The New Client Intake Form

Before getting underway with a paying passenger, the operator must ensure that every passenger has the opportunity to become acquainted with four specific things. An intake form is the cheapest way to record that it happened.

Which is a different purpose from the one most intake forms serve. A questionnaire that asks about experience and species preference is useful for running a good day; it is not evidence of anything. A form that also records the orientation, the emergency check-off list and the facts you were told is both. Below, the safety orientation and emergency instruction requirements are taken from the regulation, then the form itself follows field by field. Requirements are amended and vary with vessel and service, so verify the exact current position with the Coast Guard before your first trip. Nothing here is legal advice. The rest of the pack sits under the running the business hub.

What does the orientation requirement say?

Announcements, placards, or both, before getting underway.

Section 26.03-1(a) of Title 46 requires that before getting underway on any uninspected passenger vessel, the operator or master must ensure that suitable public announcements, instructive placards, or both, are provided in a manner that affords all passengers the opportunity to become acquainted with the four listed items.

Read the mechanism carefully. It is satisfied by announcements or by placards or by both, and the standard is that passengers are afforded the opportunity rather than that each one demonstrably absorbed it.

Which means a laminated card on the gunwale and a thirty second talk at the ramp together satisfy it comfortably, and neither on its own is obviously enough on a noisy morning.

Paragraph (b) excludes vessels engaged in tender service at yacht clubs and marinas, and vessels being demonstrated to a potential purchaser by a yacht broker, from this section and the next.

Part 26 is carried on the eCFR.

What the equipment itself has to be is covered in the spring launch piece.

Stonefly Angler, CO

What is the emergency check-off list?

A posted document, in a prominent and accessible place.

Section 26.03-2(a) requires the operator or master of each uninspected passenger vessel to ensure that an emergency check-off list is posted in a prominent and accessible place, to notify the passengers and remind the crew of precautionary measures that may be necessary if an emergency situation occurs.

Paragraph (b) provides that, except where any part of the emergency instructions is deemed unnecessary by the Officer in Charge, Marine Inspection, the list must contain not less than the applicable portions of a sample list that the regulation then sets out.

That sample begins with measures to be considered in the event of rough weather at sea or crossing hazardous bars, with items on closing weathertight and watertight doors, hatches and airports to prevent taking water aboard, and on keeping bilges dry.

The phrase not less than the applicable portions is the operative one: the sample is a floor for the parts that apply to your vessel rather than a menu.

Which makes producing your own list a reading exercise against the regulation rather than a design exercise.

Why the day's conditions should be recorded anyway is covered in the weather cancellation piece.

The Missoulian Angler, MT

Must the credential be aboard?

In your possession, and producible immediately.

Section 26.20-1 provides that a person operating a vessel carrying one or more passengers for hire is required to have a valid Coast Guard licence or credential officer endorsement suitable for the vessel's route and service.

It continues that the person must have it in their possession and must produce it immediately upon the request of a Coast Guard boarding officer.

One or more passengers for hire is the threshold, so a single paying client engages it, and immediately means in your possession rather than at home in a file.

Which is a two second check before leaving the truck and a serious problem discovered on the water.

Suitable for the vessel's route and service returns the question to the endorsement rather than to the existence of a credential.

Which endorsement covers what is discussed in the two licences piece.

What should the form ask first?

The facts that change how you run the day.

Names and ages of everybody aboard, because the flotation requirement is per person and of a suitable size, and a child changes the answer.

Swimming ability, stated plainly rather than assumed, since it changes where people sit and what you say.

Casting experience, honestly rated, because an overstated answer costs the client their own day more than it costs you.

Any physical limitation relevant to getting in and out of a boat, standing for hours, or gripping a rod.

And what they want from the day, in their words, since the mismatch between a guide's idea of a good day and a client's is the most common source of disappointment.

Why the expectation question matters most is covered in the client FAQ piece.

What medical information should be requested?

Only what you would act on, and say why you are asking.

An emergency contact with a telephone number, which is the single most useful field on the form and the one most often missing.

Allergies, specifically to anything you might provide, since lunch and sunscreen are the usual candidates.

Any condition that would change what you do in an emergency, described in the client's own words rather than through a checklist of diagnoses.

And any medication they carry that they would want somebody else to know about, which is a question people answer honestly when told why it is asked.

Asking for more than you would act on is intrusive without being useful, and it creates a record you then have to look after.

Why the record needs looking after is covered in the digital waiver piece.

What should the orientation section record?

The four items, individually, initialled.

A single line saying safety briefing given records nothing useful, because it does not identify what was covered.

Four tick boxes matching the four items in the regulation, each initialled by the client, records exactly what the regulation requires you to have afforded them the opportunity to learn.

Add a fifth line confirming the emergency check-off list was pointed out and where it is posted, since that is the fourth item and the easiest to skip.

None of that makes the orientation better, and all of it makes the orientation provable, which are different things.

The orientation itself is still a conversation on a dock, and the form is the record of it.

What that conversation should cover is covered in the day in the life piece.

What belongs on the form about the trip?

The terms, restated in one line each.

The date, the water, the start and expected finish time, and the agreed price, because a form without those is not a record of this trip.

What is included and what is not, in a single line, since that is the sentence a later dispute is measured against.

The cancellation position, restated rather than referenced, because a client who signed a form saying it is more clearly on notice than one who was sent a link.

Whether photographs may be used, answered yes or no by the client, since assuming consent is the most common quiet mistake in this trade.

And a line for anything unusual agreed on the day, initialled by both, which costs a pen stroke and settles arguments.

What the booking agreement should contain is covered in the booking terms piece.

What does the sample list cover?

Scenarios, each with its own measures.

The regulation's sample begins with rough weather at sea or crossing hazardous bars and lists measures under it, and continues through further scenarios with their own items.

Which means your own list is structured by situation rather than as a single set of instructions, and that structure is worth keeping because it is how somebody uses it under pressure.

The instruction that it contain not less than the applicable portions means you may omit parts that cannot apply to your vessel, and it does not license shortening the parts that can.

Whether a particular part is inapplicable is a judgment the regulation assigns to the Officer in Charge, Marine Inspection, not to the operator.

Which is a reason to ask rather than to decide, and asking is free.

Why the boat's own characteristics decide these questions is covered in the second boat piece.

Does the orientation change with the party?

The content is fixed; the delivery is not.

The four items are the same for every passenger, and how you afford somebody the opportunity to become acquainted with them varies considerably.

A child needs the donning demonstration shown rather than described, and needs the device that actually fits them, which is the same requirement read literally.

A client who does not speak English fluently needs the placard more than the announcement, which is why the regulation permits both and why carrying both is sensible.

An experienced angler who has heard it fifty times still has to be afforded the opportunity, and thirty seconds costs nothing.

What the form records is that the opportunity was afforded, which is the standard the regulation sets.

Why the flotation device has to fit is covered in the spring launch piece.

Paper or digital?

Digital before the trip, paper as the fallback.

A form completed the evening before, from a link in the confirmation, is completed properly and does not consume dock time.

A form completed on a phone at the ramp is completed badly, because the client is distracted and the signal is poor.

Which argues for sending it with the reminder and carrying two paper copies for the clients who did not do it.

Whatever the method, the completed form has to end up somewhere you can find it in three years, which is a retention question rather than a collection one.

A dated folder per season, digital, is enough and is what almost nobody has.

How the reminder sequence should carry it is covered in the trip reminder piece.

What about a group?

One form per person, not one per booking.

The flotation requirement is per person and of a suitable size, the orientation is afforded to all passengers, and the medical information is individual.

Which means a single form signed by whoever organised the trip records almost none of what the form exists to record.

The workable version sends the organiser a link and asks them to forward it, with a note that everybody aboard needs to complete one.

Chasing the last two is annoying and it is the point, since the person who did not complete a form is the person you know least about.

For a corporate booking the same applies and is easier, because somebody there is administratively responsible.

How the group arrangement should be documented is covered in the group contracts piece.

What should you do with what you learn?

Change the day, and record that you did.

A form telling you somebody cannot swim, has never cast a fly rod and wants to catch anything at all is a completely different day from the one you planned.

Reading the forms the night before is the whole return on collecting them, and it is the step that gets skipped.

Where the form changes what you do, a line noting the change is worth writing, because it evidences that the information was used rather than merely gathered.

It also builds the record that makes a returning client feel known, which is worth more commercially than anything on the compliance side.

Nobody forgets a guide who remembered they hate mayonnaise.

Why that retention effect matters is covered in the rebooking piece.

How long should the forms be kept?

Longer than feels necessary, and digital makes it free.

A form is evidence about a day, and the periods within which a day can become a question run to years rather than months.

Which means the retention decision should be made once, generously, rather than per season on the basis of storage.

A dated folder per season, backed up, costs nothing and answers the question permanently, and paper originals can be photographed and then boxed.

What matters is retrievability by trip rather than by client, since a query will arrive as a date and a name.

Which is an argument for naming files by date and party rather than by whatever the scanner produced.

How long a season stays answerable is covered in the fall wrap-up piece.

What should not be on the form?

Anything you would not want to be holding.

Card numbers, which have no business on a form you will store for years and which the payment flow handles properly.

Dates of birth beyond what you need for the flotation and any age-restricted licence question, since a full date of birth is identity data.

Diagnoses in clinical detail, when what you need is what would change your actions in an emergency.

Anything that reads as an attempt to exclude liability, since that belongs in an agreement drafted for the purpose and not in an operational form.

Every field you add is a field you must protect, and the shortest useful form is the best one.

What the payment side should look like instead is covered in the taking payments piece.

Where do intake forms go wrong?

Five ways, and the first is length.

Asking twenty questions, of which you act on four, which lowers completion and creates a record you must keep.

Recording safety briefing given as a single line rather than the four items the regulation identifies.

Collecting one form per booking rather than one per person, which misses exactly the people you know least about.

Sending it at the ramp rather than the evening before, which produces a form filled in badly by a distracted client.

And filing it somewhere you cannot retrieve it, which converts a record into an intention.

What the waiver side of the paperwork involves is covered in the digital waiver piece.

Why the photograph question needs asking is covered in the photo permission piece.

What is the working form?

One page, four sections, sent the evening before.

Section one: names and ages of everybody aboard, swimming ability, casting experience, physical limitations, and what they want from the day.

Section two: emergency contact and number, allergies to anything you provide, and any condition or medication that would change what you do in an emergency.

Section three: four initialled boxes matching the four orientation items in the regulation, plus a line confirming where the emergency check-off list is posted.

Section four: date, water, times, price, what is included, the cancellation position in one line, photograph consent as a yes or no, and a blank line for anything agreed on the day.

Send it with the reminder, read them the night before, and file them somewhere you could find them in three years.

The amendments to these provisions were published in the Federal Register on 15 May 2002 at 67 FR 34776, and the statutory basis for equipment and safety requirements on uninspected vessels is 46 U.S.C. 4102.

How the reminder should be worded is covered in the trip reminder piece.