SAILING THE SEAS OF SUSTAINABILITY

It is a really hard nut to crack: evaluating our true impact on the world around us whilst taking into account every element of what we find ourselves doing on a daily basis. These days, I am more frequently being asked about the green revolution in boating – over and above anything else, really. Something I never fathomed I would see a mere six years after I joined the marine industry. This is ‘automotive talk’, surely? No ‘proper boater’ would entertain a conversation about eco motor yachts at this point in our history, would they? I am thinking about it. A lot.

“Electricity and water don’t mix!” was one comment I received at a boat show in Cannes three years ago. Along with an overwhelming cacophony of noise from my peers suggesting “the boat world will never follow suit!” after I posed a few questions on the subject. Well, that is what was being trumpeted around in the industry just months before a global pandemic made us all stop and think, and act, differently. Perhaps, now we realise we don’t need to wear a suit like the ones we did in the past? That overly corporate and rather ‘unenthusiastic to change’ suit. Like many, I have donned a suit quite a few times, although, truth be told, I’m rather suit averse these days – preferring to rock my Frank Zappa t-shirt when the moment permits, instead – even before the working from home shift.

I am still getting asked by clients and the media about our intentions to develop products that are cleaner and less harmful for the environment, for a number of reasons. Quite a few people know that I am a recent convert to electric cars. As a self-confessed ‘petrol head’, 2020 saw my switch over from a twin-turbo V8 guzzler to an EV. And not any old EV, a Porsche Taycan 4S, to be precise. Now, I realise it is in a slightly different league to your average EV on sale today in the UK, but what it did, still does, and promises to continue doing, has changed my entire outlook on what a daily driver should be and what true performance actually can be for an automobile that doesn’t frequent racetracks. More importantly, it has made me interrogate every aspect of the BEV world around us and listen to lots of industry professionals’ opinions on whether it is a step in the right direction … or not.

I for one, think it clearly is. It is a simple formula – no harmful emissions whilst in operation, an improving supply chain in the midst of an acrobatic technology leap, and ever-evolving clean power sources to re-charge with. Hey presto, the rest develops alongside. As for manufacturing impact, well that is perhaps the most hotly contested area remaining. And that is where a thorough understanding of impact – as we should all be aware of, with every little thing we do each day – needs to be laid out for everyone to see.

I have seen far too many comments about rare earth materials and EV batteries being cited as a main issue of concern to condemn EVs. In some instances, with little to no further thought applied to what a rare earth material actually is, or what the differences are between them and those classified as precious earth materials or critical earth materials. And then there is the treatment of batteries in EVs being addressed in total isolation, with no regard as to the volume of these same rare-, precious- or critical earth materials being consumed to manufacture just about everything with a battery or a circuit board that we use today. In an article by acs.org for ChemMatters (April 2015) they point out that a single iPhone contains 8 rare-earth elements, and other smartphone brands use as many as 16! Think: laptops, phones, LED lights, remote controls, computer hard drives, game consoles, medical equipment, laser devices, fibre optics, alarm system keypads… and just about every smart appliance screen you can imagine. The rare-earth element Lanthanum is not only used in EV batteries, but also to refine oil and also for camera lens production, according to an article published in Scientific American (October 2011).

Oh, and the non-EV cars we have been operating for decades use rare earth elements in their catalytic converters to grapple with exhaust emissions before they squeeze any gases out of their tailpipes. You may have read reports of the rise in catalytic converter theft? Now you know why. These materials are being used in so many things we interact with each and every day. It seems strange that EV naysayers can conveniently ignore this fact.

However, I do digress, as my intention was to tickle out a discussion on sustainability in the boat world, so let’s get back to that.

The industry itself is somewhat hiding behind a shroud of “we are too small” and “we are too niche” to really tackle this with as much conviction as the automotive world has clearly done, but I firmly believe that is all about to change. Perhaps legislation will corner us, as it has in the automotive world, however, as we are somewhat unnecessary and purely a luxury mode of transport, the driver will primarily be the desire of our customers. I can feel it already, and through the various client conversations that inevitably broach the subject, I can see the first motivator is social acceptance. More often than not, from within the family unit. I get comments like “the kids won’t accept it” quite a bit. Requests for alternatives to leather are coming in thick and fast, as well questions around construction supplies being swapped out for recycled or reconstituted (re-formed) materials. Requests for alternatives to teak, too. Emissions are mentioned rarely. It is often the elephant in the room.

One thing I have noticed from my ‘EV as a daily driver’ change, is the amount of people who comment on just how quiet my car is, and in turn it is having a real effect on how I personally perceive ambient noise whilst driving. I can hear what’s around me so much more, and I am now so aware of just how noisy regular cars are. I ask myself, what happens in around 5-6 years when the ambient noise of urban life or traffic has morphed into a quiet revolution? How much would a yacht starting up massive diesel engines in a beautiful marina seem at odds with our world? Heightened by the fact it is not in the midst of a concrete jungle but in picturesque serenity, the boat is the epicentre of leisurely activity seeking an escape from daily life.

As an industry insider, I grapple with this, along with many of my colleagues. We all care so much for the ocean, it is our playground. Often, I think that our close proximity to the sea predisposes many of us to feel compelled to address the issue of being as environmentally clean and friendly as possible. As I map it out in my mind, I see things getting really complicated, quickly. How do we get enough power out of present marinized battery technology in small enough packages? It seems like we would need an entire support vessel to simply carry the batteries to power the ‘clean’ yacht. What about the total propulsion system, the price of which would suffocate the total price of the yacht itself? Even if prices drop well below $100/kWh, would we get marinized tech at equitable costs? What about fuel cell technology? The life cycle of one of our large boats is often measured over 25-30 years, how do we future-proof the evolution of that technology to move with the times? Take a look at the depreciation of a 2018 hybrid or EV and you quickly realize that a boat has a unique challenge in that regard, given large initial values.

Due to an unpredictable ocean, what happens if you get stranded due to battery or fuel cell capacity constraints? And if we can overcome the efficiency dilemmas of salt-water to fuel cells to use the body of water we are in, do we still have enough power to actually use the yacht in a typical fashion? As I look at a typical yacht owner’s usage case, these questions become a huge punch up, and the viscosity of water really throws a few hammer blows into the mix. So, as far as I can tell, the industry is skirting these issues and focusing on what it can do, comfortably. Eco-friendly materials, swapping out components to reduce weight, hull-efficiency gains, hybrid studies, and looking towards the automotive industry as our saviour down the road. However, are we not a rather particular mode of transport? The only mode of transport - other than a bicycle - that hasn’t evolved to be cleaner than its original form, perhaps? Manpower is the cleanest way to travel, but as far as modes of transport that we have created are concerned, cars are becoming cleaner, trains have become cleaner, and aeroplanes are cleaning their act up, too.

Pic: Lakatoi - Papuan double hulled sailing ship with its characteristic crab claw shaped sails. Taken in the period 1903-1904. (Trustees of The British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA

We started off building boats out of timber, rope, wax, and sails. Only using manpower and the forces of nature to propel ourselves. So have we devolved, somewhat? We celebrate being at one with nature, being on the sea. Most boaters would agree when someone says, “the closer your bottom is to the surface of the water, the more alive you feel, the more connected you are to the ocean.” So, is the answer actually sitting right in front of us? Has it been present, and tried and tested for thousands of years? Not quite in line with the path we took when we started to motorise large yachts, but what if we were to start to re-shape how we use them to make some of the everyday attributes of motor yachts more irrelevant?

In a recent study presented in Scientific American (April 2021) and conducted by engineer Leidy Klotz and social psychologist Gabrielle Adams, it was revealed that our brains default to ‘addition’ rather than ‘subtraction’ when it comes to problem solving. So why are we not considering our abilities to simply take something away as an evolutionary step forward in boating?

One could therefore pose the question: "Do we need to forge forward with even more technology?"

Do we need to get to specific destinations quickly? What do we want a clean boat revolution to actually celebrate the environment in which we are in, or are we just making a mobile apartment with a hull and trying to make it cleaner by bolting on more bits and pieces that need to be fabricated and require energy in order to exist?

I was recently working with my team on a series of customer gifts, and the default position for just about everyone involved in the discussion was “recycled!” It seemed that everyone had strong views on the sustainability of the item and favoured the “made from old, discarded coke bottles” idea. But what if we just didn’t gift anything at all? I often feel strongly about conferences that I am asked to speak at. More often than not sustainability is on the agenda, yet on every chair in the auditorium someone places a cheap canvas laptop bag branded with the logos of the conference sponsors, and filled with printed brochures and leaflets, oh, and perhaps ‘another’ branded coffee flask or water bottle thrown in for good measure, too, because I for one desperately needed to add an 11th branded recycled water bottle to my stunning conference collection on a forgotten lower shelf in my kitchen cupboard. Less is undoubtedly more, if we are trying to clean up our act.

So, I get it, motor yachts are a particular experience. Exhilarating comfort. And for anyone sitting behind the wheel of a 70 ft motor yacht carving its way through a Mediterranean summer, it seems motor yachts are very far away from taking a leaf out of the sailing boat book. However, consider how our behaviour changed over the years towards hotel and holiday experiences. We used to dock into the hotel, use it as a place to sleep, shower and leave our possessions, and we would head out to explore – knowing not where we may eat or drink or dance or what sights we would see that day. We changed our holiday orientation to one where more often than not we now head to a hotel and eat, drink, and visit the hotel spa. Stay by the hotel pool. Experience the hotel’s hammed up cultural experience in the open-air restaurant that evening. Take pictures of lavish rooms and balcony views. Engaging with the locals who are on the hotel’s payroll, many guests barely venture out beyond the hotel grounds. That all changed once again. Exploration, exercise and adventure are all making a comeback. Perhaps that will be the same for how we go boating. Maybe we step away from the luxury apartments and head back to having our bottoms as close to the surface of the water as possible. Smaller boats, simpler boats or sailing boats?

All things considered, I think that sailing now has a unique opportunity to propel itself to the upper echelon of boating, once again. It had its day, then retreated for some time to a place where only the saltiest of sea dogs lived. We can now see that those salty guys and girls were onto something special, something that seems increasingly more relevant to who we can be when we spend time near or on the water, if we are truly on a green mission. Now, I’m certainly no sailor, but I can see that the likes of Oyster, Nautor Swan, and many other incredible sailboat builders out there really do have a unique opportunity. Especially if they can utilize technology to simplify sailing and make it easy enough for anyone without any sailing skills to do.

The opportunity isn’t just one where they take the halo position over the entire industry, it is also one where they can re-shape the way in which we boat, altogether. Focusing on the experience more so than the product. They will still need to clean up their act, searching out alternatives such as bio-resin, flax hulls, clean propulsion, eco-fabrics, recycled sails, solar power and sustainable timber – and having a proper life cycle analysis tool to steer them on a path of continuous improvement. Actually, WE need that. Every builder in the marine industry, whether commercial or for leisure, motorized or with sails, needs to do that.

We will need to find new ways to display our wares to avoid unnecessary transportation and antiquated boat show dependence. We will need to start speaking to people who don’t know the first thing about boating. We are all pretty good at selling boats to people who want to buy a boat from us, but terrible at speaking to those who don’t. Our world is often intimidating, and our everyday terminology can quickly alienate the uninitiated. Transom… cockpit…starboard… bulwark… deadrise… head! We will probably need to think carefully about how we talk to this new audience. In fact, in my company we are doing many of these things already, but I really hope we can do it collectively as an industry, and that we can do it in style, you know, as cool as Ali… as cool as McQueen… or a cucumber!

We should all be actively deploying resources to be much cleaner than any legislation forces us to be, even if we don’t have sails. Even if we don’t have any legislation… yet! And collectively we can influence our incredible supply chain to have more confidence in using these new materials and methods. It’s either that, or those that get left behind may be better off taking a 300-year step, back in time, to revert to using only wood, wax, rope and sails.

I still believe we can use new materials, develop cleaner manufacturing methods, deploy new technology, and centre ourselves in a philosophy of 'customer-centricity' to take massive leaps forward as an industry.

I am, however, still keen to disappear for a few days on friend's Hanse 341 sail boat. Such is the nature of my shameless self-invitation and addiction to getting out on the water!

About the author: Kiran Jay Haslam has played a key role in reinventing two of the world’s most powerful luxury brands; established and branded progressive media platforms in the Middle East; authored two children’s story books; toured the world as an acclaimed musician and composer and is recognized as an influential and powerful public speaker with a creatively disruptive and strategic mind. After graduating from Deakin University, he left his home country of Australia, and has lived and worked across South and Central Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Central Europe, and the United Kingdom.

Currently based in the South West of England as the Chief Marketing Officer and Board Member for Environment at Princess Yachts Limited, he believes the future is now, and is actively engaged in how science, engineering and nature can radically re-orient the way in which we can sustainably consume to preserve our planet. Together with his wife and two children he celebrates a vegan way of life, rocks out eclectically (and frequently!), and sees classic cars as works of art.