Amazon dreamin’ Captain finally gets chance to cruise The River.
B1 Step one
Playing defense
Longshore bill passes House.
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Vol. 5, No. 3
www.the-triton.com
DHS unveils small vessel strategy; captains meet.
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June 2008
By the numbers: CNI report dissects yacht market
Editor’s Notebook Lucy Chabot Reed
How many megayachts would you guess are in the world? Five thousand? Seven? More? Some yachting publications have printed a number as high as 8,000. And at least one crew-based business has latched onto that number, extrapolating how many crew that means, and sent out a press release alerting the industry there was a crew shortage crisis. Not so fast. We never really believed those high
numbers, but we didn’t have proof they were off. Until now. At special events in New York City and Ft. Lauderdale in May, Camper & Nicholsons International unveiled The (Super) Yachting Index (also called the Little Handbook of Superyachting). The worldwide brokerage firm did not conduct original surveys for this index, but rather compiled and analyzed data from existing sources, including those wild
numbers from glossy yachting magazines, and its own “private” data. While that might not seem like much new information on the surface, the report really is remarkable. Take the number of yachts, for example. The index figures there are 3,800 megayachts in the world. All the numbers are based on the premise that a megayacht is at least 80 feet in
Captains’ retirement: few specifics, varied hopes
SURVEY: WHEN THE YACHT IS IN TRANSIT, DOES THE PAYCHECK GO, TOO?
Most yachts compensate crew full time even when a yacht is in down time, as the 125-foot M/Y Milk & Honey was PHOTO/BRUCE GALBRAITH in May for an 11-day transit from St. Thomas to Palma.
Captains, managers protect crew income By Kelly Cramer The more professionally a megayacht is managed and the larger it is, the less likely crew will be forced to take time off without pay, according to this month’s Triton survey. At the request of a captain shipping a vessel to the Med for the summer, we asked megayacht captains what arrangement they or their vessel make
for crew members who may not be needed on the vessel for short periods of time. For example, most of this captain’s crew of seven were forced to take paid vacation time (if they have it) or are being temporarily laid off while the yacht is in transit. So we asked other captains how they handle these situations, which can span from a day of fumigation to a two- to three-week
See INDEX, page A23
transit. “I have not laid off any crew nor have I heard of it being done,” said the captain of an 118-foot private yacht. “I do not like to give the crew time off in the yard as that is when I need the most man power (and woman power). The boat should pay the crew and give them time off if they yacht is being shipped.
See SURVEY, page A16
Yachts and captains have been around for generations, but this contemporary business of running yachts has really only developed in the last 40 years. The time is coming when pioneers in yachting – not From the Bridge just captains Lucy Chabot Reed – have hit retirement age. Anecdotes abound of captains who hit certain points in their lives – most often, young children – and seek to come ashore. And there are others who use the occasion of children leaving the nest to get (back) into the industry. So we wanted to know how megayacht captains retire. Do they think about it and plan for it? Will age determine when it’s time, or is it something else? Will they work part-time at Wal-Mart and play golf? Will they ever stop handling boats, or will they sail until there’s nothing left? It seems their answers can be found in almost all of the above, although no one plans to work at Wal-Mart.
See BRIDGE, page A20