About Us
The Red Ensign Group is a group of British Shipping
Registers.
It is made up from the United Kingdom, its Crown
Dependencies (Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey) and its Overseas
Territories (Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman
Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, St Helena and the
Turks & Caicos Islands) which operate shipping
registers from their jurisdiction.
Any vessel registered in the UK, Crown
Dependency or UK Overseas Territory, is a "British ship" and is
entitled to fly the Red Ensign flag.
The 1995 Merchant Shipping Act provides for
British possessions to be categorised according to the tonnage,
size and type of vessel which can be registered. Under the Merchant
Shipping (Categorisation of Registries of Relevant British
Possessions) (Amendment) Order 2008 (Statutory Instrument
2008 No. 1243).
Find out more about the Passenger
Yacht Code.
The group exists to ensure consistency of quality, establish
common standards, share best practice, and represent the interests
of the UK Secretary of State for Transport under whose general
superintendency the registers are permitted to operate. It also
exists to promote the British Red Ensign as a flag of quality to
the world.
At current fleet levels across the group, the combined British
Red Ensign fleet comprises 2,614 vessels, representing a total of
46.8 million GRT. This places the Red Ensign Group as the 6th
largest combined register in the world by GRT.
