Megayacht Owners Offered Head-of-State Level Security
Security is a global concern, and two professionals have formed a new company to offer top-level security for megayacht owners.
November 13, 2011
A new company called Command at Sea International is promising something that I haven’t seen publicly advertised before in the luxury yacht industry: the same level of security for megayacht owners that is regularly offered to world leaders facing threats of piracy, high-tech espionage, and global political instability.
CASI aims to provide an invisible shield to protect yacht owners from looming threats.
The CEO of CASI is Brian Peterman, a retired U.S. Coast Guard vice admiral who recently served as commander of the Atlantic Region from America to the Arabian Gulf. The company’s chairman is Joe Hagin, who was White House deputy chief of staff for operations from 2001 through 2008. In that role, Hagin managed the overall administrative, security, and military support structure surrounding the president of the United States.
While many yacht owners have personal security teams and systems in their home and business lives, the founders of CASI believe that those same high-powered people often leave loopholes in security when traveling aboard their megayachts.
“We understand fully that yachts are seen as recreational escape vehicles from the stresses of day-to-day life, and thus security services are often viewed as an intrusion into the joys that yachting provides,” the founders stated in a press release. “But we believe strongly that good, extremely effective security can be virtually unobtrusive, and provide owners, crew, and yacht managers with the peace of mind that comes from knowing the vast majority of threats have been assessed and managed by extremely competent professionals.”
Piracy remains a growing concern in the luxury yachting industry, particularly in locations such as the Arabian Gulf, the Southern Caribbean bordering South America, and Southeast Asia. Most often, megayachts face piracy attacks when they are in transit between well-established cruising regions, or when they stray from those regions into less-developed locations at sea.
Additional threats may be created by increasingly sophisticated technology at the helms of megayachts. Automated signals about GPS-based position, for instance, are designed for the safety of yachts but can become dangerous if used by people with ill intentions. The website Marine Traffic is an example of why. The site lets anyone go online and view the current position for megayachts that carry a current Automated Identification System. You just click on the icon and see everything from the yacht’s current position to its speed and reported destination.
Yet more threats can come from food and water poisoning, airborne attack, stowaways, natural disasters, and in-port crimes. That last one is especially timely given that the Caribbean cruising season is about to start, and reports of in-port robberies aboard yachts saw a spike last year in popular marinas at the hub on Sint Maarten.
CASI plans to minimize these risks and others by assessing each yacht’s unique security risks and then creating a plan to mitigate them. The company will work in tandem with yacht designers, builders, project managers, and crew, to create one-of-a-kind protocols for yachts with different styles and needs. Tools of security will include ballistic materials, cyber security, global intelligence, and high-tech deterrence equipment.
CASI has offices in Washington, D.C., as well as Miami, Florida. While the company is independent, it is a joint venture between the maritime security firm Eldred Rock Associates and the global security firm Command Consulting Group.
“We are here to enhance an owner’s security,” Peterman says, “and we believe this can best be accomplished by providing information, skills, resources, and experienced-based perspective to the other key players in a yacht owner’s team.”
CASI does not advertise which yachts it currently works with (or if it has worked with any at this point), so it’s hard to say whether the services actually provided are as good as the marketing claims. My guess, though, is that the less we hear about yachts in the CASI network, the safer they actually will be. And that, of course, is the ultimate goal in the modern cruising age.
Kim Kavin is an award-winning writer, editor and photographer who specializes in marine travel. She is the author of six books including Dream Cruises: The Insider’s Guide to Private Yacht Vacations, and is editor of the online yacht vacation magazine www.CharterWave.com.
