The Yacht Insider: Green Is the New Gold
Across the charter world, companies are offering green alternatives like filtered water and carbon offsets to clients.
December 10, 2009
Typically, the biggest, newest yachts get all the attention at the annual, industry-only charter yacht show on Antigua because, well, they’re the biggest, newest yachts. But that’s not what brokers and crew are talking about on the docks. This year, for the first time, I’m hearing a swell of conversations about even the most gold-plated yachts going green.
At the 2009 Antigua Charter show, it's all about going green.
In the span of my first two hours at this year’s show, three charter brokers told me how impressed they had been last month, when the entire Tortola charter fleet banded together to provide filtered water in reusable cups instead of bottled water in plastic containers. Before lunchtime today, owner-operator Dennis Barbeau of the 60-foot sailing catamaran Diamond Girl II told me that he was preparing to install solar panels to cut down on generator use. I then ran into Trish Cronan of Ocean Getaways, who invited me to join the newly formed Environmental Committee within the professional charter broker organization CYBA International. My last yacht tour today was aboard the brand-new, 198-foot CMN Cloud 9, where Chief Engineer Stuart Laidlaw proudly showed me the yacht’s onboard sewage treatment plant—which ensures that solid waste stays out of the world’s waters.
Stuart Laidlaw shows off the onboard sewage treatment plant aboard Cloud 9.
All of this in just the first eight hours of the boat show, and absolutely industry-wide, from the smallest sailboats to one of the largest motoryachts.
“I want every charter broker to educate their clients about plastic water bottles,” Cronan told me as she described the new CYBA committee. “I want them, instead of having their clients suggest bottled water, to request charters aboard yachts with filtration systems—which of course will then encourage more of the yachts to get those systems.
“After that,” she continued, “the next item on my list is carbon offsets.”
These agenda items are not entirely new to charter, but this is the first time I’ve heard them being discussed on an industry-wide scale by so many people. Early leaders included Camper & Nicholsons International, which manages the world’s largest fleet of crewed charter yachts and has been on the carbon-neutral bandwagon for several years. Retail agencies such as BoatBookings offer carbon-offset calculators on their websites. A London-based company called Yacht Carbon Offset is a sponsor of this year’s Antigua show, hoping to get even more companies to do the same.
To my eyes, the wave of charter industry support for environmentalism appears headed for a crest in the next year or two, perhaps worldwide. That’s exciting stuff. I truly cannot wait for tomorrow.
