Hi

We were just wondering how other OCC members cope with the problems of a mailing address we find the banks,credit cards and anyone else that requires a postal address get very nervous when you tell them you are living on a boat and could be sailing of into the blue yonder ?

The key thing seems to be to keep a real street address active, not a PO Box number. The latter certainly does make financial institutions nervous, and is unacceptable by many. You need a very reliable and willing friend or relative to act as your mailing agent, and to complete "change of address" procedures well ahead of your departure, so that you have time to sort out any queries. I 've found that when I 've explained clearly and openly that I 'm spending my retirement wandering round the oceans, they 've all accepted such an address. If such a friend or relative is not available, a good alternative is Ship To Shore (see adverts in Flying Fish). I use this commercial service, and Lindsay Trotter is very good at sorting out my mail, discarding the dross and forwarding the rest whenever I ask her to do so.

I concur with David. We use the address of a friend with whom we worked out a business arrangement. She sorts through our mail in the US and alerts us to anything important by email, scanning urgent documents. We also have a PO address for business purposes but that would not be acceptable to banks. We also gave our friend power of attorney to act on our behalf should we need to do something urgently and could not get there.

Vice Commodore, OCC 

I didn 't really tell any such institutions, I just changed umpteen addresses that of a reliable relative (invaluable as others have said) - generally by post or online - and had no problems. Think the only ones I told were my building society so they didn 't stop my cards when I was using them in various foreign countries, again no issues with it.

Email correspondance rather than post is being offered more frequently now too.