Recreational craft: royal decree on safety and pollution prevention equipment published in Official State Gazette

Spain - 26 / 05 / 2021

On May 19 the Official State Gazette published Royal Decree 339/2021 of May 18 on the safety and pollution prevention equipment of recreational craft.

The legislation will apply to recreational craft, if:

they are registered, entered or pre-entered on registers in Spain;
under the legislation in force, they engage in commercial activities or activities for profit in maritime waters over which Spain exercises sovereignty, sovereign rights or jurisdiction, whatever their flag states.
they sail in Spanish internal maritime waters or in the Spanish territorial sea, whatever their flag states, and the individuals or legal entities with the right to use and enjoy them have their residence or registered office in Spain.

The new legislation contains an update to the safety, lifesaving, fire fighting, navigation, and ballast water discharge prevention equipment, which recreational craft must carry on board, depending on the zone in which they are sailing, which are harmonized and adapted to Directive 2013/53/EC on recreational craft and marine equipment.

A new addition needing to be noted in this area is the requirement to update the life raft that any recreational craft sailing in ZONES 1, 2 or 3 will have to carry. Craft must carry one or more life raft, able to hold the total number of people on aboard and compliant with ISO 9650 or any other equivalent standard that has been approved by the Directorate General for Merchant Shipping.

Elsewhere, in relation to penalties, specifications and graduations are added to the infringements and penalties table in title IV of book three in the Revised State Ports and Merchant Shipping Law. Without constituting new infringements, or being exhaustive, or altering the nature of those determined in the law, they contribute to identifying the defined conduct correctly, and determining the relevant penalties exactly, all of which is to make the rules on penalties easier to apply only in relation to the elements governed by this royal decree.

The new legislation will come into force on July 1, 2021, except for its final provision and provisions one and two which came into force the day after the date of its publication in the Official State Gazette (BOE).