Oscar Siches

The title does not reflect what I am thinking now but it is the closest simple description I have found.

 

Many groups, societies and well ment people make it possible that trainees can join workshops or join the crew onboard to learn the “real things” of the nautical careers they chose. I am picking the example of Phil Wade, of oversize emotional heart and legendary yachting fame, who organised some nine years with another SA yachting friend, a charity for South African unprivileged children, allowing them to learn about yachting and become yacht crew or yachting technicians. Marine Inspirations, inspired in “time to give back to the industry” have since trained both female and male kids and opened for them the possibility of a promising future within the yachting industry. The children are given theoretical training in South Africa, and the ones who better assimilate the learning are taken on a two-week trip to Palma to assist with regattas, visit shipyards and yachting support companies, and sometimes do some sailing too. Other pupils are placed as apprentices onboard or at yachting supplies companies.

 

So far so good. This organised and recognised ONG can show results with successful cases of youngsters now part of the yachting community, who otherwise would have suffered the traditional limitation to find quality jobs. Beautiful story, but we must now find the first cultural blockage to their further development: the on-the-job training. Of course, someone without experience must start with the basic chores of the trade, but that period must last only the strictly necessary time, and bring the person to the next level, taking more responsibilities and being allowed to make mistakes which are indelible experiences. Assigning higher levels of (surveyed) decision-making is the next step, and letting them fail and learn from it is necessary.

 

Too many managers accepting trainees keep them away from decisions or machinery operating afraid they could make a dangerous mistake. That does not help in gaining experience; management should limit the mistakes a trainee can make and trust the person to take the proper reaction if things go wrong. If I would have deckhand trainees on a yacht, aiming to get their officer’s ticket, of course I would not go to my cabin letting them take a night watch alone, but instead stay sleeping close by the bridge to check everything now and then and be ready to react on a call for help (I did that during my deliveries). The fear of something going wrong is with us trainers, expressing our insecurity. Our knowledge and experience should give us the peace of mind to see a trainee as another variable in the system that should be monitored but not limited to the new tasks being learned, remembering that making your own mistakes is the best experience. Novel doctors must practice a few years after graduating under (but not limited by) a seasoned doctor’s supervision before they can practice alone.

 

The method is used in many disciplines, but would not work if the trainees cannot perform under real conditions. In helicopter pilot training, you are sent to fly solo after 30 hours with an instructor. The aerospace industry is highly conscious of safety, but the apparent dangerous learning protocol works. Those two situations can be more dangerous than mistaking fishermen’s lights for shore ones just showing up above the horizon, wrongly tying down a mooring line, or pinpointing a plot in the chart a few miles off. Trainees with special abilities will excel in handling their assigned job situations, and be identified early in their career as an industry promise. These examples can be extrapolated to each and all duties in our nautical (and other) professional worlds. Let us eliminate our fears and give our (needed) followers the opportunities they deserve.

 

Oscar Siches, CMP, GMBA Spain
Tel: +34 667 494 858
Email: oscar.siches@gmba.blue

 

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Disclaimer: Global Marine Business Advisors is a registered legal entity and is a network of independent marine industry advisors. In all articles the opinions expressed are those of the author and does not necessarily reflect those of GMBA.

My connection with Greece started in 1983, when I was skipper (captain) of a Dutch 12m sailing boat, taking groups of small boats on a two-week round tour to the south of Peloponnesus. I recognized characteristics of the Greek idiosyncrasy with those of ours in Argentina: the welcoming attitude, the permanent moaning about the state of the economy, the solid resolution to survive any coming bad times, the very strong feeling of the universe ending at the limits of their comfort zone.

 

When you sail for pleasure, what is important, as Kavafis stated, is to make way, but it is the arrival which always creates a very strong impression. An arrival always touches  the heart. It can generate comfort, disappointment, worry, happiness, safety. Greece has the blessing of generating pleasure, happiness, comfort, authenticity. Maybe it is due to the fact that they have been welcoming boats for over 3000 years that has refined this almost religious feeling? Maybe Poseidon decided to make it happen forever?

 

Everybody loves Greece and the Greek nautical industry seems to ignore it. Is it to protect the country against modern invaders that could spoil the coastal natural resources?  If so, I find it a bit of an extreme reaction: Greece is very far from a boat density that could harm the environment, far from a saturation that would spoil the beauty of its coastal features, both continental and islands. I feel a missing pride of the great Greek seafaring nation, and its modern development as a nautical industry. It seems Greeks live with their back to the sea. Is it lack of knowledge of the great yachtsmen of a non-so-distant past? Onassis invented the superyachts with his “M/Y Christina” in the early ’50. He made Monaco his homeport, but all the cruises with politicians, singers, actors and socialites from around the whole world were done on the Ionian and the Aegean seas.  Stavros Niarchos bought his “S/Y Creole” around the same time, both boats remaining classic beauties. The Livanos and the Latsis families have yachting histories, dating back to then times when they were the rulers of the world’s shipping routes. When “Greek” was synonymous with shipowner.

 

They really ruled the waves in a far more realistic way than the British. But I guess that is not taught at schools and not for lack of opportunities or events. Little celebrating was done when King Constantin II won a gold Olympic medal in the Dragon class in 1960.   The yachting tradition is fading away and is resuscitated by the nautical tourist, who is good, but cannot replace a national culture, tradition, and pride. It is not difficult to take steps to bring Greece back to the nautical scene but it is the nautical industry that must make it happen.  We must spread the word, of course in publications and conferences but in schools, associations, and social gatherings.  We must make the effort to broadcast the message and not wait for people to come to us. We can tell stories of ancient and modern sailors, of traditions, of curiosities, of sustainability. We can organize short outings during weekends in municipality boats (police, fire fighting, garbage collecting), brokers and shipyard boats, and voluntary boat owners. We can include people as crew in regattas, both as participants as well as organizers, creating regattas to emulate ancient travel as Troy to Crete or Hydra to Rhodes.  We can organize visits to both shipyards and workshops, training sessions for people interested in a career in yachting.  The list is unlimited if some effort is made.

 

I am now thinking that a simple magazine with yachting and nautical stories and facts could be published monthly and distributed through local marinas, harbour offices, brokers, and yacht agencies.  Another way would be to elect a Prime Minister that is already a consummated yachtsman, more difficult but not impossible😊. But those shock moves and reactions fade as fast as they happen. I believe in consistently laying the groundwork and creating the foundations for something to grow and transcend. Over time it can reach the critical mass necessary to generate the momentum to keep the activity in motion. It is us who can initiate it, and the young generation (no exclusions) that must perpetuate it.  Greece has the enormous advantage of being able to learn from the mistakes of other Mediterranean countries. Greece is pure and unspoiled; the deep blue of her sea and her infinite coast is there to be loved and enjoyed by locals and visitors.

 

Oscar Siches, CMP, GMBA Spain
Tel: +34 667 494 858
Email: oscar.siches@gmba.blue

 

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Disclaimer: Global Marine Business Advisors is a registered legal entity and is a network of independent marine industry advisors. In all articles the opinions expressed are those of the author and does not necessarily reflect those of GMBA.

One’s rights finish where another’s rights start. No doubt exists that Extinction Rebellion protested at The Superyacht Forum in a civilized way, with the organizers being intelligent enough to bring the protesters on stage at the conference to share their views.  But what Extinction Rebellion preach is a utopia focused on an apparently easy target.

 

In the world we live in, any legal and successful business achievement generates earnings for its owner: modest earnings for a small business, or huge earnings for multinational ones.  Governments rule the conditions in which those earnings can be kept, that is part of the so-called Free Economy of the World. Some people can have properties and cars adequate for a basic quality of life, and some other people (the very few) can afford various enormous, and sometimes historical properties, with cars costing hundreds of thousands of euros, works of art that museums cannot afford, or even large yachts.  Large yachts are not too many and are used not too often, and a calculation of their CO2 footprint is now possible thanks to the YETI method. The effort being made to reduce emissions, use alternative fuels, and improve design and propulsion efficiency is certainly benefitting smaller boats, both leisure and commercial. This is like Formula 1, which has for years, helped improve road and people’s safety, develop steering, and brake systems, and reduce consumption in people’s cars.

 

Nobody needs a 130m yacht to have a holiday, I agree, but such yachts are paid 100% by private money and provide two of the legs of sustainability (social and economic), including large taxes to governments. Nobody needs a 550.000-euro Ferrari to drive every day to work and back. Or need to live in a house with 25 rooms (unless royalty) and have another two or three huge properties, empty most of the time. Large yachts are easy to blame for such excess but are not the only ones.

 

Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov * decided in 1917 that no family had the right to live in a big house and he forced change, filling up the homes with as many families as possible.  73 years later the system collapsed and proved inviable, as it did not work.

 

Let’s regulate reasonably, learn from history, use our experience, and not use cheap populistic extremes to make a point. To complain is the easiest road to take. The only valid and useful complaint is the one which also proposes feasible actions to achieve the changes. We, as educated human beings, should always take that road.

 

*Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov: LENIN

 

Oscar Siches, CMP, GMBA Spain
Tel: +34 667 494 858
Email: oscar.siches@gmba.blue

 

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Disclaimer: Global Marine Business Advisors is a registered legal entity and is a network of independent marine industry advisors. In all articles the opinions expressed are those of the author and does not necessarily reflect those of GMBA.

At a fishing village in the Scottish firths, the youngest of the Barr brothers, from a known seafarer family, was born in 1864. His mother, afraid of losing all her children at sea, led him to learn a trade on land and got him a job as a greengrocer. Charlie’s experience was short-lived on land, the saltpeter in the air intoxicated him and one day he decided to run away and found a position as a cabin assistant on a coastal trade schooner. In 1885 his brother John Barr was hired to take the 16-meter Clara to New York and Charlie embarks with him. In 1886, at age 22, he was called back to England to take over the Fife 40ft Minerva, and with her he crosses the Atlantic again. He wins numerous regattas, rising to fame as a talented and innovative skipper and making some money, as many regattas had monetary prizes then.

 

Charlie Barr, short at only 1.5 meters, with a bushy mustache, he was a man of few words. Despite his Glasgow dialect that Americans found very difficult to understand, he attracted the attention of the big Americans shipowners of the time (Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Morgan) and took on American nationality.

 

At the helm of Ingomar, he accepted the challenge of Kaiser Wilhelm II’ Meteor, in a series of regattas organized by the Royal Yacht Squadron and brought a club representative onboard during the races. At one point in the regatta the Kaiser, at the helm of Meteor, approached with good bows and the club representative yells at Charlie: “Captain, the Kaiser! Turn!”

Reply from Barr: “The Kaiser stops being Kaiser when he’s at the helm of a racing yacht!”

 

The two yachts maneuver on a tight near miss but without damage as the Kaiser had come about before. The regulation stipulated that the victor could choose the trophy. That afternoon, Charlie Barr requests the Kaiser to lower Meteor’s pennant and be given to him as a trophy. The Kaiser objects, but Barr doesn’t budge. Today, that pennant is still on display at the Royal Yacht Squadron. Charlie Barr was hired to skipper Columbia, winning the 1899 and 1901 America’s Cup, and Reliance, with which he was awarded the 1903 one. Nine wins over nine regattas. 84 years would pass until Dennis Conner could equal the record, and 100 years until Russell Coutts did.

 

In 1904 Kaiser Wilhelm launched a challenge of crossing the Atlantic. Charlie Barr was skipper of the 57-meter schooner Atlantic, belonging to Mr. Marshall, who would take part in the regatta with six guests. Charlie hires 51 fishermen from Nova Scotia as crew. Regatta rules required to remove the propellers and display them on deck. He takes the hard route towards the north and following the orthodromia. On the sixth day they do a 341-mile run. The ninth day Atlantic sails on the reach by a following storm, just a small jib and a square sail up. The decks were swept by the waves and two men were busy with the steering wheel. The owner Mr. Marshall requests from Charlie Barr to head into the wind and wait until the storm eases. The skipper answers: “Mr. Marshall, you engaged me to win this race, and that is what I intend to do”. He then accompanies him to his cabin, closes the door and locks it. Charlie Barr and Atlantic won the Kaiser Cup and broke the record for crossing the Atlantic. The record was kept for 75 years. He died of a heart attack during a visit to his family in Southampton at age 46, in 1911. He is still recognized as the best skipper of all times.

 

 

Oscar Siches, CMP, GMBA Spain
Tel: +34 667 494 858
Email: oscar.siches@gmba.blue

 

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Disclaimer: Global Marine Business Advisors is a registered legal entity and is a network of independent marine industry advisors. In all articles the opinions expressed are those of the author and does not necessarily reflect those of GMBA.

It was, for many of us taking our first steps in sailing, the price to pay if we wanted to earn the right to peek overboard, to act as counterweight, or be assigned the responsibility of tending a jib sheet.  Different dinghies would carry tins, plastic containers, even square ones, and the novice sailor duty was collecting the bilge water and throwing it outside. The scooping was done by rubbing the bailer’s opening against the keel, which due to the constant friction, kept the area in bare wood, no matter how many layers of paint was applied.

 

Down there in the bilge, a parallel world was happening. It was a world of noises: of the water against the hull, the snapping of ropes in and out of the cleats, of a lack of reference when going about, in which case implied to change sides to the other side of the centreboard following the bilge water.  A world of short, sharp shouts to that crew, reminding the galley slaves who helped win more than a crucial battle. A crew that was supposed to be thankful for being given the opportunity to forge the first steps to becoming real crew members. I remember two boats where I had such a duty: a Lightning, an open dinghy 5,95m of USA design, and a Dragon, for me one of the most elegant designs of all times. The big difference apart of the 9m LOA is the dragon has a keel, no centreboard box in the middle. A higher freeboard of the Dragon made a better resonance box and the water noises sounded like thunder, surrounding the cockpit box where the helmsman and the crew danced their magic with ropes, weight shift and the bronze genoa sheet winches with the under-deck handles.

 

This story tells the emotional part of learning to sail, a practice which is disappearing, giving way to efficient building techniques, very light and strong materials, and improving the performance of modern craft to levels unimaginable 20 years ago.  Today, you could find an instruction book to learn sailing, in 14 languages, thanks to CE rules. But you can always tell when someone has been through the basics, no matter the position the person holds now in the industry.  Norwegians, for instance, grow up through the nautical business starting often with clinker-built rowing or sailing boats, plus they have the history and the culture. Most of Northern Europe shares a nautical history and tradition, but the tendency is fading when we go South towards the Med.  Norway has a recreational boat for each 7 inhabitants, the figure for UK is 55, and for Spain 135.

 

I had a similar emotional experience a few weeks ago at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. There is a car and mobility exhibition called Motion, curated by Sir Norman Foster. The cars exhibited have been built from very early 1900 to this day. But there are cars of the ‘50s and the ’60 that triggered my admiration. Why? Because I remember seeing some of them on the street, admiring some in magazines and movies. Examples include the Aston Martin DB5 James Bond drove in Goldfinger, a Porsche 911, an E Type Jaguar or a more mundane Ford Mustang 68 with Anouk Aimee enjoying a ride on a beach. The icons and the dreams would stay forever unachievable, yet fully enjoyable. They are classic and a tradition, defining an epoch and a way of living. Life takes us through unique experiences, and although we do recognise them immediately as such, time must bring up the treasure from within them and present it to us for our full enjoyment and get us marked forever with it.

 

It is easy to recognize an early nautical experience: you hear the person, you see the body language, you witness those smiles across the whole face. You communicate with a language behind the language and feel immediately comfortable with it. Your roots are such of a boy being invited to bail the bilges, old fashioned yachting.

 

Oscar Siches, CMP, GMBA Spain
Tel: +34 667 494 858
Email: oscar.siches@gmba.blue

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Disclaimer: Global Marine Business Advisors is a registered legal entity and is a network of independent marine industry advisors. In all articles the opinions expressed are those of the author and does not necessarily reflect those of GMBA.

We as an industry have for long been guilty of not analysing or forecasting in a unified manner. The western world learnt the lesson the hard way and has started to adopt strategic alliances to reduce the possibility of being caught empty-handed by an uncontrollable situation and having to fend off disaster alone.

 

This is happening in multinationals, small businesses and even amongst freelancers. For example: a hamburger restaurant could form an alliance with a bakery and a butcher shop, with whom it would agree to sell x hamburgers per day. The three of them would ensure those sales, and each one would be a priority customer for the other two. Adjusting prices, variety and qualities would be the immediate actions to carry out. And if the business struggles, there will be 3 minds to consider possible options.

 

A week ago, I finished reading a book called Reimagining Industry Growth, by Daniel Varroney, a US business strategy consultant. It narrates how five industries, including the nautical industry, grew and became stronger by strengthening sector associations and applying transparency. He also mentions they hired general managers with proven track records and knowledge, not only in the nautical industry, but of management. The book discusses the impact of the pandemic and how the five sectors (nautical, asphalt, bakeries, automation and frozen foods) managed not only to come out victorious but also achieved more efficiency, with better conditions for workers, and with regulations more adjusted to the daily functioning of a business. How far are we from it, and how it hurts! Yes, the US is its own market of 320 million people, but in Europe we are 720 million, and some countries, especially in the north, are already adopting these practices.

 

Here in Spain ANEN, the Spanish MIA, got off to a very good start by applying those principles, but a few years later it reverted to the more traditional model of doing what was necessary without alienating the government too much. ANEN gets very good results, but still a fraction of what is needed.

 

SYBass, Association of Superyacht Shipyards, was created in 2007 in the Netherlands. Theo Hooning, its founder, is an economist and spent 14 years in charge of the car and truck associations at the Amsterdam Congress Center RAI. Hooning continues today in his position as general secretary of SYBass, which brings together 22 shipyards of yachts over 40m from the Netherlands, England, Germany, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, the USA, Finland, Turkey, Taiwan and Australia. There is no door that SYBass cannot open, and most of the current regulations for superyachts are analysed and commented on by this association, which is also part of IMO, the International Maritime Organization. Yes, it cost a lot of money to get it up and running, but today the benefits are substantial.

 

Meanwhile, here in the Balearic Islands, Spanish leaders in the sailing community continue to cry about the registration tax. The traditional justification that “it is complicated” only speaks ill of those who state it and highlights the lack of desire to make the effort to bring about meaningful change. As I have stated before, we need to find common ground and make representations to government that they just can’t ignore. It doesn’t mean the powers that be will immediately agree to everything, but rather that the nautical sector clearly communicates its needs, and together viable solutions are crafted.

 

I am a romantic, and what I am proposing is this article needs a strong collective will, then we are halfway there!

For further information
Oscar Siches, CMP
Email: oscar.siches@gmba.blue or info@gmba.blue
Mobile:+34 667 494 858
Website: www.gmba.blue

 

Disclaimer: Global Marine Business Advisors and its associated website www.gmba.blue are not registered legal entities. GMBA is a network of independent marine industry advisors.

Macho and quarrelsome, he was saved by the tales he created in the minds of those who read him. I came across “The Old Man and the Sea” when I was 13 years old, and throughout reading it, I developed an admiration for the fish, a dislike and fascination for sharks, a compassion for Santiago and a certain boredom at the long description of his thoughts.

That reading left its mark and led me, years later, to look for other of his works that took place at sea. “Islands in the Stream,” posthumous, is a story that takes me with almost telepathic meticulousness to the Caribbean I met in Bimini and the Bahamas in the late 70’s. I became interested in the person, the Ernest Hemingway who was born, lived three lives in a single lifetime and shot himself with his shotgun of choice 19 days short of his 62nd birthday, when he realized that he could neither control nor run away from his ghosts anymore. With “To have and have not” I confirmed myself as a horny South American because what comes back to my memory is Lauren Bacall in her 30s, the heroine of the movie based on the book, playing a tough girl with legs as long as from Cuba to Miami. The book reading is great.

Hemingway lived in Cuba from 1939 to 1960, and his visits to the fishing village of Cojímar and long talks with the local fisherman Gregorio Fuentes, originally from the Canary Island of Lanzarote and future skipper of the “Pilar”, were the basis for “The old man and the sea” and its main character, Santiago. This novel won him the Púlitzer Prize in 1953 and the Nobel Prize (Literature) in 1954. Hemingway always liked challenges. He had to permanently prove how macho he was: he did it as a war correspondent, hunter in Africa, fishing marlins in the Gulf Stream off Cuba or the Bimini Islands where he kept sharks away from his catches with a Thompson submachine gun that he always carried on board, and befriending bullfighters what would, by being close to them, associate his image to the tough, bravest guys.

More than the sea, he liked deep-sea fishing, fights in bars and shagging anything that moved. In 1934 he commissioned Wheeler Shipbuilding, Brooklyn Shipyards, New York, to build his “Pilar”, a nearly 12m mahogany and oak motorboat. He paid her $ 7,495 that he requested in advance for the articles he would write, to Arnold Gringich, editor of Esquire magazine. “Pilar”, nickname of Pauline, his second wife, had a Chrysler 75 HP gasoline engine with which it reached 16 knots, and a smaller Lycoming engine (also gasoline) each with its shaft and propeller. The Lycoming served to propel Pilar at a very low speed when she dragged the baits. Hemingway was a heavy spender, he liked partying and luxury. He did not go through money difficulties because he married wealthy ladies and knowing that his novels always sold, the publishers advanced what he needed when he was short of funds. “Papa”, a nickname that he gave himself and by which his followers know him to this day, vividly described scenes of fishing, seduction and bravery, but we nautical enthusiasts lack reading how the waves hit the bow and exploded In an uncontrollable spray, how the clouds could almost be touched with the hand or how the roll knocked down the beer bottles from the cockpit table. Gregorio Fuentes was in charge of the Pilar until Papa’s death, and he was the one who really knew about the sea. He died of cancer at the age of 104 there, in Cojímar, stating that he longed for his fishing trips with Papa every day. He who was the inspiration for the character Santiago could not enjoy the story: Gregorio did not know how to read or write.

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Oscar Siches CMP , GMBA Spain
Email: oscar.siches@gmba.blue or info@gmba.blue
Mobile:+34 667 494 858
Website: www.gmba.blue

N.B. Global Marine Business Advisors and its associated website www.gmba.blue are not registered legal entities. GMBA is a network of independent marine industry advisors.

The difference between a Stateman and a Politician is that the Stateman sacrifices time and energy to achieve the best level of living for society, while the Politician tends to blindly obey the Party, and protect their position and status first. A famous contemporary Spanish writer defined the moral pains southern Europe suffers as “having chosen the wrong God”. The Northern European God is sober, hardworking, pragmatic, modern and encouraging progress while in Southern Europe (Spain, Italy and Portugal) there prevails an antique God: vengeful, opulent, and menacing. While the power of the Catholic faith has faded, the cultural legacy left behind affects today’s social (and governmental) behaviour.

Tradition is another strong influence. Nautical activity was born as yachting in the UK when in 1660 King Charles II was given, by the city of Amsterdam, a 60-foot sailing yacht called “Mary” as a present to commemorate the restoration of the monarchy. Yachting then became known as a “Sport of Kings” and in Spain today, we are paying dearly for that fame.

The definition of “pleasure craft” was only legally accepted in Spain in 1984. Until then, a yacht was a small ship and had to fulfil all ship’s rules and regulations.  You needed a ship’s crew license to skipper a 7m (23ft) boat.  Most ancient laws and regulations were not adapted to the nautical industry and marine leisure activities, and that has not changed much. To skipper a boat of 15m (50ft) you needed to have a master license which involves months of practice at sea duly registered as crew member on a ship or a fishing boat. On a different note, Spain practices auto-protectionism by not accepting some EU safety equipment like life rafts, which have to be certificated by the Ministry of the Merchant Marine first. It does not accept GPS as locating equipment when sailing offshore/ocean: you must carry a chronometer, a sextant, all-star and sun reduction tables and star and sun almanac. It sounds a bit archaic.

Well, it is archaic! Nautical associations are struggling to modify leisure maritime law, and whilst the government department in charge of it is willing to modernize the rules and regulations, there is a mammoth bureaucratic structure behind them unwilling to modernise. They are not willing to be identified with “elitist groups” (yachting sector) and they block even the most well-structured and documented efforts to modernize the rules. Countries like UK, France and the Netherlands adopted nautical sports across all levels of society , where are more popular than tennis, golf, or horse riding, as a hobby.

Society adopts ways of living, including sports and hobbies, inherited, or maybe shared by family, school, or media. There is no coincidence that in countries with top sports figures, those sports are popular and accepted, even if they are as different as tennis, soccer, motorcycling or snow skiing. There are sports that are labelled as elitist, as polo, fencing or yachting. And here comes the socio-political effect: have you seen politicians in a final match in Wimbledon?  Yes.  In the EU finals of soccer? Yes. At the arrival of the America’s Cup or the take-off of the Vendee globe? No. In countries lacking a strong nautical tradition, politicians are careful with their attitudes towards nautical activities because elite-related sympathies can be a killer, seen as defending and backing up the rich. It does not matter that 80% of all the boats in the world are under 8m and cost less than a mid-size family car:  there is an unreasonable thinking that everything nautical or yachting related is only for the wealthy.

It should then be no surprise that those governments do not pay attention to the needs and requirements of the nautical industry or their associations. They are seen as a small group, from an unpopular economic class (educated/ affluent) and they do not want to be identified with the sector.

There is a snowball effect: school holidays are structured for snow days, not for sailing; impediments to the creation of new yacht harbours; lack of nautical/ maritime subjects at school; very few public sailing schools; archaic maritime law.

There is a Spanish matriculation tax (once off) of 12% plus 21% VAT on every new boat, power or sail, longer than 8m.  Not exactly a promotion of the nautical activities. Originally it was a luxury tax for products entering EU the country.  But the origin remains: it is luxury tax.

How does all this affect the industry?  The traditional nautical sportsman swallows and keeps going as he can, maybe buying a smaller boat and sailing closer to the shore to minimize the tough license needed, the equipment to carry onboard and the matriculation tax.

The newcomer considers  part-time ownership, club-ownership, or charter.

The shipyards do what they can to stay afloat, the ones with a respected international name export as much as they can, very little output is purchased by Spanish boat owners.

Most middle size and small size shipyards went out of business after 2008.

The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic in Spain is pretty much the same everywhere: people went in search of  the freedom they could not find ashore or by traveling.  But I see it as a temporary effect, an ephemeral oxygen bubble.

More than 10 years ago, in the Netherlands, the nautical association HISWA gave journalist students the task of finding out which members of Government owed pleasure boats or were keen yachtsmen. It took a year. When the results were gathered, politicians were ranked by influential positions held.  HISWA started routing their administrative needs directly to the government members who knew what nautical activities are all about. After a few experiences, the processing of such requests was achieved in half of the time it took before.  And Netherlands is not one of the countries dragging the nautical activities, on the contrary.

In the USA, the nautical industry has its day in Congress to discuss and round up the lobbying done during the previous year. What can we expect here in the South? Little I am afraid.

Possible solution? Lobbying seriously (and with high cost). In my 12 years as ICOMIA member and contributor, I have seen serious lobbying in countries and in the European Parliament deliver very good results. We need to educate the bureaucrats and the nautical industry needs to be persistent. Now we are always there to beg but not engaging enough in making things happen. We just shout (and not even loudly). Full stop. That will never bring us far.

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Oscar Siches CMP , GMBA Spain
Email: oscar.siches@gmba.blue or info@gmba.blue
Mobile:+34 667 494 858
Website: www.gmba.blue

N.B. Global Marine Business Advisors and its associated website www.gmba.blue are not registered legal entities. GMBA is a network of independent marine industry advisors.