FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — No one ever thought pleasure boats would get this big.
Today’s yachts can approach the size of a football field — so big that the law puts them in the same category as freighters and cruise ships. That’s becoming a problem for the people who own or operate them.
Some captains, for example, find they need a different type of license to pilot the largest yachts. And some owners are surprised to learn that it takes an act of Congress to register their big yachts under the U.S. flag.
Fort Lauderdale has emerged as a hub for the problems because of its reputation as the “Yachting Capital of the World” and home to the U.S. Superyacht Association.
The troubles stem largely from maritime rules and laws written last century.
“Some laws are antiquated and obsolete,” said Superyacht Association Chair John Mann III. Back then, a 300-foot yacht was unimaginable, he said.
For some yacht captains, the old rules are starting to sting.
They can block a captain from moving up the career ladder when an owner upgrades to a larger yacht. Once yachts top 3,000 gross tons — roughly 300 feet long, or the size of a football field without end zones — international rules classify the ships as commercial vessels rather than pleasure boats.
That means yacht captains face starting over as deck hands on container ships and years logging hours there to earn the new license. And they’d do it just to return to a mega-yacht where they wouldn’t need to know freight-handling but rather how to pull into a remote island for a family to take a holiday.
To break that ceiling, a respected Fort Lauderdale school has come up with a solution in partnership with the Marshall Islands, a tiny Pacific Islands chain that competes to register yachts under its flag.
The partners have developed a training program that lets yacht captains learn what they need to meet international standards for the “Unlimited” yacht license — without the ship veterans spending years on commercial ships they never aim to pilot.
The Maritime Professional Training school just graduated the first captain through that program: Roberto Beretta, 50, an Italian who has spent 15 years in charge of yachts.
Beretta spent months flying from the Bahamas to Fort Lauderdale to complete classes, practice on simulators and take tests to earn the “Unlimited” certification. The cost for flights, hotels, classes and the like: about $30,000, he figures.
“Looking at the market, I see they’re producing many big yachts. This is a way to be part of the pool whenever they look for a captain for the very, very big ones,” Beretta said.
For now, Beretta’s license works only for mega-yachts that fly the Marshall Islands flag, but those yachts can go everywhere. And he hopes the license will be accepted later for yachts flying other flags, too.
“I’m trying to secure my future,” the captain said by phone from the Bahamas.
Growth spurt
To be sure, few yachts today top 3,000 gross tons, probably fewer than 100. But it wasn’t long ago that boats 80 feet and longer were so uncommon they were dubbed “super-yachts.”
The number of super-yachts worldwide now runs about 6,000, or roughly double the count about 15 years ago, said Mann, of the Superyacht Association.
About 40 percent of super-yachts fly the Cayman Islands flag and about 15 percent the Marshall Islands flag, Mann estimates.
That’s partly because some owners who want to fly the U.S. flag face hurdles. Old U.S. rules for boat registration classify ships starting at about 150 feet as commercial, so yachts that big “can’t be flagged in the U.S. without an act of Congress,” Mann said.
“We have folks all the time that say, ‘I want a Stars and Stripes on my boat,’ and they can’t get it,” Mann said. The association is working with the Coast Guard and other authorities to try to change that.
The troubles are more than a headache for the rich. Many small businesses in South Florida rely on yachts for income, from repair yards to electricians, plumbers, florists, designers and provisioners. The recreational boating industry had an impact in Broward County, home of Fort Lauderdale, alone estimated at $8.8 billion last year, according to a study by marine consultants Thomas J. Murray and Associates.
Many marine industry leaders draw parallels with the need to update rules for new tech companies or services from ride-sharing to drones.
Current rules for yacht captains, for example, are like “a doctor wanting to add a specialty and having to start at ground zero all over again,” said Amy Morley-Beavers, vice president of regulatory compliance and academic affairs, explaining why Maritime Professional Training started its new licensing program.
While rules for commercial ships keep updating, Morley-Beavers said, “the yachting part of the marine industry is often overlooked.”
