Comment by diggan
14 days ago
> It's completely routine to see commercial ships running without it
I think this depends a lot on the location, as different areas seems to make it different levels of "mandatory". Are you speaking about the Baltic Sea specifically based on experience?
Yes. I spent a pandemic summer sailing the north sea, denmark, sweden with a friend. We sailed much less in the baltic and I admittedly kind of mix the north & baltic in my memory but they are very similar regulatory environments re boats so it would surprise me if it was common in one but not the other.
> they are very similar regulatory environments re boats so it would surprise me if it was common in one but not the other.
One has Russia and their ports, while the other doesn't. So preparedness and military presence certainly is different between the two at least.
I defer to your presumably greater baltic sailing experience.