Boat Safety Scheme Examination FAQs

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As well as ensuring your boat meets the minimum safety requirements, a Boat Safety Scheme certificate is a pre-requisite to getting a licence from your navigation authority. A Boat Safety Scheme certificate is usually required by most insurance companies.

Boat Safety Examinations can take place up to 2 months before the expiry of an existing Boat Safety Scheme certificate. 

The expiry date of a new certificate will be four years from the date of expiry of your last certificate, not the date of examination if this is earlier.

The cost of a Boat Safety Examination in Greater London is £275 all in, which includes a free retest if necessary. I am happy to travel anywhere beyond Greater London. 

I am happy to offer discounts for multiple bookings on the same day for people moored in the same area!

Usually, a Boat Safety Examination will take up to 3 hours to complete, depending on the boat and the complexity of the systems onboard. But often it will be quicker than this!

If your boat fails the Boat Safety Examination you have three months to put right any non-compliances. Some non-compliances might be able to be corrected during the Boat Safety Examination. Following the Examination you will be sent an Examination Report detailing any non compliances.

I am not Gas Safe registered so in order to carry out the gas tightness test there would need to be a bubble tester present in your LPG system. This is the same for any Examiner who is not Gas Registered.

If you have only a manometer test point in your LPG system, and you live aboard, then you either need an Examiner who is also Gas Safe registered, or have a Gas Safe engineer carry out the tightness test and be witnessed by the examiner.

If your boat is not used solely or primarily for domestic purposes then any Examiner can test the system using either a bubble tester or a manometer test point.