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.
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.