Yachting Like It Is

Aren’t holidays great! Most yachties are obviously in the business of making other peoples holidays great but nonetheless holidays are worth working for. I should know I am on one. Tuscan sun, pool, food, pool, food, barbecue, food, pool, all mixed with copious amounts of wine, children and locals with nice big tasty tomatoes. Just the thing to recharge the batteries. If only I could get past the red blotchy phase and develop a tan it would be perfect.

Different yachts all seem to have different arrangements for holidays for their crew. Some give flights, some only allow you to take what leave has accrued. Some yachts include weekends, some don’t. Some have formal arrangements, some less so. It is quite interesting that something as important as a crew member’s leave, time off, holiday, break, furlough or whatever you may call it, are treated very differently by practically every yacht I have come across. For me it is very important for crew to take a break. We have all seen the martyrs who refuse to take leave or those who would try and accrue as much leave as possible and try and take cash instead on leaving the boat. As they tire or get ‘burned’ others can be affected by their behaviour. For a growing number of yacht crew their leave is the only time they can use to train for qualifications that will keep them on the career ladder.

What if there was a standard of accepted practice for every yacht? Would it be better or worse. Inevitably some would win and some would lose compared to current arrangements as yachts can be famously both generous or mean. But, what would surely happen is that crew would know where they stood and value judgements would be unlikely cause issues on board. It sounds a bit far fetched, a standardized leave arrangement for yachts but think about it. What if it went beyond just leave and there was a standardized contract.

We all know the rules and we know how to write the rules and they cannot be so dissimilar from one yacht to another that a relatively off the shelf contract would not actually serve a useful purpose. Any extra requirements could be in the form of an addendum pertinent to a particular yacht. The Dockwalk is advocating ‘contracts for all yachties’ and as we know it is already the law in most cases to provide crew with a contract. However we still do not all get them and the forums a full of people who have fallen out with the captain because of leave issues or the interpretation of a grey area that should have been clarified in a contract.

When the MLC comes into force which is said to be “soon” by those in the know, it will make contracts much more common and so having a streamlined one, that is used by many might actually make it more acceptable for the parties that must agree to definitive terms. I know I would use such a contract if one existed in fact I can’t imagine why more crew don’t have contracts it seem like madness to me. But what do I care? I am, after all, on holiday.

It may have snuck in while you weren’t looking, it may have been welcomed with open arms by some but Environmentalism is at last part of the yachting industry.  There is no question that pollution, prevention and control have been with us for some time but they are specific measures imposed on us by various conventions, their existence means many crew have been exposed to rules regarding protecting the seas we live and work on.  However what is different about a positive environmental approach is that it is voluntary and therefore can and should be inventive and customized for a particular yacht and not some prescribed policy intended for gigantic ships.

For me the best and worst thing about the environmental efforts made by the yachting sector is that it seems to coming from owners and not crew.  The majority of ‘green yachts’ are arguably green because of the capital infrastructure invested in by the yacht owners; sophisticated sewage treatment plants and efficient machinery and the like.  Very few yachts are mandated to actually operate with an environmental agenda.  Admittedly some yachts often do have a sign saying; ‘think of the environment before printing this email!’ but that is not necessarily making the best use of the  knowledge available and in some cases is more of a fad than a policy. 

It is a fact that you simply cannot buy a ‘safe’ yacht it has to operated in a ‘safe manner’.  The same can be said for yachts that want to reduce their environmental impact and operate in a green way.  Of course designing in or equipping a yacht with technological efficiency gives one a head start to a green operation but unless the yacht’s operators are on the same page it’s benefit can be potentially very small.

So what will it take to get crew on board with the environmental operating improvements that can reduce a yachts impact on its environment and why should they bother?

Well there are more reasons now than ever but two stick out that would be easy to justify even in the mind of the staunchest global warming denier, and, they are surely out there.

Firstly in these poor economic times, savings and economies are undoubtedly what owners want.  A great part of reducing ones carbon keelprint is by reducing emissions which means operating more economically.  A simple saving and direct benefit to the owner you don’t even have to care about reef degradation to see the benefit of that.

Secondly a reduced keel print is a very big selling and marketing point for a yacht these days.  Having talked to a number of designers and brokers in the last few months there are definitely the first signs of demand in the sort of yachts that are operating with some level of greenness.  There has been reported to be a resurgence in interest of large sailing yachts because of this very reason, together with interest from buyers and owners wanting to know how they can make their yachts greener.

The simple point I am making is that it doesn’t matter if you don’t care about the environment it makes sense to operate yachts with an environmental agenda firmly in place.  Just what such an agenda might include in terms of an operational approach is a large topic but one thing is for sure and that is that it will need to be part of a strategy and not simply a tactic.  There is more and more information being put out there about what crew can achieve in terms of environmental efficiencies but the industry needs more communication and more commitment on the part of the crew themselves.  In turn they will certainly need support and access to the information available on just what their options may be.

It may not be long before we see consultants and technicians visiting yachts to design a Green operational document in the same way that security people or AV technicians do already.   In the mean time anyone who has developed any smart green operating strategies, please share them with us.  IYT and Save Our Seas are working on developing some educational materials and their relevance will be improved with your input.

Now it would seem to me that the US and Ft Lauderdale in particular is starting to suffer from a rather unfair reputation as a bit of a difficult yachting destination in view of the rules and regulations that are in force here. I have spoken with several crew recently who had seen numerous forum posts and headlines that seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill.

There are undoubtedly some very specific rules with regard to immigration and cruising in US waters for foreigners and foreign flagged vessels. However, for most these rules rate in complication terms somewhere between booking a hotel room online and using Google earth to find your house. Just not that difficult!

There always plenty of hurdles to overcome and hoops to get through when travelling to any foreign destination. Try taking a yacht to the Ukraine if you want difficulty. Even the Bahamas is notorious for changing the cruising and fishing rules and these affect most that go there in yachts unless you go there to do something other than cruising and fishing.

If you read the yachting press you would be forgiven that the US is a place preoccupied with security where crew are routinely turned away from the airport by special forces agents with a ‘top gun’ fixation, Stars and Stripes boxer shorts and very shiny black boots. But in fact if you come here for genuine reasons with the standard paperwork and visas, you have nothing to fear from the authorities who are doing more than their job requires them to do.

So I am starting a campaign to promote Ft Lauderdale and I would like to hear from any of the many thousands of people who come during their yachting endeavours and find it a pretty straight forward place to do business. Just a few of the attributes I am aware of are listed below I would like to hear of more.

It is easy and relatively cheap to live, eat, drink and shop. It has numerous recreation opportunities including parks, beaches, casinos and very big shops where they accept the dollar which is worth a lot less than the Euro.

Every golf course has golf carts. The weather is generally pretty good. The keys are close by and so too are some of the world’s best amusement parks which are just a few miles north. There are plenty of supplies and suppliers where you can get pretty much anything that is needed to make a yacht work and shine. The place is crawling with subcontractors who are always keen in these times to find work and make a deal, meaning that it is great value because of course you can use the dollar.

As the season turns in the next couple of months and boats start to head south, Ft Lauderdale becomes a strategic staging post which is why it was and is an important stopping off point for yachts.

Don’t be put off by the few who have fallen foul of the rules the vast majority continue to recognize that Lauderdale is a very easy place to do business and excellent value. See you there!

Well, the title undoubtedly means different things to different people and I would bet that to the demographic that run and manage yachts, the “C” word probably stands for the ultimate in profanity. And that is just it. Sometimes yachting is a small world and until you can look with objectivity upon it, the perspective gained aboard yachts is difficult to benefit from.

To give you an example, no matter how used one gets to a regime of hard work and sleepless nights. No matter how demanding you think owners and charter guests can be, it is not until you have a child that you realize quite how ill prepared you are for sleepless nights and demanding people. If my child was a charter guest she would be more demanding than a particularly high maintenance Russian, rapper with very low ethical and moral standards, who is prone to indecision and who has recently had a really bad deal/album and has decided that the only way to cheer up is to have a really big party. I suspect my child is perfectly normal, although the howling at full moon, hairy hands and emotional control she wields is a little worrying. If I made a movie it would probably be called “A British Werewolf in Lauderdale.”

Perhaps it is a part of growing up; the generation ahead of me, when they’re not lamenting the days before the MCA, usually tell me that things are all normal and so I pass on the same sentiment to those behind me and so on. Growing up is, frankly, relatively simple to most and the landmarks were in retrospect, pretty obvious. For me, growing up was punctuated by my interest in the shopping catalogues at home. For the first part of my life they were heavy and a danger to me as I wanted to eat them. As I got older they interested me because of their bright colours. Then I started reading them because they had pages and pages of toys. Next I read them because they had pages and pages of bikes. There was a short gap where I refused to read anything, swiftly followed by a return to the catalogues because they had pages and pages of ladies ‘undies’. I don’t have catalogues around the house these days, but, I suspect that I would pick one up today and turn straight to the tools section, as, I am told, they have pages and pages of them.

There are undoubtedly many more of life’s landmarks that I have yet to pass. Sadly there is one I can cross off the list as of last week, and in reaching it I am afraid the catalogue analogy has become obselete. I have come into contact with what arguably most people in the world refer to as the ‘C’ word. You see to many people the ‘C’ word stands for Cancer. And folks of a certain age talk about cancer like my generation talk about kids: Someone you know has always just found out that they have got a new one. Not sure how big it is or which kind but the test is definite.

One of my old crewmates, who should in fact be too young for cancer, has just found out that he has got it. We were never really that close and despite the fact that I am sure he thought I was only a mediocre captain, we stayed in touch these years and drank and remembered guest trips gone by. Yachting had not prepared me for the news, like most of us in this game I felt pretty resilient to what the world has in store. Well until I spend a night watching the Deadliest Catch and realize that ‘rough weather’ is a relative term. I had never faced the prospect of being susceptible to getting ill or old for that matter. Obviously there are many other yacht captains who have yet to face the fact that they are in fact, actually mortal but that is quite different. The majority of today’s yachties are too young for Cancer and so it is rare to come across it and in fairness normal to being ill prepared for it.

Fortunately my sick friend has saved enough to get the right treatment in his home country without being a burden on others. He is a tough little bastard and I sincerely hope that he makes it through, if only, so that he can get his first command and realise that I was not such a bad captain after all.

There is no lesson in this tale or moral point I would make, except perhaps for; ‘don’t smoke’. But, when you hear such news it puts many of our whinges into context. Yachting just isn’t as bad as some of the forum posts may have us believe and if it needs changing well, we can do that too.

PS I have just received a catalogue in the mail for another former crewmate and after a thorough read I note that Victoria’s Secret has no tool section but is still a remarkably engaging, maybe I am getting younger.

There is often a chorus of experienced voices suggesting that the yachting industry needs to have higher standards of training.  No one could disagree with this contention, in this or any other industry for that matter, so it is unsurprising that it is a point that is regularly raised.  However, what is often interesting is that those advocating this training regularly suggest that it is the basic ‘old school’ seamanship skills that need to be better taught. Indeed, it would be nice to have crew members aboard a yacht that could do more than tie the standard bowline or use a different knot or splice when appropriate.  Or, at the very least, be able to use a hand bearing compass or pelorus and employ any number of seamanship skills that are often reportedly lacking.

Some suggest that sailors have an advantage though it is probably fair to say that most modern, large sailing yachts are more interested in carbon fibre rigging than natural fibre whipping.  Despite this, their goal of making the best use of the elements gives them a potentially better platform to learn the  more traditional seamanship skills.  

It is worth considering that, what seems to cause accidents these days is more often than not, considered to be a failure in using modern technology as opposed to good seamanship.  For example on a recent visit to a repair yard, one large yacht under repair had hit a bridge when the autopilot failed.  The engineer was severely criticised for not using adequate wiring and the captain chastised for not using the device’s remote control correctly.  The accident, was in fact caused by a failure of that device.  One could justifiably argue that, operating such a large boat using a remote control device in a busy area was in fact un-seamanlike but that point was never raised. 

Relatively few accidents are, it seems caused by a failed splice or a poorly armed lead, but many problems could be attributed to failing to observe the fundamentals of good seamanship.  How does one teach these skills?  This I would suggest is best done on board for the reason that it is about using a certain mindset and applying a set of values independently and consistently.

On the other hand, many modern chart plotters do not automatically correct for the offset of the particular chart in use as the operator zooms in and out through the different scales available.  Many inexperienced navigators have been known to believe totally in the information given by the GPS without undertsanding it’s limitations or potential errors.  ’Training out’ these obvious technical errors seems relatively straightforward and, on the horizon, there are likely to be more training requirements focused on using modern navigational electronics with the least exposure to error.

The debate should then, not be whether we need more training but what sort of training do we need to avoid the very real mistakes that are happening all too often. And, how do we deliver this appropriate training consistently and in an suitable medium? As an aside and with sustainability in mind, one could also ponder, how do we fund it?  Certain elements of training are surely best implemented on board for many reasons as they should be taught in the context of an operational mindset.  But, the yachting context is not a utopian world where crew are willing to spend money on anything but that which is required by the law.  Combine this with the fact that there are some out there who would put profit before standards and training becomes a conundrum.  

So, to summarise, formal training should be focussed on what equipment we use in this ever changing modern age of black boxes and interfaces.  On the job training can be used to get across the values that allow us to employ even the very latest technology in the safest possible way.

Is it me or have there been a few mishaps recently.  The coverage by the yachting press has been very fast and I am sure perfectly accurate.  But apart from the slightly sad finger pointing, it is a little confusing to me as to what those in the industry actually think.  As a captain my first gut reaction on hearing such news is initially, glad no-one is hurt and ‘hope it doesn’t happen to me’.  And then, like most I hope, I want to know what happened so that I can avoid getting into the same situation.  In short if there are any lessons to learn I would like to learn them quickly at someone else’s expense.  Now of course the investigation takes time and the ‘truth’ can take a while to come out so, in the mean time hearsay will fill inevitably fill in the gap. 

We all may have our own theories about what causes such accidents as the few we have seen recently, but one suggestion that keeps coming up in the forums and blogs, bars and docks is quite disturbing:  Fatigue.  It has long been known in the marine industry that fatigue keeps rearing it’s ugly head as a cause of mishaps.  Indeed even at the STCW basic safety training level we warn people of the dangers of fatigue.  Fatigue is the reason robots have an advantage over people.  It is the reason that one form of torture is sleep deprivation.  It is the reason that you just do not upset mothers of newborn babies.  We all know that Fatigue, lack of rest, tiredness, exhaustion or whatever else you may call it, causes or, more correctly, can cause any number of accidents. 

It is arguably straight forward then; there is an association with safety and fatigue.  More than an association in fact; a relationship.  Admittedly a sort of sordid, ‘don’t want anyone to know as it’s dirty and un cool, relationship’ granted, but a full on relationship nonetheless.  My concern is therefore very simple.  In the same forums, bars and docks where people have identified fatigue as a threat to yacht and crew member’s safety, and suggested that, for example, anchor watches are too difficult to contemplate in some instances.  There are many who are demanding tips because of the crazy number of hours they work.  Now call me old fashioned but what I am hearing is this.  It is dangerous to get to a point of fatigue unless of course a charter guest is offering a bonus. 

Tips are for excellence not risk.  Especially if the risk is to the guests who don’t even realize it.  Would an owner or guest ask a pilot to over extend his or her flying hours?  I doubt it very much.  Would an owner ask a company accountant to ‘bend the rules’ a little with regard to taxes, well maybe that is not a great example.  My point is this; what is it about yachting that means we are happy to interpret the rules and do as we think best.  Ask most yacht crew about the “hours of rest” and they laugh out loud.  It would not be quite so funny if you woke up early, with a very sudden jolt to find that you are anchored by the keel and starring on most yachties’ facebook pages.

So what is it to be, danger money or an incentive to give the very best?  Are tips worth the risk?

Ang Sang Suu Kyi is again in the news headlines as she waits at the mercy of Myanmar’s military dictators.  In court, prosecuted on some very spurious charges, she will shortly find out if she has been found guilty.  Whatever the court decides, Ang Sang Suu Kyi still remains the focal point of hope for legitimate rule in Myanmar, quietly suffering the humiliating torments of her jailers.

What has this to do with yachting?  Teak is the simple answer.  Not just any old teak but Burmese teak, (Myanmar is the present name for Burma), and more importantly ‘old growth’ Burmese teak.  It is the standard deck requirement for the modern superyacht.  In fact it has been the standard deck on yachts and ships for hundreds of years and remains arguably the best natural material for the job it does.  These days however most vessels use cheaper substitutes.

Other countries produce teak, but Burmese teak is the stuff they prefer to use on yachts.  Good quality teak is sold to the yachting industry from a number of sources outside Burma, since sanctions have been imposed by the USA and EU on trade with Burma.  However, much of it is said to originate from Burma where its sale helps support the military regime there.  So there we have it, yachting needs teak and therefore supports a regime that refuses to acknowledge some of the very basic human rights and thinks it is fine to torture Tibetan Monks or anyone else who disagrees with them.

The generals in charge of Myanmar do use the money they make from selling off the countries resources like Teak, for some very needy causes.  They after all need lots of guns and bullets and golf courses for their senior officers. 

Now yachting is not known as a natural refuge for the politically correct, but it would seem to me that Burmese Teak is something that yachts could cope without, both for moral and environmental reasons as there is little evidence of sustainable harvesting the teak used on yachts.  There surely must be acceptable alternatives.  Every year at the boat shows, they seem to be showing something made of plastic bottles that looks and feels just like teak.  And, after all, the look of teak that owners want isn’t like teak at all really.  It is like newly laid teak, which, traditionally only lasts for a few weeks until it returns to its naturally silvered luster.

Now, if my wife was to wear a gigantic diamond on her finger people would almost instantly realize that I could not have afforded it and they would soon surmise it was a not real.  But, if I owned a shiny new Feadship and I put fake, ‘forever golden’ teak on it, no-one would be any the wiser and no-one would dare say a word even if they thought I was a cheapskate.

So what is wrong with fake teak or synthetic teak?  Is it inferior, is it just not the done thing or is it that yachting doesn’t care about the potential for supporting Myanmar’s generals through the purchase of real Burmese Teak whichever label they are using to sell it? 

Where do you stand on teak?

I would be prepared to bet that there is a glut of captains out there.   The talk these days is of the value of experience and not simply qualifications alone.  As less and less boats have been bought and sold over the last year, more captains than normal have been forced to seek the assistance of the crew agencies than the oft used connections with brokers and yacht management players.  It all points to the market seeking a higher ascertainable quality of captain. 

The high numbers of applicants available and looking for jobs mean that employers have to work hard to screen desirable attributes above and beyond the standard qualifications and this in turn means that decision makers are forced to confront general notions of what is better or worse in a Captain’s CV.

At the apex of crew positions are the captains of large yachts.  Anything is large if you have to polish it but large here is meant to be around the 50 metre mark, full displacement boats.  One of the standard contentions I hear of regularly is the difference between a captain that has worked up from smaller to larger boats, compared to a captain who has accumulated the majority of their experience as a mate.  But with emphasis arguably focused beyond simply the ticket you hold and more how you got it.  Is there a particular benefit to either or is personality and ability the predominant factor.  Let’s be honest boats and jobs are all different, so is there a general benefit of one set of experiences over another?

The route of a captain from small to large yachts is often a very different learning environment to that of a large yacht alone.  Perhaps the biggest difference is the reliance on many smaller yachts of the captain as an engineer.  Or at the least a troubleshooting engineer.  For any captain who has also served as a yacht’s engineer there may well be benefits down the line to knowing what the hell the engineer on a large boat is talking about.  Perhaps in some cases it relates to a higher level of respect for engineers.  On many large yachts, the mate does not get very close to the engineering of the vessel very often if at all.

The lack of formality sometimes acceptable on smaller boats is often not suited to larger vessels.  Imagine a vessel with only four crewmembers observing the strict duty roster of a larger vessel and being on watch one out of four nights?  Informality is a particular issue where there is a formal safety management system as required by most flag states on larger vessels.  There is simply too much physical work to do on a small vessel to be able to keep up to date with the sort of paperwork required by some larger vessels that operate mini ISM for example.

Larger vessels do tend to travel further on average than smaller vessels so it may be the case that experience as a mate could yield more sea time.  However small vessels seem to do more short trips and so the experience of leaving and entering ports for a small boat captain could be significantly more than a large vessel’s mate.  The same could be said for boat handling.  Not every Mate aboard a large yacht is given the opportunity to ‘drive’ and many are not what you may call a safe pair of hands when it comes to handling a yacht.

What about management experience?  The mate of a large yacht is a tricky management position.  Sometimes he or she has to represent the crew to the captain and sometimes it’s the other way around.  All the while a mate has to earn the respect of the crew, captain and guests.  It can be an awkward position, calling for balls, brains and diplomacy in equal measures.  Compare this to a captain who has only dealt with a few crewmembers at most in a less structured setting.  If this was the sum total of your management practice; installing and maintaining a disciplined, ordered workplace that is both enjoyable and motivating could be a significant challenge.

Well at first glance is does seem that there are clear differences between the typical paths taken to get to the ‘top’ in terms of yacht jobs.  But the question is whether the differences are relevant. I am interested to get feedback from the industry, as advising crew members on which route to take, is an inevitable part of the work of someone in my job.

Stereotyping could be described as ascribing homogenous characteristics to a group, without empirically ascertaining or respecting the accuracy and value of individual characteristics of those that make up that group.  The phrase is sometimes confused with Stereo Typing which is the act of operating a keyboard whilst using an Ipod. 

Stereotyping is usually recognized to be an unhealthy way to view any generic class, as it often serves to describe a group in an oversimplified, demeaning or assumptive way and we all know where that can lead.  Often, stereotyping is used in ignorance and without any real malice intended.  I would contend most people are guilty of stereotyping to some degree.  “What do women know about cars?”  “What do engineers know about joining in?” or “What do management companies know about anything?”  These are phrases that might be commonly heard in the yachting business and are examples of stereotyping although other less polite descriptions may also apply.

One group of people that is commonly referred to as a homogenous stereotype is the yacht owners.  Yachting serves the interests of yacht owners.  That is why the industry exists.  It is the only industry where those in the process of production and operation greatly outnumber the consumers.  So how does the will of owners become translated into action?  Well for different specific interests there are different people involved in informing owners and listening to their lists of likes and dislikes.  Brokers, designers, builders and yacht crew all have an active part to play in translating wants into haves for yacht owners. 

Ask any seasoned yachting veteran about what owners want and they all apparently know the exact answer, but how many have they actually worked for.  A good captain of twenty or thirty years in the business has probably worked for, how many owners?  Ten, twenty? That is all well and good but there are thousands of owners, so what do they really know about ‘what owners’ want’.  It is a fact that we have a gender and race imbalance in yachting.  Recent articles would suggest there also to be an issue of ageism but is this the will of owners?  Or, are we possibly guilty of putting words in their mouths and assuming we can judge their views. 

For sure there are good and bad owners that make working aboard a yacht a pleasure or a pain but, they are all surely very different.  It would be a mistake to assume owners are a homogenous mass of male, racist, pedantic, tattoo hating, perverts whose principle aims in life are to screw crew out of holiday pay and ogle exclusively white stewardesses.  But if one listens to many in the business, one could be forgiven for thinking that many owners conform to this stereotype.

I often write about change and often get the response that owners will never tolerate new legislation or rules.  However, if an owner owns or runs a business he or she already understands and complies with far more regulation than yachts.  If the owner has a plane or a chauffeur then they have already come to terms with personnel limits like ‘hours of rest’ for example.  And yet, when resistance to the MLC is defended it is often owners’ interests that are cited. 

Who knows, are owners views being properly represented by us?  Or are they corrupted by a stereotypical assumption that we know what they want?

There are a number of people I do not trust.  A few of those fall into the following categories:  People that sell cars, the sort of people who allow dogs to lick their faces and fat people who claim that they don’t really watch TV.  I would simply choose not to do business with these types of people if I could.  There is no particular reason for me not to trust them, I just don’t.  It is a subjective thing.

In nearly every occasion I would prefer to get some sort of a reference before I would consider paying anybody to do anything.  Apparently I am nothing more than normal, well except the phobia about the dog lovers and fat people perhaps.  It seems that getting a reference is quite normal these days.  As a yacht captain they were vital to me.  The Industry expanded at such a rate that pretty much anybody with a white van could make a good living the marine service industry.  Most, I am sure were excellent, but many were awful.  And by awful I mean really, very, bloody awful.  It would always start with turning up late and demanding a credit card just in case the boat was late to pay!

It would usually deteriorate until a few days before you had to sail to meet a charter or owners, they would tell you the parts that were needed to make the necessary repairs were unavailable.  Fortunately one usually factored this sort of work standard in to the equation and so the sailing date you told the sub contractor was a little earlier than it was really intended to be.  However, the owners would quite often push the date ahead in any case so any advantage you had gained through cunning could easily be lost. 

The reason I make this point is not to condemn the sort of sub contractors that make repairing yachts about as fun as interviewing librarians for a particularly menial task, but to suggest how to support the good guys.

It is normal fare for a few yachties around the dinner table or at the bar to be complaining about the most recent disastrous sub contractor.  It is much rarer to hear a captain or senior crewmember, unprompted, extolling the virtues of a particular company or technician.

So my suggestion is to compile a list of recommended sub contractors and service providers.  Not a directory. They would only make the list if a captain, yacht or management company could provide a written reference for them. 

Now before you say this idea is about as original as my idea for a story about a young wizard who goes to school on a magic train, I am not saying it is.  I am simply suggesting a yachting Angie’s List.  As for a name I would suggest Mike’s List of course.

When the economy starts to improve wouldn’t it be good ensure that the best sub contractors were recognized.  It is not an act of kindness it is simply aimed at reducing those riding the gravy train in favour of those that can be relied upon.