Yachting Like It Is

Seeing as yachting is a fantasy for most, how about Fantasy Yachting?  Anyone can play, all you need is to buy a virtual yacht and name it, of course.  Then enter the fantasy charter league.  Points are issued for the number of charters you sell and the income you receive against running costs.   These costs vary with the largest yachts costing the most to run but returning the highest yields in terms of charter costs.

High ranking crew with more ‘virtual’ certificates and longer experience will improve the chances of selling a charter but these ‘dream teams’ will inevitably demand to be paid more.  

More money spent on maintenance will yield fewer breakdowns and subsequently fewer lost days of charter.

Less spent on the boat will cost more owner trips and therefore fewer available charters and less income.

Too many miles travelled between charters will also cost the boat more and reduce the charter income.

Charter incomes will be reduced if the yacht spends more than the median average on provisions or food in it’s budget.  Or if the crew turnover is significant which is a function of the terms provided to each crew member.  So skimp on the crew and they don’t stay and that costs agents fees.

Undertaking too many charters could also cause crew burn out which results in poor references and lower tips.  

The charter guests come from the other owners who are given a certain amount of money to spend on charters which they have to do over the season.  People could also sign up and just become guests buying charters on their preferred yachts.  

With careful thought and good planning it is possible to actively market and manage your yacht and reach the top of the league in relative income.

At the end of the season each yacht’s numbers are published to see where they were successful and where they weren’t.

There are unlimited numbers of weighting factors that can be used to emulate the charter business. The captains, chefs and other crew could all receive rankings as they do better and better in the Fantasy Charter business.  The yacht’s themselves can develop a reputation which leads to more business which in turn makes choosing the ‘right’ charters important.

Anyhow, all I need now is a degree in software development and a lot more free time than I have at present but I am ready to partner up with someone if you are interested.  It is an idea that will virtually sell itself.

Rental cars

The fact is, that despite their being worth millions, being designed with rare fabrics, precious stone and the latest technology; to yacht crew, most yachts are about as memorable as rental cars.

It makes sense, you see enough of them and they morph into little more than big white boats.  Many boats have reputations unique to the professional yachting industry.  Ever noticed how many crew will tell you they work on a Feadship?  If it was anything else it would be described by length.  Of course there are a couple of makes of yacht that the crew will do pretty much anything to avoid disclosing.

Some yachts are just dogs

The  point I am trying to make is that to an owner or guest or simply an impressed onlooker yachts are sources of wonderment but to yacht crew it is the yacht’s practical attributes which are greatly significant not just their stature and genre.  It is, after all, of no interest to a crew member just who designed the Grindling Gibbons lookalike facade in the master stateroom.  Their concern lies with how difficult it is to keep clean.

This operational knowledge and perspective is not confined to the design and interior.  Many engineers are able look at an engine room and identify access issues as quickly as a guest will be awed by polished stainless and spotlessly clean floors.

The crew perspective, is then, potentially of great use to the would be owner or charterer of a yacht and yet very few reviews written, actually take this into consideration.  In many instances it is very obviously the case the boat was designed poorly and protecting the owner or potential new owner from finding this out serves a very clear agenda.  However, in many cases understanding the strengths or limitations of a yacht may  in fact inform how it can be modified or best exploited.  This is particularly relevant at this, the show season, when we all hope there will be an improvement in the market for yachts.

So, if you are thinking of buying a yacht large or small yacht, consider asking a crew member how it works how it is to work on  and whether it is is a good yacht from their perspective: Their opinion and insight might be useful. But, if the wife has already fallen in love with it maybe you are better off not asking.

And Womening!

What's between them?

It has been said by many, that the mostly female interior crew aboard yachts, are rarely chosen for what is between their ears.  Well at least I have said it many times.  One might get the impression from our normal hiring practices that the interior crew is not always employed for their skills as much as their looks.  Certainly it is arguably the case that the typical interior crew do not have the luxury of following a defined career path delineated by a standard set of qualifications coupled with a requisite amount of experience.  Well at least not in the way that the deck crew or engineers have.

Almost certainly this is as a result of there not being a standardized set of qualifications regulated by the flag states for the interior crew.  The training they undertake is largely down to their own choice.  It is perfectly normal to meet chief stewardesses or of course stewards, with nought but the STCW 95 Basic Safety Training certificate of training, even if they are occupying roles where they play a significant role in the management of a yacht and are responsible for many of the less experienced crew members.  Regularly this is the case where couples run yachts.

ISM CODE

The typical safe manning document aboard a yacht confines itself with bridge and engine room watchkeeping and defined safety and security roles.  This is of course the same for the commercial sector.  All very well until you realize that a safe manning document aboard some cruise liners would seem to imply that ship with thousands of guests and crew is ‘safe’ to proceed to sea with perhaps 15 or 20 crew members.  In reality the safe manning document does not tell the whole story of what is required to run the vessel safely and indeed it is concerned with the MINIMUM number of crew, duly trained and qualified to undertake specific and limited safety management functions aboard a vessel.

I make the point, as recently I met an experienced chief stewardess who had rather unfortunately found herself in a fire aboard a large motor yacht.  She pointed out that when it came to the “unlikely event of an emergency” she was completely sidelined by the, in some cases, relatively inexperienced crew.  Her observation was that she could have played a far more useful role than she actually did.

If there had been guests on board she quite rightly felt that her knowledge of the interior of the vessel and the guests on board would or at least could have contributed to the successful accomplishment of the yacht’s safety procedures.  Simple things, like where the guests were and their state of fitness or the languages they spoke could have proved very useful when coordinating their safe evacuation.  Following the safety briefing it often comes down to the interior crew to answer queries or questions as to what to do if something goes wrong. Considering the fact that the interior crew are usually the ones that form a working relationship with guests it is probably fair to say that with training they could develop skills that would positively contribute to the safety of the precious cargo yachts carry: People.

There are number of courses that, although not aimed at interior crew would undoubtedly benefit them if we thought outside the box and learned what we wanted to learn as opposed to learning the minimum we have to learn.  Advanced firefighting, first aid, sea survival and even ISPS and ISM or crowd control courses would surely prove useful to interior crew.  Two of the most fire prone areas; the galley and the laundry are usually occupied by crew who work on the interior and yet who in most cases have little or no formal training in firefighting save what they learn on the basic safety course.  There is nothing wrong with the basic training but you have to wonder how much better prepared they could be with further more advanced training.

Because danger never takes a day off!

At a time when more people are chasing fewer jobs would it not be worthy to consider more safety training as an interior crew member?  Is it the case that the interior crew don’t care about safety or are they stereotyped into gender ascribed roles?  Who knows the actual answer but anyone who finds themselves being asked to put the kettle on while the rest of the crew are putting BA gear on is probably not fully utilizing their experience.

The Standard in Monaco

Monaco – No taxes, clean taxis, upright principles and aristocratic principals.  Where race issues are welcomed and F1 is a religion rather than a button on your computer that has absolutely no use to most of us two fingered typists.  You can be executed for chewing gum on the street in Monaco .  Maybe the gum thing is Zimbabwe now I think about it.  Monaco is however, so posh, even the backhanders have to be wired and have an air of officialdom.  Try getting on to the dock for the Grand Prix if you don’t believe me.

Yo G check it blah blah blah......Projects blah blah....

Now obviously the Monaco Yacht Show is about to start and of course everyone is hoping that it will serve as a milestone by which to measure the end of the economic slump and the rise of yachting, like a phoenix from the ashes of 2009.  There are of course some challenges still to be faced with the prospect.  Mr Putin put the boot in to any hope of the Russian oligarchy catalyzing the yachting market’s out of it’s near catatonic state.  The rise of the Chinese millionaire has been slowed by a lack of demand for widgets and the the bankers, another well known yacht owning type of person, are still trying to reconcile how to get away with being bailed out one month and buying a yacht the next.  The rappers are also keeping a low profile after Kanye West’s performance at the MTV awards forced people to question whether or not putting spinners on a Bentley is actually class or ass.

What are the themes of this years MYS? And how is the industry hoping to bring out the cheque books of the wealthy?  Well they are joining Dockwalk’s theme and applying a green hue to the proceedings.  You simply cannot avoid it, green is here to stay.

UN Building

Today 600 of the world’s top corporate executives met at the UN building at a summit to talk about the environment.  These are business people running the world’s biggest corporations and they are keen to be seen, talking green.  The fact that business is involved just proves how the environment is at the top of most people’s agendas these days.  And, importantly, several of the delegates have pointed out that they want to stay ahead of legislation.  In a nutshell they want business to make the changes that prevailing consumer sentiment requires, in order to avoid governments making changes for them.  Which, of course, would likely be enacted in the absence of a care for the commercial reality of doing business.

What has this to do with yachting?  Well it doesn’t matter what the owners of yachts think, and it looks like much money is being hedged on them thinking green, the yacht crews need to ‘get on board’.  Without them, green yachts are useless.  There is no such thing as an inherently green yacht, we simply do not need yachts.  Yachts can however be operated in a green manner.  If yacht crews need any further motivation, the fact that the corporate world arguably fears that harsh legislation may force them to be greener should be writing on the wall.  If we do not start seeking more environmentally friendly ways of yacht operation, very shortly a man in a suit in Brussels, London or somewhere exotic like that will send us some more rules.  Perhaps taxes, perhaps duties who knows?  It is quite possible now, that eco friendliness could start to become a little less friendly than it is.

There is much speculation now about the end of this recession.  Not that it is going to come very quickly or anything but at least we are speculating that the end is nigh and not that the “The End Is Nigh!”  The news at last, appears to have more of the ‘Green Shoots’ of growth stories than the ‘Gathering Storm Clouds’ stories.  We will know when we are finally out of recession as at that point the news will be  full of ‘Boy of Four Walks again’ and ‘Chicken Adopted By the Neighbour’s Dog’ stories!  Still though, no-one  has any real idea of how the yachting sector will be affected in the future. Yachting has only really experienced an ever expanding market in the recent past and the industry was more geared toward turndowns than downturns.

One indicator of the yachting industry’s health was thought to be crew.  This makes it very interesting that, when viewing crew as a demographic group, very few statistics are available and rarer still is any form of research into their habits, actions and general behaviour.  Crew have long been realised to be the ‘intangible asset’ that ascribes yachting it’s subjective value to wealthy owners and yet there is no concensus on much that makes them tick. 

It is very difficult to find out just how many crew there are.  Estimates would seem to range from 32,000 people to in excess of 40,000.  When you consider that the best estimate of the number of large yachts is now about 4000, the crew totals are based on a ratio in excess of 8.5 crew per boat.  Plausible?  Well maybe, but the median average size of yachts is much closer to the 4-6 crew boats.  For this reason I suspect that the number of ‘berths’ and hence jobs is closer to 25,000 -30,000 for yacht crew but that the industry supports up to 40,000 crew members, give or take a few seasonal variations. 

This would therefore assume that not all crew were ever employed at the same time.  And this in turn would seem to be borne out by history; which always suggested that the levels of turnover were astronomic as a percentage of the total working crew population.  The evidence I am basing this on is by the fact that if up to 20% of crew were not working they must have been doing something else which included training.  Now we know that crew often would leave their jobs both to train and in order to advance up the career ladder.  The numbers of crew training have been down over the last year and the number of available jobs has also reduced. 

It would therfore seem to me that the old turnover we used to see was in fact serving  the interests of the industry as a whole as it enabled more crew to occupy fewer jobs.  The downturn for yacht crew over the last year has been the  lack of jobs.  This I would hazard a guess at, has beeen caused by no more than, those in jobs staying in them for unusually long periods and not leaving to train or attempt to advance up the career ladder. 

So what we are  witnessing is possibly like a game of musical chairs.  The music has stopped and only a finite number were left sitting down.  Follow the analogy through and the laid up boats or those stuck in the yard are a bit like removing a few chairs.  Those in their chairs are very reluctant to leave them and so it appears that there less seats when in fact there are just more occupied seats.  It is as much the fact that there are fewer boats being used as just fewer crew moving around in and out of employment. 

Interestingly this could be said to mirror a major problem seen in economics; market confidence.  The best minds in the world are aware that if consumers started spending, the economic situation would improve more quickly.  Japan spent ten years in recession as a result of consumers holding on to their money and the glimmer of optimism we see today as we start to move out of the worst of the slump, is as a result of governments spending for us.  So as an indicator of better times in yachting, crew probably do serve an important purpose.  Their mobility  will be a positive sign that confidence is returning to the marketplace.  The reason is that as a demographic, crew are relatively well insulated from the financial pain of the recession and they are therefore quite likely to be reacting to the sentiment they feel and hear which is surely what informs confidence and not the pressure of financial hardship.

The big problem with this whole idea is that it does not help establish just when the music is going to start again.

Anyone who tries to write something interesting about the Maritime Labour Convention is probably wasting their time.  It is already viewed by many as yet another piece of needless legislation aimed at controlling the perfect world of yachting.  

It is important to understand that the MLC is designed to champion the rights of seafarers.  Yacht crew are seafarers in case you didn’t know.  In fact anyone who makes a living on the sea is defined in the MLC is a seafarer.  So if you are one, the MLC is working for you.  It is worth remembering the context of its aim because the bars will almost certainly contain anti MCA conspiracy theorists saying that the MLC   is how the British Government is taking more money out of yachting in order to buy British MPs new Hybrid cars.

I have tried to link the incoming MLC with changes that yacht crew are likely to witness themselves.  Contracts have been discussed in this regard and it is widely understood that contracts will have to have to be available to new crew members before they join their yacht.  But, it is worthy of note that any contract issued must be lawful.  So here’s the rub.  How can the, presently common practice, of stipulating race or nationality as a requirement or conditions of employment continue in yachting. The MLC would seem to highlight this as unlawful.  It is of course unlawful in most places outside the Taliban controlled area of Afghanistan.

How many times have you heard captains say that they cannot hire American crew.  One area of interest is the issue of American nationals being denied positions aboard vessels because many insurance companies consider them a “risk”.  The risk coming from the fact that a US citizen has an inalienable right to sue in the US.  So pre agreeing a location to determine legal recourse in the event of a disagreement is pointless.  Now you can imagine that an American in America being told that he or she is not allowed to work on a boat owned by an American in America by a crew agent in America who’s is an American, is unlikely to go down well.  Especially if the MLC will clarify grounds that this is unlawful.

I have always thought it was bad practice openly claiming to require one nationality over another in the owner’s name.  Now it seems it might be against the law.

Three solutions would seem to present themselves:

Ban all Americans and their fast food, gas guzzling cars and slippery lawyers from working in the yachting industry.  Not really likely seeing as most yachts are owned by Americans.

Alternatively we could actually see what the insurance premiums would be in order for the insurance companies to take the American crew member on board as a risk.  Reports would suggest that some premiums are relatively little when compared with the overall costs of employing a crew member and several US crew members have reported that they have offered to pay the difference themselves.

Thirdly we could have resumes and CVs sent to us without a picture and not stating the nationality, or race or sex so that we could make an impartial assessment as to whether they are qualified for the job before we make any assumptions about whether they are employable. Don’t laugh this is what most people in the civilized world do because not to would be unlawful.

The MLC will surely cause a few of our accepted norms to be challenged.  And it is fair to say that many of our traditions are born of habit and not sense, so it will be interesting to see if the MLC brings about changes or causes the industry to take its prejudices underground. 

It’s coming!

We are starting to see the first signs of a turn in season.  Young and frankly not so young, would be crew members are starting to come to Lauderdale and book their entry level courses.  These days we don’t just teach them what the rules require but try and provide them with an insight into what is expected of them in a yachting job.  Most ask all the right questions about the industry and contrary to what many say in these very forums, most of the newbies we see are humble and determined to succeed, not freeloading backpackers.

One question that keeps coming up more and more these days is the issue of insurance or health coverage.  Many crewmembers are apparently unaware of the coverage that their yacht extends to them.  Sadly in many cases, the only time you find out is when you are forced to make a large claim only to realize too late that you are not covered.  I assume that the reason the topic is coming up more and more is related to the fact that crew members both new and experienced, are realizing that salaries are not what they once were and inevitably the overall package including health becomes of more significance.

Having discussed the coverage most boats offer with friends in the business, it has been more of an eye opener to find out that many experienced crew members do not know exactly what their boat covers them for. Very few people seem to be aware of the limits.

Most people are aware that the owner is legally responsible for much of the cost should a crew member be taken ill or injured on board a yacht. However in many cases it would seem that the ‘health’ policy insures the owner against a huge claim and little more.

Several policies have exclusions for things like adventure sports which can of course mean skiing, hang gliding or free fall parachuting.  But some policies have the caveat that means they are allowed to determine just what ‘adventure’ is.  This has included surfing, riding a mountain bike and a host of other things which, to your average yachtie, are hardly considered as adventurous.  Clearly insurance executives should get out more!

What about holidays? Take a few days off in the Keys and rent a scooter and you are probably on your own if you have any sort of mishap.  The US health system makes Italian shipyards look second rate when it comes to making you part with money.  The doctors have a ritual of making you wait as long as possible in a room decorated by a tasteless aunt.  You drop your trousers, a cough later and you are robbed of a weeks’ salary.

There are experts around who can tell you just what you on board policy is worth.  I HASTEN TO POINT OUT THAT I AM NOT ONE OF THEM, ALTHOUGH I WOULD BE HAPPPY TO REFER YOU.   In terms of coverage and it might be interesting to know what you have.  If you are a captain it is something that you should know intimately as it is undoubtedly becoming more of a concern to crew members.  Don’t forget there are soon likely to be more legislation changes that will require our responsibilities to be stated in black and white and so Insurance or health cover will have to be disclosed clearly.  I would guess a few people would be quite shocked by what they find.

Last week I was asking for any information that could lead to us identifying common issues that could have contributed to the  ‘spate’ of groundings in the Med.  The number of responses and views convince me it is worth staying on the topic and sharing some more thoughts on the issue.  I have spent much time during the last week reading reports made by the MAIB and others, that I have found on the internet.  In general it would appear that in many cases where human error of one sort or another is cited as a cause, it is the fundamentals of seamanship that are not observed.  Sounds obvious I know, but the problem with many accident reports is that they focus on much of the minutae that may have been part of the series of mistakes that led to an accident. 

Now, taking it a step further there would appear to be a few reasons why these fundamentals were ignored which could be loosely grouped as follows:

1 – Ignorance.  This would seem to reinforce many of last weeks’ respondents opinion that lack of experience is a factor.  If you are not aware that there exists a risk, then it would be natural to question why you are in such a decision making position.

2. – Complacency.  This factor could be caused by over confidence or simply considering routine, the nature of navigation of yacht operations and not stopping to consider the ‘worst case scenario’.

3. – Bad Judgement.  This factor that could be caused as a result of fatigue, stress, illness or indeed pressure.  By pressure I mean pressure that we often feel to achieve the goals that are commonly set for us by our peers.

As I looked into various accident reports, I saw that even the most experienced masters can excersise bad judgement or complacency or a mixture of both.  So it would seem that inexperience may not be the obvious cause of accidents that some have suggested. 

There are always technical failures which could be considered as causes, but in many cases accidents were as a result of poor or no contingency planning or putting a vessel in the position where she was solely reliant on her equipment performing without failure. This could in turn be described as the essence of “good seamanship”.

Take for example the very sad case of a large square rigged sailing vesel that foundered off the coast of Cornwall nearly fifteen years ago.  The vessel was wrecked when her main engines, which she had been using to reduce leeway as she passed through a channel on her way to rounding a headland and making her entry to port, failed.  Three lives were lost and the very expereinced master was charged with the responsibility and fault.

A huge amount of research went into defending the master and there were undoubtedly a chain of technical events that led to the engines failing and the crew being unable to restart them in time to steam away from the danger.  However, the fundamental issue of sailing too close to a lee shore was largely accepted to be the cause as the master was left with no options when the engine failed. In short poor seamanship.

Now there are certain vessels that could be argued to be more prone to certain risks by virtue of their inherent make up of crew  compared to the job they perform.  If we take vessels in the 100-120 range for example it could conceivably be difficult to operate the vessel to it’s guest’s full demands by day, what with watersports, fishing, dining, traveling and the like and then carry out a full anchor watch by night if the vessel was tasked to be on the hook.  If you take a vessel with six crew including a captain, engineer and deckhand if they were keeping an anchor watch as well as undertaking their normal duties, that could be quite a workload and probably would cause a danger of fatigue after a few days even in good weather. 

So if such a vessel did not observe anchor watches and I know several do not, what are the alternatives?  Stay alongside, rely on electronics or perhaps just keep going and hope that guests change their mind about anchoring.  It could be a very difficult position to find oneself in; trying to please the guests and keep the crew on the go day and night. 

If the captain did not bring up the issue of fatigue and set the limits for the owner or guests, one could argue that this showed ignorance of the risks or inexperience.  If on the other hand, the captain just did not bother with an anchor watch as he or she did not consider the risk significant one could suggest complacency.  Of course if the captain made a bad choice of location to anchor or failed to use a sensible scope then judgement would be called into question.

Given that there are so many factors that can contribute to a mishap, it is worth reiterating that in many cases it would appear to be failure to observe some of the very basic rules of seamanship that causes problems.  How long does it take to learn those skills? There can be no doubt that seamanship is like the learning the piano; you can do it all your life and never master it.

Another yacht on the rocks.  Is it me or is this getting a little too common?  One could be forgiven for thinking that there may be some sort of similar reason for all these groundings as it seems to be more than just coincidental.  Everyone has an opinion about just why these things happen and sadly too many would seem to publish their opinion before the facts are known, but perhaps after this season it is worth looking into what exactly went wrong in so many cases.

As we all are aware, one an individual basis the pertinent flag state will investigate and publish the results of these cases so that any lessons may be passed on to other mariners.  But, is anyone looking for commonalities in all of these cases and trying to find if there is a common thread.  Assuming that different flag states use different people and are focused on the merits of each case separately, it will be some time before we can draw any meaningful conclusions.  Given the basic laws of probability it would seem sensible to try and understand if there was an underlying trend that is leading to such accidents:

Fatigue, lack of experience, unusual weather or currents, space aliens and their tractor beams all may have had a part to play.  Perhaps there is a certain type of equipment failure common to all of the yachts that have found themselves on the bricks this year.  In the Bahamas it is quite a regular occurrence as there are very few navigational marks and navigation over there can take a while to get ‘one’s eye in’, but the Med?  I have tried to look back and see if there have been other seasons where quite so many yachts have grounded and my research is still ongoing. 

If anyone has any facts or knows where I might find them I would be happy to do the work in researching any links between these accidents and so I would glad of the input of others out there.  This is not a witch hunt and I am not asking for opinions in the absence of facts but I am concerned enough to think that we should look a little more closely at just what is happening.

Perhaps we would be able to offer advice to captains, insurers, training companies and owners themselves if the research turns up anything useful.

How do you really know if someone is a good actor unless you know them when they are not acting.  For this reason I have to assume that Angelina Joilie is not normally a moody, pouting bird that seems to be using those big eyes and child bearing lips to say naughty things to me.  If I am to believe she is a good actor I have to believe that she is in fact a a rather timid, giggly sort of a girl who is more interested in her gardening than my trousers.  But I will probably never know.  

The point is, if you are smart you can exploit the unknown and pray on peoples ignorance to portray a set of circumstances that will encourage them to believe you and pay you for your services.  To an extent we all do it. For example;  Engineers will tell you that you need a ‘new one’ because of what may happen if the ‘old one’ fails with the boss on board which of course is your worst case scenario.  Of course in most cases the engineer would believe what he or she is saying to be absolutely true but you get the point.  This sort of fear tactic is countered in most cases, by the fact that most of us have experience and knowledge that allows us to make an independent decision.  

Security is slightly different however.  I am slightly concerned by the number of people telling us that yachting is a dangerous risk and crew need to be trained in some sort of weapons use to defend against it.  Not because they have a great deal of yachting experience and know where owner’s like to go or how yachts operate but because they were trained in security.  Yachties are exposed to quite a few security risks as recent events in the Caribbean have highlighted.  But the truth is, training them to leave their Rolex behind and travel in numbers is far more important security advice than teaching them how to defend against an armed attack.  

Lets be honest the ISPS convention is about as useful as a chocolate condom.  It is a politically motivated convention which is aimed at a small sector of the maritime industry and yachts are just caught up in it.  ISPS actually tells you how to search for a bomb.  Well that is totally against conventional wisdom which clearly says if you think there is a bomb anywhere near, go somewhere else. When someone calls in a bomb threat do the police ask for help to find it? NO they evacuate.  Security is a bit like religion; It is very difficult to say anything against it as it can be seen almost as blasphemy.  

Guns and crew do not go.  Train crew how to say “don’t touch that” in Russian.  Now that is smart and may save a guest’s fingers but teaching them how to employ military evasion tactics is scaremongering. Piracy is a problem and if a yacht needs to go to an areas where pirates are, then they should take protection.  Yachts use painters to paint and AV people to install the AV system, so then, what’s wrong with using security experts to protect against insecurity.