Well, it is quite the adventure just getting ready to go. I think that we have figured out the paperwork side of things finally. We are not all the way there yet, but I can see the path and the steps that we need to take. It is interesting talking to Transport Canada, as the front line people answering the phones both do not have deep insights into the process, and are there to prevent us from getting to the people who do have that deep insight! I spent about a week talking to people in offices across the country, and my emotions ranged from blind panic to unrealistically calm. The blind panic from when I was thinking that we were 3 months away from being able to launch Adiona due to lack of a Registration Certificate. The unrealistic calm from when one nice lady informed me that I could use the boat immediately upon submitting the paperwork. Turns out neither one was true.
So this appears to be where we are at. Most paperwork is submitted, but there are still three items missing. A notarized bill of sale (because it is an international sale), the deletion certificate from the French authorities (because a boat cannot be registered in two jurisdictions), and the official tonnage calculation (because of a tradition started two thousand years ago regarding casks of wine). The first two are just a matter of getting the signatures again with a notary public, and waiting on the French bureaucracy. The tonnage certificate involves having someone measure the boat with a tape measure – never mind that it is a production boat with about 300 identical sisters out there and we have dimensioned drawings.
So until we have all three of these documents the full registration cannot proceed. Fortunately, we are still able to use Adiona under the existing French flag, and when we get the deletion certificate there is a fast process to get a ‘Provisional’ registration certificate while we wait for the tonnage calculation. All of this allows us to use the boat while processing paperwork. With luck we will have it all done before we make it across the Atlantic!