Do you understand the vital role that classification societies have in securing safety in the construction of superyachts? If you're an owner, chances are you don't, and that's a mistake. Even with smart advisors around you, it's crucial that you educate yourself and therefore avoid making expensive mistakes by opting out of classification society recommendations.
This episode of the Yacht Law Podcast unveils the integral functions of classification societies in the yachting world. Join us, as we put the spotlight on esteemed bodies including the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), Registro Italiano Navale (RINA), Lloyd's Register, and Bureau Veritas. We also shed light on how a society's reputation can either bolster or tarnish its industry standing, and why the top classification societies are held in such high esteem.
The conversation takes an intriguing turn as we examine why superyacht owners have bypassed building to class and the repercussions of this decision. We'll probe the part surveyors play in guaranteeing owners get the vessel they paid for, too. Moreover, we delve into the chilling account of the OceanGate sinking, a submersible whose builder deliberately chose not to construct it to class standards, and how it has cast a shadow over yacht submersibles.
Whether you are a yacht enthusiast or an industry insider, this episode will satisfy your curiosity and enrich your knowledge.
Have a yacht law question? Email it to info@megayachtnews.com or michael@moore-and-co.com for your chance to have it answered on our podcast. All requests for confidentiality and/or anonymity are respected.
Hiring a lawyer is a big decision. Visit Moore & Company for the legal team's qualifications and experience. And, to learn the latest about superyacht launches, shipyards, designs, and destinations, visit Megayacht News.
Do you understand the vital role that classification societies have in securing safety in the construction of superyachts? If you're an owner, chances are you don't, and that's a mistake. Even with smart advisors around you, it's crucial that you educate yourself and therefore avoid making expensive mistakes by opting out of classification society recommendations.
This episode of the Yacht Law Podcast unveils the integral functions of classification societies in the yachting world. Join us, as we put the spotlight on esteemed bodies including the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), Registro Italiano Navale (RINA), Lloyd's Register, and Bureau Veritas. We also shed light on how a society's reputation can either bolster or tarnish its industry standing, and why the top classification societies are held in such high esteem.
The conversation takes an intriguing turn as we examine why superyacht owners have bypassed building to class and the repercussions of this decision. We'll probe the part surveyors play in guaranteeing owners get the vessel they paid for, too. Moreover, we delve into the chilling account of the OceanGate sinking, a submersible whose builder deliberately chose not to construct it to class standards, and how it has cast a shadow over yacht submersibles.
Whether you are a yacht enthusiast or an industry insider, this episode will satisfy your curiosity and enrich your knowledge.
Have a yacht law question? Email it to info@megayachtnews.com or michael@moore-and-co.com for your chance to have it answered on our podcast. All requests for confidentiality and/or anonymity are respected.
Hiring a lawyer is a big decision. Visit Moore & Company for the legal team's qualifications and experience. And, to learn the latest about superyacht launches, shipyards, designs, and destinations, visit Megayacht News.
Welcome everybody. Michael, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great. I'm looking forward to today's session.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am too. You know. The idea for this partly came from a really interesting press release that we received. That, you know, kind of caught us by surprise. It was from a European shipyard and they were touting how they were building their first ABS classed SuperYacht. Now the fact that they were building the ABS class, the fact that they made a big deal I should say that this was an ABS classed yacht really surprised us, because more often than not they don't mention the classification in press releases and it's not just the shipyard, it's most shipyards, and I'm not really sure why. I think it's just the an oversight, quite honestly. I think it's that they're a little more focused on making sure that we in the media understand what the owner was looking for the design details, the naval architecture details, things like that. But I was very encouraged to see that they were talking about classification, because I wonder if maybe they are sensing that owners are now paying a little bit more attention and asking questions about this Right.
Speaker 1:As well as you know the owners, representatives to their family offices, people who are not so familiar with the. You know the nitty gritty technical details, if you will, in yachting. Do you sense that also?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that maybe the yacht world I mean ABS just when you start with that classification side of the American Bureau of Shipping, it doesn't sound like yachting, it sounds like commercial shipping, which is what classifications societies have been about for, you know, over 200 years. You know, we look at Lloyd's classification society, which is probably the biggest yacht class society you know, founded in the middle of 1700s. But, yeah, there's a perception, a growing perception, and a correct one. I think that if you want to get the benefits of being so-called in class, there's a slight difference between among, I should say, the various classification societies and maybe a perception that ABS is a very good one, which it is. It's certainly in the top 10.
Speaker 1:So now for people who are not familiar with classification societies, how would you describe what they are? Are they a governmental organization? Are they an independent body? You know, what would you say to them?
Speaker 2:I think that's a question that the courts are wrestling with to this day, and a lot of other people don't really fully understand what a class society is, but it's always been viewed as a you know, not a government society, but they tended to line up among the greatest seafaring nations and they became this kind of independent body, but and they had insulation, for example, because of their status from liability, which was something that was almost unheard of they were giving out these amazing opinions of always based on safety. They're not about beauty, like in the yacht world, but they're clearly just absolutely focused on safety, and you know almost every commercial ship that I've ever known. If it wasn't in class, it was a suspect vessel, it had to be in class, whereas in the yacht world it was quite normal to have a vessel that was not in class, and it was a little bit unusual when the vessels started coming along that were in class, and it basically is just a heightened sense of safety, which the underwriters of these beautiful yachts certainly appreciate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. That's pretty much what we tell people to when. When we get questions from family offices or others and say, well, what exactly is a classification society? We tell them it's all about safety. They're just making sure that the boat is being built and engineered the way that it should to, you know, ply the seas. You know, there it doesn't matter if an owner is not planning on going all around the world on the boat's own bottom, even if they're putting it on one of the transport ships. There are certain basic safety rules and practices that need to be adhered to. From the standpoint of what you were just saying before, how there's some differences among the different societies, we have the American Bureau of Shipping, abs, that we're just talking about a few minutes ago. There's what's registered. There's the Italian classification society, rena. There's bureau veritas. So there's a few different ones that are in the yachting space seems like.
Speaker 1:Lois and ABS are kind of the leaders of the Rena also. I I've seen many, many odds with Rena classification to. Why would an owner and their team choose one over another? Is there any specific, specific reason?
Speaker 2:You know a lot of it is perception, a lot of it is you know. When you say you're classed with A classic, I mean there are. There are many classifications societies in the world. I think there's at least 50, maybe maybe more, but you really don't, I don't think you really have any benefits. But if you go outside the top 10, okay, because the question almost becomes why did you go outside the top 10. Are you trying to get to a lower standard? But perception is is plays as big a role In the classification society world as with any, as in any world I know of. You know it's like the perception of a fed ship or a Lursen versus A brand name that's a lesser name, that these are reality things as well as perceptions in many case.
Speaker 2:For example, rena a few years ago you mentioned Rena and of course Rena is an old. You know it's an old classification society. It was founded in the 1800s, like many of the class societies were. Obviously it was an Italian society and it's right there in that top of the world's oldest. But it actually suffered greatly a few years ago, probably a decade ago. It's perception of Rena was almost, almost taken out of business. It really was almost Something you did not want to see. The Italians were, of course, enraged and felt they were being wrongly Veloified, if you will. But these things happen when you have a series of events and it seems like a trend. You have vessels that run a, that have problems, they sink or whatever, and so Rena had to rebuild itself. Honestly, I think today it's back in good stead with most of underwriters it's in. The underwriting is a huge factor here In terms of the class, because the classification society that you're using I mean if, for example, I mean something, for whatever reason, the largest classification society in the world is virtually unknown in the yachting world.
Speaker 2:It's dead north scabaritas. And dead north scabaritas is interesting because it's actually a combination of another great classification society. If you thought in terms of you know the Germans in the in the yacht building world, germanus or Lloyd. Germanus or Lloyd was a very strong classification society but for whatever reason, dead north scabaritas and Germanus or Lloyd not only combined, but they were Germanus or Lloyd decided that. Why do we, why do we care If we, if to keep our DL designation? So they dropped it and yeah, I mean they've dead north scabaritas has ever 14000 vessels in its registry in its society, then probably another several hundred offshore structures. They're about a quarter of the world's share of classification studies, but they're, but they're truly commercial shipping. They don't seem to be terribly interested in, you know, yachting. I mean, it's maybe their Norwegian background. You don't think of Norway that much. Norway has built some big yachts, but not it's not a dominant yacht center like the Netherlands or the or Germany or Italy. So perception is key and among the commercial shipping I would say that north scabaritas is the standard.
Speaker 1:Interesting. I didn't realize that they had that many, so I know the name, obviously because it's been around for a very long time, but I had no idea how, how dominant they were in the commercial sector. It's interesting so you would set up a moment to go that Owners had a one point chosen not to build to class, and that obviously has changed. And in the over the past decade, two decades, etc.
Speaker 1:There are certain yachts I do see that seem to be more around that entry level, super, yet level, if you will like, around that eighty foot mark, that are not built to class. Some, some are, and they tend to be ones that the shipyards have decided to have classed. It's built in, it's built in series, therefore it's automatically built to class According to what the shipyard wants. Others, though, are not built to class in terms of Lloyd's, abs, etc. But they do follow, say, a European certification or some other, even American, standard. So how can an owner look at that and understand what that's all about in comparison to classification, what it's in layman's terms? If you could, how would you explain how not being built to class is not necessarily something to be concerned about?
Speaker 2:Well, again, I think it's. It is the. It is a good housekeeping seal of approval. So for for decades, fedship, for example, the two yards that combined to create Fedship, the reason Van Land and they were they were rather strong about their attitude that we don't adhere to any standard other than the higher Fedship standard, and that was an interesting point of view, but as it turned out, it was not a view that people accepted. I mean, yeah, in our world, if you're intimately involved in the yacht world, you can understand that Fedship had such a wonderful reputation. But along came other not as well known yards that said, well, that's fine, but we are built not only to our standards but we're also built to a classification society standard. By the way, the surveyors that are representing the owners are making sure they're getting what they contracted to build. A lot of times are the exact same surveyors that come in as the debt and horse fair toss or American Bureau of Shipping or Lloyd's Registered Surveyors. It's the same people but they just have the higher standards. They understand the class rules.
Speaker 2:I'll give you one example, and I always liked it because it was such a classic of a comment that I remember just thinking, wow, that's so basic but so obvious it was. A fuel line was built in a vessel that a fuel line had from the tanks to the engines and the fuel line passed over the battery pack. A classification society surveyor said see, that vessel would never pass class just for that one terrible construction method. One drop of fuel will travel down the line to the lowest point in the line and if one drop of fuel then drops off that lowest point in the line to the battery pack, you'll have a fire. I just remembered as being an observation that you could go on a boat and not even notice that the fuel line was over the battery pack. Like, this is a smaller vessel, admittedly, but it was a 100-footer, but it's not an inconsiderable thing.
Speaker 2:I also want to say that, and it really is down to a very few, if you look at the top 10 class societies, the Indian class society, the Russian class society, perhaps the Korean and the China that would be four right out of the box and maybe Nippon, which is Japan, take all those five out, you're left with the five classifications. The DNV, again, you'd have to ask them. They've got 14,000 vessels. They're not lobbying for the yacht world, so you really get down to American Bureau of Shipping Lloyd's Register, I guess, bureau of Veritas and Rena. You're kind of down to those four. But the point is is that it is something to say the vessel's in class or it's not in class? If it's not in class, that is, you want to know why it's not in class.
Speaker 2:And things have been evolving and I think the courts may be a little bit slow to catch up because and I'm just saying this because a lot of these things are the law is always kind of tugging at the coattail of progress. It's always that arrow into the future and the law is always back there, kind of hanging on to it, saying is this a direction we want to go in? But there was a case I don't remember the details of it except that it was huge it was involving a ship called the Prestige. But they really went after this massive hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of damage with the oil spill case and they went after the class society. It really shook up the class world because they had always saw themselves as doing our best, giving our honest opinions. We're not. We never get sued, which was true. I'd never seen a class because the society sued. But they were not a commercial and the viewed as a commercial enterprise. It was viewed as a bunch of commercial people that knew what they were doing, doing their best and giving their best opinions.
Speaker 2:And in the Prestige matter, which opened a little bit of a floodgate, and there was another couple of vessels, as I think of it today, and I'd have to be careful because once that dam is broken a little bit, that wall is breached. Then you've got to fight to kind of bring it back and explain to a court. If you're the class lawyer and the class society didn't have lawyers, they didn't have a team of lawyers at the ready. They had a bunch of guys in London mostly in some cases and kind of New York and other cases that were doing the best they could do. But I think it's an interesting thing because it really called the question what are? Your first question what are they? I mean, it's not a government entity, it's not a commercial entity, it's a charity. In many cases it has a charitable status. In many cases, believe it or not, lloyd's has a big charitable division and it gets a little bit confused because Lloyd's has all these arms. They do a lot of things in other banner of Lloyd's Lloyd's underwriters that comes to mind are the biggest insurance market in the world. It's a marketplace. That's another side show.
Speaker 2:Lloyd's register from 1760 was this you know, the classic Lloyd's logo, which I love. This logo is this very spindly Englishman with a magnifying glass looking at the hull of a vessel that's turned upside down a wooden boat, and he's looking at it and he has that kind of look of what's wrong with this thing. But it's the classic service that in his day, in the 1700s, you know, he would have been looking at wooden and say, no, this boat's got bad wood and needs to be replaced, or what have you. And but yeah, for decades, for hundreds, for 200 years, they were untouched as this standalone society. They made a few bucks, you pay them, you'd have to pay them to do their work. And that right, there was the big. And only when the underwriters said, no, no, we don't, we're not going to show your vessel if it's not in class.
Speaker 2:And then you have to get into something. I'll just say that A1, you have to learn to read the symbols, because the symbols that go with your classification status is huge. The I think it's true to say the Lloyd's, for example, is A1 with Maltese cross, and I, you know you have to kind of, and then they have this UMC or UMS, excuse me, which means unmanned machinery space. It gets to be very technical, it is very technical. I think that the thing that actually brought to mind your decision to focus on class societies is Oceangate, I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, big point, big discussion because of Oceangate.
Speaker 2:for sure, I mean, you know, there's a letter you probably have seen it where the one of the class societies wrote a letter to the people at Oceangate and said we would, we could come in and do your, do your thing. You know, some versables are not new in the maritime world. They're huge. All the offshore rigs, all the offshore businesses, all the pipeline world uses some versables. They're all in class and they're and they're. Some of them are unmanned but some of them are manned. It depends. I mean, if you can't tell what's going on with an unmanned sub, you go. Well, it better break out the big boy and let's go down there and have a closer look.
Speaker 2:You know the whole, the whole classification society, interplay with IMO, the International Maritime Organization, is very much a part of the world, of the Maritime world. That, by the way, is now a part, for example, SEBAS, the organization in the Ought World. It's got 23 members but they're not there in the IMO and the thing about, and that's, I'm going to just say 40,000 a year, just a little membership fee. But the IMO is huge in the sense of its focus, which is to a great extent on training and watch standing. But that's one of their big divisions. Another big division is oil pollution, marple, the Maritime Oil Pollution Act, which applies to yachts across the board, and the thing about it is and now the MLO they're trying to do the labor standards and so forth in terms of the commercial yachts how much sleep do you get, how much sleep do you not get? All of that is intertwined with class. So if you have as a routine matter kind of working through back to class, you have something going wrong with one of your pipelines.
Speaker 2:And the whole world is covered with pipelines. It's almost amusing sometimes when you look at these. You know the politicians, you know they shut down a pipeline from Alaska or something you know, and it's like you don't really want to know how many pipelines are out there, because there are thousands. I mean it's the way oil moves around the world. Okay, I mean it moves by tanker, but it moves by oil, and once it certainly gets off the tanker, it doesn't just it's not trucked in, it's you can do that, but it's also there's a lot of pipelines. So you're going to send down a submersible, sometimes with human beings on board, like the Triton, and you don't want, and so you've got to get down there quickly, quickly as hell, because the oil pollution laws, the MARPLE laws, are going to kill you, otherwise You're going to be sent out of the way. The fines are just off the charts. So you're going to be sending down a submersible as fast as you can, and you know this is not the time to start inspecting it. It has.
Speaker 2:The classification societies do annual inspections. Then they do what is called the five year inspection. Then they do what is called the second five year inspection, which some people call the tenure inspection, and let me tell you how bad it is, if I may. That don't mean the pridling on here, but I actually had a kid, a thing one time where the yacht owner got a free yacht. A free yacht because his, the lawyer, the seller, did not understand classification societies.
Speaker 2:My client was brilliant, he. He not only did, he, he was inquisitive type, he not only heard class, he wanted to know more. At the end of the day, he wanted to do the Lloyd's full special survey for a 10 year. For the 10 year, which is everything Every valve gets opened, every lazarette gets und, every hatch cover gets removed. It is total review. And the seller had, had had agreed to pay for anything that the classification society survey or found Well, the cost of doing the things equal the cost of buying the boat, so you got a free yacht.
Speaker 2:I mean it was kind of embarrassing. When I looked into my client a little bit deeper I realized he kind of had a kind of a bit of a sketchier a sketchier history. The last time I saw him was on a documentary about Jeffrey Epstein. Oh ouch, he always kind of find each other somehow. I'm not sure how they do it, but yeah, when you see the movie, the special that was made about Jeffrey Epstein but my former client is in that movie, but he was one of those guys that he got indicted, he admits it. He went to jail. He was, he was, but he was so smart but he wasn't. But his mind didn't tell him sometimes. No, you can't do that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right, so so my phone is that. This ocean gate thing was interesting because the irony of it to me was it's going to us a boat that sinks effectively is going down to see another boat that sank.
Speaker 1:And that was a. You know, I don't ever want to make a blanket statement, but that was a scenario that I think is a rarity in. You know, in the maritime world, In terms of the submersibles that the yachts are carrying, the major players are doing their due diligence in terms of making sure that the class societies are signing off on it, making sure that the underwriters are signing off on it. They would never dare to put something out that's not going to pass muster, because that is going to end up being far worse than a black eye. Let's put it that way it will be devastating.
Speaker 2:It hurts everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all the waves are going to sail well in terms of the one of the power curves that we saw in terms of the yacht world that we're all deeply embedded in was the submarine sector, the submersible sector was just gaining such traction it was now becoming routine for a submersible of some sort to be on every yacht. And then the submersible people were building yachts that could be lashed off docks. Building submersibles that could be lashed off docks you don't have to have them on a yacht, they're the big dab at it, the big crane but it really called the whole ocean gate thing really hurt them. I think it just made this a frightening thing and it really. But if you go back through the classification of societies who volunteered to check that sub out and to give it their, what is the effect will be a good housekeeping, a seal of approval. You just have to understand that that's going back from 1760 to 1819, over 200 years of setting standards, and the whole Solos thing, which was the safety of life at sea conference, which was clearly a result of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, and Solos got passed in 1914. But the point is, as part of that, it's all about the standards of anything that's on the water. I mean ABS. You mentioned them right out of the box because they're in the art world. They have about 300 pages on just submersibles, just submersibles. So it's not a joke, it's not something. Oh well, I think I'll just say let's go have them run in here and kind of walk through the thing and walk through this submersible and give me a little stamp of approval. No, no, no, it's 300 pages that the surveyor has got to be smart enough to comprehend that there's something in those documents that will remind him. You must, you need to be sure you check this out. Redundant systems. You know, if something happens, how do you get back All of these things that are part of the classification society of the Titanic, for example, was classed as part of their class was fog detection systems and horns that had the fog.
Speaker 2:Here's an example. This is not a real standard. I'm just saying To be something like can you hear the horn for three miles? I mean you can imagine some guy you know three miles away going. Can you hear it, jack? I can't hear it. Bring the decibel level up to 16 or something, because they had determined that on the bigger ships, in order to turn, to make it meaningful, you've got to have a sound that can be heard for three miles. That's in fog.
Speaker 2:Now in light, and at night time the light has to be seen for the same sort of thing. How far? Well, what is the horizon? They know the horizon over there. They know the curvature. So they say, well, you don't have to be that far because it's not going to be any good. The beam is going to go above any vessel. That's beyond the horizon.
Speaker 2:But the classification societies know these things. They say your light has to be visible for X number of miles. I mean you don't just come up this on your own. I mean sitting in vioregio, you may not be thinking about how far can the light be seen. But the classification societies says look, I really love your pretty lights. They look great, but they're just pretty. They're not going to come to anybody. They need to. You've got to be able to see them at least a mile. I don't know that. I'm not a classification society survey. I get these in lawsuits.
Speaker 2:You know the width of a step. You ever thought about it? How deep is the step? You know the step has a riser in the back and it has a flat part. Both of those things are set out in a classification society standard, roughly stated, I'd say. The flat part is guess what about the size of a human foot? And the rising thing is the size that they decided. If you make your step that high, double what I'm doing on the screen here. Well, the people are gonna fall because they want the older people are any and we're gonna make the step.
Speaker 2:Right coming down is gonna be worse.
Speaker 1:They have rules.
Speaker 2:Every step you take on a yacht that's in class. Some survey has gone. Is this? That's a beautiful stairs but that won't work. Why not? Because the flat parts too shallow. You take a woman on board with Slippers on or something. Her foot's gonna. I mean, I use a gender of comment, but women tend to have smaller feet. I mean, some men have tiny feet too, but some, some women have tiny little feet and they and you and they. Oh, you took your shoes off. Oh, I'm good they accept that what you put on was a sock or or something else. So if that flat part of that on that staircase is proper, you want, you mostly won't have a problem. You've got a case where there was a railing on one side of the stairwell and no railing on the other side of the Stairwell. This woman went all the way down.
Speaker 2:Oh, Wow well, it's an example of you. Go back to the class rules. I Mean there's a real-world examples of why do you want your yacht to be in class. Yes, beautiful, right, but you know the in humid conditions, you're on the high seas, but I yeah, it's really, it's really a very. I've always believed that and if somebody says the God is in class, I think a more positive thing. If they say it's not a class, I think a more negative thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I should. I should clarify my earlier statement about some of the smaller yachts not being built a class. It's not that they aren't built to a standard. There's In Europe. There's the CE Certification. It's not a classification, but it is a safety certification. United States obviously has that too, and it's a different. It has a different name. That's the AB, ab, yc or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ab YC. But you know, from the standpoint of what you were just saying about the classification, society is having Very set standards. Obviously the CE and AB YC also have Set standards, are certain non-negotiables across the board. It has to be a certain way. Then there are certain extras I guess you might be able to say that an owner might be advised to have in terms of classification. I've heard stories of owners blocking at certain extra levels of classification and it seems to me that it's based on money. They just don't want to spend over a certain amount of money and they don't fully understand why that extra level of classification is a good idea. Do you ever have that in your practice and how do you deal with it with your clients?
Speaker 2:Every every day. I think it was President Jimmy Carter who wrote a book called why Not the Best, and the Attorney General, elliot Richardson, said because it costs more money. I always thought that was a very funny Retort to a book that was already written. It's like you don't even need to read the book. Elliot Richardson, with a sort of blue blood, you know, connecticut, yankee kind of guy to the man who born and very elegant and brilliant with the Harvard, all that, his Jimmy Carter, you know. Oh well, because I see that in the art world a lot. Yeah, you see the, but the, the, the, every single thing that you do, that's that becomes embodied in that huge price tag. Is is in fact, quality. It's a great extent and and and as part of that quality, you know the safety and let me give you an example.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm gonna, I'm not gonna name some names, I'll name one name, but I'm actually shouldn't name any names because I'll get, I'll make 50 people mad and only one person not grateful Gangways, okay, so I would always specify a certain a Gangway manufacturer, you know that for the passer rails and the access points. So I get, I get accused by people who don't know me very well, apparently, you know we must be in bed with these people, or you know what's the deal with you. And I said, well, I tell you what. Do me a favor, get three, three passerels, get five, put them out in the yard. You know you're a, you know you, you've been, you're in a boat yard, inherently, and I'll tell you which one I like and you tell me if it's the one that I, that I will, that I always Provide for in my specs, because you know people are going on board a yacht. It's you don't want it being a rickety thing or something that turns and dumps people. You, just you want it to be. It's also a feeling of security. You're walking across a open water, you're crossing a, a Ravine, you know, and people are nervous that are not in the yachting. And at the very end of it the thing is People, people fall a lot of times. I've just learned over years that they fall getting on and off boats In many cases, because the passerels are kind of moving and shaking and then they they kind of they try to fall to the, to the dock, and then they end up in the drink and they get hurt and it's just kind of sad. So I just say you know what. I'm just going to specify this particular brand because they're I've never had a claim, I've never had a case. It's rock solid getting on and off any way you look at it. I want to. I went on board. I just case in point. I'm sorry, I know we're kind of running out of time here. You and I could go for hours talking about this world we live in.
Speaker 2:This mega yacht was at the Palm Beach Boat Show and I swear to you I'm in good shape. I mean I can, I can do, I mean I have, you know, thank God, you know, and no ambulation issues that I know of the, the, the gangway to get on that yacht Went from the dock and then it skipped like the first deck, if not even the second deck as well. But it was like this. It was like I looked at this thing and I said I can just think of 30% of people won't be able to get to the top of that thing. But somebody had some idiot in my view had specified that that this pass a rail would be. I guess it's not a pass rail in that case it's. It's more of a, it's more of a true gangway. But I remember thinking, you know, I went up it it was, and as you got to the middle of it it was definitely moving around. But it was just a strange thing that struck me. Here we have a yacht that's got to be one of the bigger. It was the biggest yacht in the Palm Beach boat show, but somebody had specified that. I think this relates to your earlier question, but I see it every day.
Speaker 2:We had, we had a fight about a Glass in the state room facing forward. Think about it for a minute. 99% of the time the state rooms face aft and the reason they do is because when water comes across the bow, as it normally does when you're and navigating, if that wall of water hits that forward facing, when the it's look more than likely going to come in, it's a. It's like it's like a wall of concrete coming at you. Now the bridge is high and well above the decks and so forth, using one of the highest spots, and so that's a little different. By the time the water gets to the bridge it's kind of breaking around it and it has to be there. That's why you drive the boat.
Speaker 2:But we did have a fight, I remember one time and the owner overrode the surveyors. The class society said we're not gonna class it and it came in on the maiden voyage. It's coming down from New York to Florida, not the roughest water in the universe, but that wall of water a rogue wave they called it, which it may have been, I don't know, but it came over and hit that and just went, knocked that wall of water knocked out the all the glass in the state room and, of course, inundated the interior of the yacht. It was like $18 million worth of damage just based on saltwater, saltwater intrusion. So yeah, we deal with this frequently. And to tell a wealthy yacht owner who's building his dream yacht, here's why. Have you ever noticed that you have an aft room and a the aft deck and you have the sun deck and you don't rarely see this kind of configuration? That's because people are in the hard way. That's not a smart design.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, let's hope that people listening don't learn things the hard way and avoid making mistakes because they've learned the smart way. That classification is the right thing to do and it's there for a reason.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Bring them in, have them approve your boat. You're gonna have your family and you will never regret it. They'll pay a few extra dollars, but it's not that much. They'll change the things that need to be changed and they'll charge you a little fee, but I don't think you'll ever regret it.
Speaker 1:Yep, well, that's a perfect note to end on, michael. Thank you. As always, very educational and enlightening for me and, I'm sure, for everybody listening.
Speaker 2:The time always flies by. We're gonna come up with a. We gotta come up with a classic sign off. What is your sign off?
Speaker 1:Usually I just say I give you the last word.
Speaker 2:so I was thinking about a lyric this morning. I'm just trying to make a living and doing the best I can until next time that works. Until next time. We have a nice week.
Speaker 1:That works. That works for sure. Well, everybody, we hope you enjoyed this episode of the Outlaw podcast. We hope you have a great week and if you have any questions that you would like us to address or any topics you would like us to address on a future episode, please email me or email Michael. Our emails are in the show notes. Have a great week, everybody.
Speaker 2:Thanks guys.