher. Starting early is the only consistent advice we give.