With the 390-foot-long Project 821, Feadship has created the world’s first hydrogen-cell superyacht. Courtesy Feadship
Click link for Project 821: The World’s First Hydrogen-Powered Superyacht
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When all else fails, try journalism.
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The author is a NAMS Certified Marine Surveyor with an office in Marblehead, Massachusetts. His firm specializes in accident investigation, failure analysis, and expert consulting. This article was originally published in the now-defunct Professional BoatBuilder magazine.
Despite breathless press coverage, the crusade for “carbon neutral boating” seems to be losing steam. Whether it is cost, a lack of viable “clean” watercraft, or the public’s recognition that putting around in a battery powered launch would get old quick, I just don’t see any sign that the green revolution in recreational boating that for the past 10 years was “just over the horizon” is steaming into view.
Even though I have a deep affection for internal-combustion engines, that doesn’t mean I am oblivious to the environmental waste in our industry. I see our impact, but as we look at strategies to reduce it, I fear we are missing the forest for the trees. Pleasure boating, in terms of hours of use per season, has been on the decline for decades.
Recent studies peg it at less than 50 hours per year, which means that a BMW X5 with conservation plates and a “The Earth is our Mother” bumper sticker burns far more gas in a year than the average recreational powerboat.
So, what are we missing? Acknowledging that a boat’s power plant is surrounded by more than a ton of cured polyester resin is a big start. While the enlightened in our industry wring their hands over developing efficient electric propulsion driven by combustible lithium batteries, most of them have no compunction about chopping up thousands of viable hulls every year.
There are landfills choked with the skeletons of once proud marques—Hatteras, Bertram, Chris Craft, C&C, Bristol, Pearson. Where are the planet-conscious clean-boating advocates to speak out about this desecration?
The kneejerk answer is that it is simply too expensive to refit older vessels. A quick look at the staggering purchase price of new boats quickly disproves that. The problem is far deeper. While boat restoration is expensive, the real challenge these days is finding a yard that can provide the services ands skills required to meet the task.
I have always been proud and grateful for having worked at Graves Yacht Yard, Little Harbor, and the Marblehead Trading Company in Massachusetts. The collaborative effort of being part of a team of committed craftsmen is what convinced me to spend the rest of my working life in the boat business.
The traditional “full service” yard is fast becoming history. Without ambitious projects, yards stagnate and lose skilled crew. Not so many years ago, well-heeled yachtsmen considered themselves patrons, instrumental in supporting an industry. Dodge Morgan was just such a Medici when he commissioned Ted Hood to build the record breaking American Promise at Little Harbor in Marblehead.
Everyone in the yard had a feeling that we were doing something special and Dodge was kind and smart enough to never let us forget it. He was a catalyst for attracting and inspiring talent. That old racehorse we built for him is still sailing, now a research vessel dedicated to cleaning garbage from the ocean.
And today? Does anyone really think that the trend of building lightweight multiple outboard center consoles is good for the industry’s sustainability? Last year I looked at a large center console with triple outboards and a cored hull. The outer skin was single layer of 1808- a 1/16” (2mm) glass hull intended to fish offshore at speed. I worked on a 30’ (9.1m) single skin/adhered grid production boat recently with a hull barely over 1/8”/3mm thick (not including the skincoat). I’ve noted that a disturbing trend in building modern sailboats is to glue a molded grid into the bilge using hull and deck putty.
Unsurprisingly, when one of these boats hits anything, the hue and cry is to declare it a total loss.
We are building throwaway boats, and no one seems to care. No one is going to restore a (insert brand of generic center console) or refit a (insert brand of giant French conglomerate sailboat). The heartbreak is that the trend towards pumping out disposable, labor saving production boats has gone on so long that many service yards are left with crews who can manage only basic maintenance, gelcoat buffing, and hanging outboards.
When the U.S. auto industry flirted with planned obsolescence in the late 1970s and ’80s, the response from Toyota was to build durable, reliable products. We all know what happened to the market demand for U.S. versus Japanese autos. We need to start convincing the boating public that boats are long-term assets that will retain value. To regain buyer confidence, we have to start building simple, rugged, honest boats again.
We’re told that the modern boater simply doesn’t have the time for boat maintenance and learning operating skills. Boating needs to be easier. Glitchy tech gadgets like joystick controls, gyro stabilizers and multifunction displays are touted as saviors for our industry. But do we really ned to cater slavishly to the whims of the distracted multitude? Are age-old lessons in seamanship, sailing culture and navigation truly anathema to the modern boater?
It seems to me that young boaters with the abilities to succeed in highly technical careers have what it takes to master boat handling. We should emphasize that a relaxing day on the water is an antidote to the stress of office life, not a mirror of its hectic complexity.
Neither the planet nor our industry will be saved by the next new gadget. Despite the potential moral validation, there is no realistic vision that we will be pooting about harbors in the nautical equivalent of Jetson Space Cars.
As responsible, environmentally aware marine professionals, we should be fostering the value of maintaining and rejuvenating more of the fine vessels that have already seen yeoman service rather than taking part in their ignoble demise in the rush to connect our customers with new models of dubious virtue or reliability.
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
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© 2024 Rio Charters
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SPARRING WITH MOTHER NATURE ~~ latest addition! Settle back for your Sunday Morning Read. I’m so honored that you’re following along. Thank you.
Please enjoy the latest passages from STEADFAST. As of August 1st, 2024 we are undergoing extensive repair and refit and will be for several months. In boating terms we are hauled out “on the hard.” I plan to mix Sailing Stories with the challenges and intricacies of restoring a 90-year-old Sailing Yacht. I’m always open to suggestions as to content….please feel free to weigh in. Thank you. J
Some things simply make no sense, and irony can be wonderful when utilized properly and taken with a grain of sand. The crew of STEADFAST is now SPARRING WITH MOTHER NATURE on the level of Fruit flies. Really? We were forced to leave the exploration of blue water and deserted islands to wonder about and experience the vivacity, annoying habits and mystery of tiny bugs? Geez! I hope you’re laughing. I am. What a great thing these distractions can be, a bit of comic relief in a world where there is an astonishing amount of sad news, conflict and aggression.
There are fruit flies on my Crest. Lots of them. We are still sourcing commodities to rebuild our wooden sailboat and trying to juggle the wetness of the weather with getting things done that must be dry. And there are fruit flies in the bathroom. Not just the bathroom, although that is their weirdest haven. They are everywhere; I have taken to storing my unrefrigeratable items in the hallway. This week, fruit flies have probably taken up more energy, time and research than the really big project at hand (which is going beautifully…more on that next week!).
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Every time I go in, day and night, there they are, nuzzling my battery-powered toothbrush like an overripe banana, which it resembles not at all. They hover atop Crest and floss and Sensodyne. I don’t know much about fruit flies, frankly, except they (used to) occasionally and mysteriously appear near produce that I hadn’t paid enough attention to. If I picked out what was no longer edible, the problem always seemed to simply cease. But not here, not now. What I do know is that when I swing at them, I miss.
No matter how I scrub, soak and wipe, within the hour, you guessed it; there are fruit flies in the bathroom. Switter! You always have an answer. What do you think? Can I rid myself of them? (If you haven’t yet delved into Switter’s World, take yourself there; gripping stuff dashed with wisdom.) As I type that I’m thinking I should not complain as Switter has certainly experienced insects beyond my wildest imagination, so that thought in itself has calmed me down completely. Now all that’s left is the irony. I just took a break from editing this story (you guessed it) and while washing my hands one of the little buggers landed right on my nose! Seriously? I know my nose is substantial but that seems a bit too bold. Of course, I missed. I always miss.
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Poet & Writer Robert W. Service told us long to, “Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out- it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” I had not heard the first sentence of that particular quote, so thank you Goodreads.com. We are masters, don’t worry, but the pure ridiculousness of having fruit flies attracted to my teeth cleaning tools made me have to tell someone, and you, my readers, were the ones! I can’t just laugh about these things all by myself and I don’t know anyone here yet except the mailman, who hasn’t come through for me this week.
What do they WANT? Where did they come from? They very much enjoy my glass of wine each evening, some choosing to dive right in, an interesting demise. Even I don’t take that particular plunge, although I have always wanted to partake in grape stomping. I wave them away to no avail; by the time I’ve stirred the pot they have returned, lingering on the rim where I place my lips. Hmmm.
I am not apprehensive about the larger animals of the world, in fact, I seek them out. However, I am not a fan of creepy-crawly and/or fast-reproducing six-leggers. Grasshoppers have always made me crazy with their unpredictability and tremendous talent to bring themselves to eye level. Hair on the back of the neck rises, in fact. Grasshoppers give me the heebie-jeebies. I think we all have something that does that to us.
We are listening closely and praying for the victims and the rescuers in the Southeastern United States as my loyal friends at Salty Seas Cruisers Net, an incredible resource, https://cruisersnet.net/ dig out and take stock of tremendous damages and lost lives. Such unexpected impacts are startling to boat and land dwellers alike.
Thanks for following along as I SPAR WITH MOTHER NATURE’S creatures and creations great and small. Please click the little heart! Send me a note about fruit flies, random commentary on what gives you the heebie-jeebies, whatever.
Please restack (below at right) and send this to other people that are also tired of all the sad news in the world. Most of all, ENJOY YOUR LIFE, even the things that bug you.
Share SPARRING WITH MOTHER NATURE
Here’s your weekly flash of beauty in case you missed it, but this time it’s a sunset, because, well, WOW. Those rays to heaven!
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SPARRING WITH MOTHER NATURE brings me joy and laughter. Every comment and every new subscriber email that I receive inspires me to do better and my brain starts wandering. If you’re interested, please sign up below and you’ll get these delivered directly. If you’ve already done that, thank you sincerely. My work will always be free, but if you think it’s worth handing over your two cents, that would be great. Sharing the story is an excellent contribution.
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When all else fails, try journalism.
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Click here for Boating safety alert: FWC urges caution following Hurricane Helene
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Cruisers Net publishes Loose Cannon articles with Captain Swanson’s permission in hopes mariners with salt water in their veins will subscribe.. $7 a month or $56 for the year and you may cancel at anytime.
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When all else fails, try journalism.
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When I was in my 20s and spending way too much time in boatyards, I believed sailors were an elite group. They were smarter, tougher, braver, funnier, handier and sexier than the average civilian. I wanted to be like them.
Oh boy, how wrong I was. (Not about myself, of course. The rest of you.)
Sure, some of us have a surplus in one or two or three of those departments. Others thought they were smarter, etc. but had mistakenly equated family money for brains. Or they thought because they had succeeded in some unrelated endeavor that they must be good sailors too.
Others, regardless of financial status, were skilled mariners but somehow became judgemental, just plain mean and nasty, or both.
How I learned all that: Facebook. Thanks a lot, Mark Zuckerberg creation. You ripped away my world-view like duct tape on a day-old scab.
Loose Cannon relies on Facebook for subscriber growth—I am trying to make a modest living here, folks. The downside of that engagement is having to endure all the negativity and ignorance that we have come to expect from social media, especially during an election season that seems to have given people permission to crap all over each other.
My most recent story was about an unfortunate guy named Earl Barcome, who came late in life to sailing, searching for redemption after a 30-plus-year break-up. Barcome and his dog Gunn became the subject matter of some of the most dramatic footage ever taken by the Coast Guard, as a rescue swimmer saved him and his dog Gunn from a disabled sailboat during Hurricane Helene.
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Objectively, the guy did have good plan as you can see from the NOAA map at the top of the story. He was at Sanibel in Southwest Florida and tried to get as far away from the projected path of the hurricane and into a protected anchorage 24 hours before Helene arrived. The boat broke down, and the rest is history.
If Barcome had responded to my request for an interview, I would have asked him about his boat and what kind of shape it was in. I would have asked about his engine problem and how he had tried to make repairs. I would have asked him about why he took so long to call the Coast Guard. I did write that he should have radioed earlier, but that was hindsight.
Because I lacked information, I had no basis for speculation. That didn’t stop the Facebook crowd from piling on, assuming that his boat was a piece of shit and that Barcome was somehow unqualified from making even this modest, 100-mile passage to the Shark River. Even some people I respect in some generally reasonable Facebook groups joined the mob.
I’m going to pick on Scott Morris because I made the mistake of responding to him.
Over the years, I learned to refrain from answering every wrongheaded comment out there. I will sometimes reply when I think a well-meaning poster has misread something or was making a factual error, but I try to avoid public brawling.
Morris had no idea whether “novice” meant one week of experience or one year of experience, no idea whether Barcome did or didn’t have a mechanic check out his engine and, in fact, no idea whether in fact Barcome was diesel mechanic himself.¹ I artlessly tried to appeal to his sense of decency.
Morris: “Someone who is a novice to sailing would do much better by starting out slowly with a small boat to learn the basics. Why in heaven’s name did this guy think he would be able to handle a used boat and take it to sea just before a hurricane? If his plan was to steam south, he should have hired a competent engine mechanic to completely check out the engine before he left. It would have been money well spent. Lubbahs should stay ashore where they are safe.”
Swanson: “Compared to someone else you’re a lubber, as am I.”
Morris: “Speak for yourself pal, I have 50 years of sailing experience, sailed on three oceans AND the Gulf of Mexico, I hold a merchant mariners ticket and have raced sailboats offshore and ’round the buoys. I’ve owned more than a dozen boats and I’ve written six books about sailing. And you? Methinks you’re another dock expert.”
To which I did not reply: “Methinks you forgot to mention that time you sailed with Magellan.”
See, I really have learned my lesson. I successfully disengaged with Mr. Nasty Know-it-all.
Morris really has written some books. He happens to have grown up two towns away from me in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. He’s probably my age. I took the time to look him up, which is more than he bothered to do about me when issued his “dock expert” put-down. I’m all there in the About section of the Loose Cannon website.
(Before I forget, Barcome had his boat for about a year, according to some commenters who knew of him. Depending on how he used that time, it could be equivalent to three years—that is, seasons—of sailing in Buzzards Bay. Florida does have its advantages over New England, and it ain’t the opera or the education.)
In my opinion, there are two ways to lose an argument instantly on social media: One is to trot out your resume way early in the discussion, as if you possess secret knowledge unavailable to the rest of us, so just STFU. The other is name-calling at any time. The fact that he resorted to both is consistent with his fact-free condemnation of the unfortunate Mr. Barcome.
There are stories aplenty about smart and experienced sailors making mistakes or being just plain unluckly and ending up in a Coast Guard rescue basket. You can do everything right and still have a bad outcome. On the flip side, I myself have been very lucky at times, and I expect many of you reading this have too.
Those who condemned Barcome actually may be correct in some or all of their points, but their comments were speculation based on emotion, prejudice, pre-conceived notions—anything but facts. That’s a form of intellectual laziness that would get a reporter fired.
Not everyone who condemned Barcome was nasty about it. My British friends have a word for the nasty ones, however. I’d repeat it here, but you might mistake it for an obscenity just because it’s spelled the same.
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
He’s not a diesel mechanic, but he was a gunsmith, a profession that requires some mechanical ability.
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Harbour Town Yacht Basin, A CRUISERS NET SPONSOR, is ready for your reservation with newly renovated docks, upgraded electrical service and onSpot WiFi, also a CRUISERS NET SPONSOR. And, as always, numerous activities at the Sea Pines Resort are offered for your enjoyment, as you will see in the Event Schedule below. Hilton Head Island is absolutely marvelous any time of year.
Click here for November 2024 Events
Kerry Maveus
kmaveus@hunter-pr.com | www.hunter-pr.com
mobile: 831-917-2878 | voicemail: 831-375-1747
P.O. Box 1049 | Pebble Beach, CA | 93953
Winston:
I apologize for the delay in providing an update on our marinas who were in the path of Hurricane Helene, but all are fully operational with no damage to marina or boats to report.
Thank you in advance for your assistance in getting the word out and can only hope that those who were impacted will be back in operation as soon as possible.
This was a vicious storm that has changed so many lives in its path, not only coastal but the North Carolina mountains as well.
I hope you and yours are safe and would ask if there is anything we can do to help those in need, that you not hesitate to let us know.
Chris Ferguson, CMM
Regional Manager
Morningstar Marinas
206 Marina Drive, St. Simons Island, GA 31522
Phone: 912-506-5493
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Longtime CRUISERS NET SPONSOR and named “Best of Savannah” in 2022, TGP Isle of Hope Marina lies along the northwestern shores of the Waterway in the body of a hairpin turn northwest of ICW marker 46A.
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Notice to Navigation: 2024-006 Update!
The Okeechobee Waterway Locks will resume normal operations on September 28, 2024. Normal operating hours are 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
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Jeffrey D Prater
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Corporate Communications Office
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South Florida Office
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Suite 501
Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410
Cell: 561-801-5734
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Comments from Cruisers (1)
Where will this yacht be able to refuel ?