If me and a bunch of my lemmy friends got on a yacht. Went into international waters what could we get away with legally and what would still be illegal?
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That depends. If you declare you are not registered at all that makes you an illegal pirate with no protection at all. If someone else with a yacht decides to sink yours that is probably legal for them - if you fight back they can call their navy to defend them. Regardless of who their yacht is flagged under calling their navy for help probably means they asked the nearest navy (which is almost always the US navy - even if the US hates the country in question the US doesn't want the seas to be a free for all and will come) to help.
If you become self sufficient out there probably nobody will care and you can be there for years no problem. Just don't cause problems and nobody really cares. However if you cause problems expect issues. If one person on your yacht steals from another that is your business, nobody will get involved. If someone steals from someone with a country that country will get involved to protect their own. If kids are born on the yacht they might not have a country which could make life hard (particular as the yacht gets old and is no longer safe!). If you have kids born and then sexually abuse them several countries (in particular the US with their large navy) have declared that illegal anywhere and so they will come in to stop you.
The hard part is to become flagless in the first place. What every country you set out from will just assume the boat has their flag by default. They generally won't let you choose to take it off - they will let you sell it to someone in a different country and then change the flag, but there is nobody with no country who can take ownership of it. Maybe a lawyer can find a work around, but it will not be easy.
Ok the molesting a kid I did not have in mind when asking the question. But your telling me in this day an age that I can still be a pirate? Like if we see another yacht take it over steal everything then sink it. As long as no one is out there on the horizon we are fine? What would happen if I was a US citizen at first flying an american flag out of port then got in the waters changed it to lets say French or something. Would the French take care of me or the US? Also lets say I take one of my lemmy mates and they disappear. Can I just sail back to port and just say fell overboared couldn't help them? And be scott free?
As for being a pirate. The us constitution allows letters of marque which is permission to be a pirate against specific against vessels of some country. the last one was 1815 so good luck getting one but theoretically you could.
The marine hymn 'the shores of Tripoli' refers to a marine battle to stop Libya from issuing letters of marque against us vessels. I believe nealy all old time pirates were registered with Libya operating under a letter of marque and not the storybook idea of stateless ships doing what they want. (anyone enough of a historian to verify)
registration is not about the flag. You are still registered in the us even I you have a french flag up. if you claim to be frence without properly registerng with france (i have no clue how you would do this properly) that is misrepresentation and france would (could) send an internanional warrant to the us and have you arrested since you are still us registered by default.
even if you don't register with the us you are considered US - you just broke the law by not regestering (paying taxes) and so us law applies.
when a ship is registered in panama there is a company in panama that buys the ship and then because they are a panama company the country that the previous owners were in allows the sale and thus registration. Of course the owners of the panama company are a company in a different country.
I doubt you could find an unregistered vessel. Maybe sealand. If you pirate a registered vessel the navies of the world will hunt you down.
What if you build a ship as opposed to buying one?
Build where? if in us ports the us will cliam it- if you bring stuff out to sea they will claim it because of the stuff.
it comes down to taxes. They want you to pay. Thus they will doeenerything they can to decide it is theirs.
Pirates are absolutely still a thing. But it's not Blackbeard and Captain Hook. It's usually Somali pirates, with a heavy emphasis on the violence.
South Park actually had an episode about exactly this.
In a world of anarchy, you can get away with anything, until someone stronger (i.e. military) shows up.