Recently the US press has been reporting on the long stalled and overdo vote on the proposed "Law of the Sea" ratification. There are pros and cons put forth by various US interests and that's not the subject here. What this "law" proposes to do is make a single all encompassing source of the Law of the Sea as opposed to the various mix that one encounters today from one country to the next. It has been ratified by many countries to date and I believe there are only a few to go such as the US. http://tinyurl.com/rnlza Much of it is nothing that we need to concern ourselves with in the operation of private boats on the high seas. However some of the Articles apply to everyone. If you pop down to Article 91 on page 52 and work down thru a few of them you'll see the flag/State relationship. BTW the term State in this document relates to a Country not a State al la New York, etc. Article 110 page 57 paragraph 1 (d & e) and paragraph 2 certainly make me want to be properly State Flagged and showing the correct one! Article 111 "Hot Pursuit" is interesting. The US DEA has agreements with most of the Caribbean countries that allow them and the USCG/Navy to pursue into territorial waters and right onto the sovereign land of these countries....ouch. I think the US would have a bit of a issue if the Antiguan Swat team was pursuing some drug runners right up the Potomac and into DC! Perhaps you can see why the US isn't too keen on signing this "Law of the Sea" which is good for everyone but "US" ;-) So until this either gets signed and individual countries bring their maritime laws into compliance with it we'll continue to have the hundreds of different laws in different jurisdictions that we might visit with our boats. Better to have them at least up to snuff with regards to Flagging, licensing of operators/equipment and gear required of whatever country you choose to Flag in. Scott feels that offshore jurisdictions and registrations are used to avoid the tax man. This may or may not be true. Swan Song is US Duty Paid and US Documented. Both Nancy and I are US Citizens and have the appropriate licenses, FCC station licenses, etc. Initial cost of $300 or so and an annual of nearly zero. As a US Flag boat & US Citizens we are freer of the visa and some other requirements that other flagged vessels might not be. On the other hand because we are we can't get unlimited fuel here in Venezuela that some other Flags can. Our friends just had to pay $3.00 gal for AVGAS for their plane as it has an "N" letter vs. $.10 for others. Swan Song is also BVI duty paid but we chose not to register in the BVI. Simple....an offshore company costs about $1500 with an annual $300 to $500 fee. Flagging the boat there is another $1500 plus an annual fee of around $500. So for a few BU's up front and another BU annually we get to fly the BVI flag? No thanks. With the rapid increase in rules/laws/procedures driven by the state of the world today one can only expect them to become more onerous of the cruising lifestyle. From anchorages that now prohibit anchoring, only mooring. To 24 hour or greater arrival notices that you need to meet within a very short time frame. To visa requirements which keep increasing and are hard to get for many folks. So again the playing field changes once you leave the womb and what you might think is fact or the law really isn't. Some places have there laws deeply rooted while others seem to make them as the situation arises ;-) Just our observations from the recent visit of 14 countries in the Caribbean. As always YMMV.... Dave & Nancy Swan Song Roughwater 58