November 2004 Vol. 1, No. 8
ICW bridges to open twice an hour during test By Lucy Chabot Reed For 90 days beginning Dec. 1, the U.S. Coast Guard will restrict bridge openings over the Intracoastal Waterway in Ft. Lauderdale’s Broward County to twice an hour. During the test period, bridges will open even during traditional curfew periods during morning and afternoon vehicular rush hours. The test is designed to make bridge
opening times easier to keep track of and to improve the flow of boat traffic on the Intracoastal, said Barry Dragon, chief of bridge operations for the U.S. Coast Guard’s District 7. “We want to give boaters a consistent schedule on the bridges and an opportunity to make it through them without too much delay,” Dragon said. “Historically, we’ve done one bridge at a time, so we’re trying to look at traffic on the ICW in a holistic manner.”
A similar test worked well in Palm Beach County last year and was implemented there permanently July 19. Bridges in Broward County each operate differently, Dragon said, with some observing rush hour, some not, some opening every 15 minutes, some every 20 minutes, some depending on the season, some on demand. “It’s impossible to keep track of them all,” he said. “I don’t know how boaters do it.”
It may be difficult for weekend boaters, but for professional captains who spend much of their time on the water, the current system is not difficult to remember. “They’re locked down from 8:30 to 9:30 and 4:30 to 5:30; everybody knows that,” said Andrea Peterson, general manager of Peterson Fuel Delivery. “This is going to be a disaster. Opening
See ICW, page 14
Communication key to best captain/owner relationships
An agent at the Nuku Hiva anchorage in the Marquesas may help you get duty-free fuel, but cannot extend your visit. PHOTO/SUE AND JON HACKING
Can yacht agents really smooth the way in the South Pacific? By Sue Hacking Let’s face it. Megayachts stand out in Third World anchorages and agents may think you’re an easy take. When you enter the Yacht Club in Colon, Panama, or tie to the dock in Papeete, Tahiti, you may be met by an agent, or possibly someone passing himself off as an agent. Should you hire this person? That depends. On the open-air terrace of the Panama Canal Yacht Club (the only safe access point into Colon, on the
Caribbean side of the Canal), bonafide yacht agents will seek you out. For $500 and up they claim to do your paper work, secure your choice of tie-up options in the Canal, and bump you to the front of the line for a fast transit. Of these three promises, only the third is worth the cost of hiring an agent if transit time is crucial. (Except for around Easter, yachts can expect to transit within five to seven days of arrival in Colon, sometimes sooner.)
USCG to explain ANOA, ISPS interpretation at The Triton Connection Nov. 10. See page 3.
See AGENTS, page 15
Several discussions The Triton has had with megayacht captains lately have boiled down to how critical it is to find the right chemistry at work – chemistry between captains and their crew, between individual crew members, between expectation and reality. FROM THE BRIDGE So we decided LUCY CHABOT REED to ask the captains assembled for our monthly Bridge luncheon to consider the chemistry between captains and yacht owners. It used to be that owners and captains were the best of friends, even on megayachts. Is that still true today? Should it be? Does a higher level of professionalism inherently imply a lower level of camaraderie? Are captains more like employees (with someone else in charge) and less the person calling the shots onboard? As always, individual comments are not attributed to any one person so as to encourage frank and open discussion. The attending captains are identified in a photograph on page 9. Captains and yacht owners may very well become the best of friends – even in today’s environment of ever-larger
Two cities study their working waterfronts. See stories, pages 10-11.
megayachts – but the precursor to that must be a set of mutually agreed-upon ground rules, according to the captains. “If you don’t establish the relationship at the very beginning, it makes it real hard to know how to do your job.” “The day I started, I knew what was expected of me,” a captain in a new post said. “I haven’t slept since he got here, but I knew that going in.” There was some discussion on the value of written contracts that detail both general and specific goals for the megayacht from both the owner’s and the captain’s perspective. It is important, most captains agreed, that owners express their intentions for the yacht and captains express their desires for the job. “My last owner had a three-page offer letter,” a captain said. “It was magnificent. I’ve never seen anything like that in this industry before.” “Yeah, but very few owners want to put anything in writing,” another said. “Give us a write up, a mission statement,” one captain said. “How formal or informal do you want the yacht to be? And it should include what we need from them to do our job.” “What I ask owners is to be clear
See THE BRIDGE, page 9
Running from hurricanes, page 32.