Chefs, too If rotation works elsewhere, why not in the galley?
A30 One big yard
Reclaim H2O
Two Mass. yards merge. A8
Le Grand Bleu gets Dragonfly. B1 Vol. 5, No.6
www.the-triton.com
September 2008
Captains go under the microscope in sea trials As the season for boat sales approaches, we thought it a good time to ask captains about sea trials. Not the kind they take alone with the engine guys to make sure that overhaul worked out OK, but the kind that’s required for a sale, the kind with surveyors From the Bridge and brokers, Lucy Chabot Reed potential owners
and sometimes anyone else who has an interest in spending a couple hours at sea. Yeah, those. The ones the banks require any buyer to get, the one the seller’s captain hates. “The worse job is the captain being surveyed,” one captain said. “[The surveyor’s] job is to find problems. Most captains take that personally. They are the one who’s been on the boat, taking care of it. “It’s like getting a report card in
grade school,” another captain said. As always, individual comments are not attributed to any one person in particular so as to encourage frank and open discussion. The attending captains are identified in a photograph on page A20. These captains agreed that surveys are a good idea before any major yard period, even if the boat isn’t for sale. “The survey before can be just as valuable as the one after,” one captain said.
Another captain does his own version of a sea trial whenever he’s headed to the yard, big job or not. “We do our own when we’re coming in,” he said. “An hour out on our way back from the Bahamas, we run it at RPMs and record everything.” When it’s time for a sale, though, sea trials and surveys are an important event. So how do captains find a surveyor?
See BRIDGE, page A20
TRITON SURVEY
‘THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WE HAVE IN THE INDUSTRY’
Most yachties make the time to get exercise By Lucy Chabot Reed
Do U.S. yachting hubs such as Ft. Lauderdale feel the absence of megayachts? More than 23 percent of foreign PHOTO/LUCY REED captains in a recent survey say they don’t visit because of inconsistent enforcement.
Inconsistency still dogs U.S. customs Crew Unlimited survey: 41.5 percent of captains say procedures fluctuate By Lucy Chabot Reed In an effort to compile statistics that might fire up officials in Washington, Crew Unlimited surveyed its clients on several aspects of U.S. customs and immigration. Of the 402 foreign captains and captains on foreign-registered vessels who responded to the survey, 42.5 percent said they received consistent procedures from U.S. customs and immigration officials. An almost equal number – 41.5 percent – reported their experiences
as inconsistent. “That’s ridiculous,” said Ami Ira, owner of Crew Unlimited, a crew placement agency in Ft. Lauderdale. “That should be 90 percent consistent. That’s the biggest problem we have in the industry. “The ultimate goal is to get the Department of State to put marine guidelines on letterhead and distribute them to all the individual customs offices,” she said. The U.S. Superyacht Association is organizing a captains briefing during the Ft. Lauderdale International Boat
Show and has invited high-ranking officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including customs and immigration officials, as well as from the Department of State, which issues visas in embassies around the world. “If we can get them to say this visa is appropriate for yacht crew, and here’s what you need to get it, we’ll go a long way in resolving one of the biggest issues crew face when coming to the United States,” said John Mann,
See IMMIGRATION, page A22
The summer is coming to an end and many crew are beat from long days, long weeks, and a long season. So the subject of exercise sounds like homework after exams: More work? Haven’t we done enough? Exercise – regular exercise that gets the heart rate up for an extended period of time – is vital to mental as well as physical health. But we have no idea how busy crew can fit it all in. So we asked. And we were surprised. Of the 117 captains and crew who took this month’s survey, almost 81 percent make time to exercise. Of the 19 percent who didn’t, more than half said they didn’t have to because their jobs kept them fit. “This is an 82-foot boat with a crew of two,” said a captain in his 40s. “With wash downs and other physical work, I found my uniform loose on me within the first month.” Sounds like we’ve got a pretty fit industry, or so it seems. As we asked more questions, we found that 56.5 percent of those who exercise say they still weigh more than they would like. “Yacht crewing takes a tremendous toll on crew health,” a captain in his 50s said. “We see it in ourselves and many of our friends. Missed doctors visits,
See SURVEY, page A16