November saw motoryachts Lohengrin, a 161-foot Trinity, and M/Y Reflection, a 107-foot Christensen, go up in flames in a shipyard in Fort Lauderdale. It was one of the city’s largest financial losses on record. Then in December, the 120-foot M/Y Andiamo burned while docked at a marina in Miami.

These are just a few of last year’s incidents that have ignited the attention of the yacht industry.

The recent arms race in tender size has presented some interesting challenges. For all but the very largest of yachts, gone are the days of lifting the tender on board and running off to the next exotic destination.

When photos began circulating recently of a deckhand being pulled into the water behind a yacht underway, criticism was fast and strong online.

Ask about how this might have been prevented…

When I proposed the towed tender idea to our captain at the time, he was understandably not excited. For him, it was another project with its own list of items to break and maintain. It would be a new headache, something to worry about in transit…

Experienced boat owners are savvy to the many reasons that a pre-purchase survey is considered a necessity. But there’s another scenario where the findings of a marine surveyor can be tremendously useful, and even life-saving, and that’s when an insurance company requests an updated marine survey.

You get a call at 5:30 in the morning, almost two and a half hours before you’re to take over bridge watch. The mate hasn’t called you at this hour in months. Walking up to the wheelhouse, you adjust your eyes to the surroundings and realize that the tender’s navigation lights are no longer lit. The mate fears the tender is no longer with the vessel.

What’s a Mini-ISM? It’s a horrible name for a remarkable plan that could mean the difference between dealing with a disaster or compounding a disaster via lawsuits against you, the yacht owner and any number of other parties.