'Better days will come...'
From the uncertainty of the upcoming charter season, job cuts and losses, disrupted maintenance work, to restricted global travel, the superyacht industry certainly hasn’t been left out when it comes to the current pandemic we find ourselves in.
What this strange new ‘normal’ has shown us is that humanity can adapt very quickly to huge changes. This time has meant we have had, something that we all moan we never have enough of, time. Time to take a step back and think about how we live our lives, time to realise whats important and time to evaluate what it is we want to go back to when ‘normal’ comes back around.
Filtering through the negative headlines, there has been a few positives to come out of these new measures, especially to our environment. It is no surprise that with people staying home (and onboard), we have seen a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions and even evidence of cleaner water in the Venice canals.
Together, we’re better
Remember its physical distancing, not social distancing we are trying to achieve here. We are social creatures, we have a need for interaction and thrive off of being part of a community. When this is temporarily taken away we realise how important it is, especially in the relatively small world of superyachts. This time has made it even more evident how important it is to work a team, to maintain our global yachting community. Both owners and crew alike have been checking in more on everyones mental and physical wellbeing. We should take this time to relish in technology, get online and communicate more, share information and new ideas. At Seastainable Yachting we are doing just that, in the coming weeks and months we will be putting out our onboard sustainability ideas and hope these can be shared far and wide.
The ‘essentials’
Depending where you are in the world there has been various restrictions put throughout our daily life and on our daily activities. As yacht crew know, sometimes provisioning isn’t exactly the easiest of tasks depending on your guest preferences and what you can get hold of but with new Covid-19 restrictions this has been made a lot harder. One benefit of this is that perhaps now we are beginning to realise that we can easily do without certain things we thought we really needed. ‘Essential’ has been reframed and maybe we are being more inventive with our store cupboards than we usually would. This has in turn has hopefully meant less food waste, one of the key ways to improve a yachts sustainability.
Time and more time
Time is one of those constructs that we as humanity created, but we never seem to know how to use it ‘correctly’ and how we should define that 'correctness'. We have been made to slow down to a pace that we all never knew existed, so with this comes the extra time to do things that you would never do if you didn’t have this, so called, ‘time’. If you are in lockdown onboard, it is a perfect opportunity to streamline processes, to do those things you have been putting off for ages, tick off endless to do lists and make those switches you have been meaning to make for a while. Whilst the logistics of some of these things may still be on hold, you can start by changing what you can and planning how you will change the rest as and when. Research those eco friendly products, put in that water filtration system, sort out the yachts recycling methods or simply turn off some lights more often! Billions of unsustainable micro decisions and actions are made everyday, so it will take billions of sustainable micro decisions and actions to over turn them, small is still making a difference.
Whilst peoples health is the prime concern in this pandemic, there is nothing to stop our yachting world, within this larger world, looking for the positives. Especially, when it comes to improving the sustainability of the industry. So as well as taking some downtime, checking in with friends and family, enjoying the slower pace of life, or simply just baking endless banana breads. Lets also make a start at some lasting change for when things are back to, what we know as normal.
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