Inland Waterways Vessels and Post Construction Assessment

Unless it is a boat that is outside or excluded from the scope of the regulations, then it must be compliant when it is put up for sale or into service – whichever comes first.

CE or UKCA marking is not optional. It would be misrepresentation or even fraud, to imply a product conforms to a regulation that does not apply. 

The regulations allow the exclusion of watercraft built for own use, provided that they are not subsequently placed on the market during a period of five years from the putting into service of the watercraft.

This raises several difficult questions:

1. When is a boat ‘in service’ to start the clock ticking?
2. How much of the intended boat needs to be missing to qualify as partly completed?

A boat that is incomplete cannot comply with all the requirements that apply to it. So the regulations say that the authority may not impede the sale of partly-completed watercraft where the manufacturer or the importer declares that they are intended to be completed by others.

The Regulation has an annex that states what the ‘declaration; should say'.

A Major Craft Conversion is defined as: 

• A conversion of a watercraft which changes the means of propulsion of the watercraft
• Involves a major engine modification
• Alters the watercraft to such an extent that it may not meet the applicable essential requirements laid down in these regulations.

Post Construction Assessment requires assessment by a certification body known as a Notified Body in Europe or Approved Body in UK.

A Sailaway is a vessel that is not fully finished but can still move under its own power. It isn’t usable to its complete design potential, yet it is capable of navigating.

• The industry pointed to Annex III of the RCD, which outlines how a craft handed from one manufacturer to another as “partly complete” should be documented. Each upstream producer would declare what work they performed and which standards were applied, noting that the boat is not CE-marked because it will be finished by others.
• Based on that logic, a Sailaway deemed “partly complete” should not carry a CE mark either.
• Trading Standards rejected this reasoning, maintaining that a navigable boat is a complete boat once in service. Additional features or refinements added after sailing away are viewed as modifications to an existing craft that was sold by a manufacturer. If a major craft conversion occurs after the sailaway stage, products conformity assessment (PCA) would be required.

Historically, manufacturers operated in one of three ways:

• Issued an Annex III declaration.
• CE-marked Sailaways with a full Declaration of Conformity (DoC).
• Issued no compliance documentation or markings at all.

The second-hand market includes former Sailaways reflecting all of these approaches, and not all of them are legally sound.What you can takeaway from this? The landscape has been marked by diverging interpretations and inconsistent documentation among Sailaways, with legal acceptance varying by jurisdiction and enforcement practices.

• Over time, Trading Standards noted numerous boats operating on UK waters without any conformity documents, including critical systems like fuel and electrical installations.
• Trading Standards ultimately rejected the industry’s view, clarifying that if a boat is navigable, it falls under the category of a recreational craft.
• They also pointed out that the term 'Sailaway' isn’t a legally recognized category, so it cannot confer an exclusion from the RCD. In other words, the exclusion was an industry construct, not a legal entitlement.

• When the Recreational Craft Directive (RCD) was introduced, the term Sailaway did not appear in the regulation. The UK inland boating community, however, treated a Sailaway as not yet a recreational craft and therefore not CE-marked.
• The industry reasoned that once owners completed the boat and put it into service, the owner became the manufacturer by default.
• A perceived loophole emerged: “craft built for own use, provided that they are not subsequently placed on the Community market during a period of five years.” For roughly a decade, the belief persisted that owner completed Sailaways could be excluded from the RCD after five years of ownership.

• Brokers and surveyors are not compliance specialists; their role is to inform clients about what is reasonably known within the industry and to alert if a boat should have a CE or UKCA mark and whether a Declaration of Conformity corresponds to the applicable legislation.
• They should not be expected to perform a full conformity assessment.
• If brokers or surveyors have concerns, they should raise them. Ultimately, the decision to pursue PCA rests with the interested parties.

• The EU Commission’s RCD application guide clarified the stance on exclusions for boats built for own use. It states that such exclusions are only expected if the boat has been “substantially built by the future user.”
• It further notes that completing a “kit boat” cannot be excluded as built for own use.
• Implication: if a kit cannot be excluded, then a fully assembled hull and deck with engine, fuel systems, plumbing, and working steering cannot be excluded either. In other words, a bare hull formed from a joined kit bought by the owner cannot be excluded.
• Result: the industry ultimately accepted that Sailaways should carry CE marking and a full Declaration of Conformity. Not every manufacturer moved quickly to adopt this, so the second-hand market still contains boats from more recent years without CE marks.

• While there is sympathy for owners who believed they were entitled to exclusion, there is no universal legal remedy available. Only the government could enact an act waiving conformity for Sailaways of a certain age.
• In practice, non-compliant boats should undergo Post Construction Assessment (PCA) and receive a CE or UKCA mark.

• For a Sailaway, the seller should have CE marked the vessel.
• When the owner completes the CE-marked Sailaway, that constitutes a “major craft conversion,” requiring the owner to apply to a UK Approved Body for PCA to assess the modifications.

• If a Sailaway was CE/UKCA marked by the original manufacturer, PCA should focus only on the owner-made modifications, not the entire vessel. Consequently, the PCA fee is typically much smaller than a full boat assessment.
• The certificate’s value adds to the boat: it not only helps justify the PCA cost when selling, but also makes the boat more marketable and can offset overhead.
• If the vessel has never carried any compliance at any stage, PCA can be avoided only if there is credible evidence that the owner substantially built the boat themselves (including the hull) and that completion occurred more than five years ago.

Conclusion: Much of the confusion stems from shifting attitudes over time, but the legal scope has remained constant. Diagnosing a non-CE/UKCA-marked craft is simpler than it may appear: there is genuine evidence of owner-built exclusion, or there isn’t and PCA is required.