Fishing the Georgia Coastline

It is a problem that most of us should experience. You are spending the winter down in the Caribbean, enjoying the warm water and the tropical breezes, catching a few fish aboard your yacht. However, when springtime rolls around in a few months you want to head north to Newport. See, I told you it is a problem that most of us should have! In any event, the boat needs to travel to Rhode Island, so what do you do? Well, if you are like a number of boat owners over the last few years you ship her. Just short of stopping you heart of course, there is nothing like watching as your pride and joy; your boat, your baby is hauled out of the water, precariously perched atop some medieval device before she deposited back down for transportation. There has been another method around for transporting yachts for closing in on twenty years and it is rather ingenious. A Dutch company called DYT began using semi-submersible yacht carriers back in 1989 to transport yachts to various destinations.
The ships were originally designed for shipping heavy machinery for use on oil rigs and platforms in the Gulf and the North Sea, however, over the last two decades four of the ships have been put to a much different use specializing in the maritime transport of luxury yachts. We recently caught up with Clemens van der Werf, the DYT President and CEO to gain a greater understanding of just how the process works. “Basically we are in the business of transporting yachts in special ships. The ships are semi-submersible so they can basically sink down to the water, so that you can get water above deck,” van der Werf explained. “The yacht then sails on the vessel and with the support of divers we put customized supports under the yachts. Then the vessel comes out of the water again basically dry docking all the yachts individually. Then the yachts are seafasten for an ocean voyage. Basically, when they arrive on the other side the seafastening is taken away and the ships slowly sinks down in the water again. Divers take the supports away and the yachts can sail off one by one. So it is a very smooth process.” Currently DYT operates a fleet of four dedicated semi-submersible yacht carriers. These heavy transport vessels have been modified to specifically transport luxury yachts. The fleet includes Super Servant 3 (139.09 meters), Super Servant 4 (169.49 meters), The Dock Express 12 (158.97 meters), and The Explorer (158.90 meters). “It is an absolutely safe process and there is no strain on the yachts at all. Weight is not a limitation, which is good for the bigger yachts as well,” van der Werf says. “That is basically the concept of semi-submersible ships. It originated in the 1970’s in the oil and gas industry, when those type of ships were used to transport oil and gas platforms and oilrigs all over the world. That is actually where these ships that we use were deployed. In 1989, we started as a project basically to move two yachts from Italy to Fort Lauderdale and that eventually became the business. Then we did it more frequently in the spring and the fall season transferring yachts from Florida and the Caribbean to the Mediterranean.” For anyone who has actually watched their boat lifted out of the water, well, it can be a white knuckle, molar grinding experience and that is what DYT has been able to get around. “It is never nice to see your boat hanging in a crane. This is a very smooth slow process loading the boats,” van der Werf confided. “When the divers put supports under the yachts they do it yacht by yacht to make sure that the boat is secured. It is really the safest way to move your yacht.” OK, so you are in the Bahamas or perhaps Narragansett Bay on the north side of Rhode Island Sound and you want to ship your boat, well, you are in luck because you are close to DYT’s service points. “Basically the main market that we service is Trans-Atlantic market that is roughly Florida and the Caribbean to the Mediterranean,” van der Werf says. “That is usually with the peaks in April, May and September, October. Another market is what we call the “Caribbean Shuttle” from Newport, Rhode Island to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Also it is basically spring and fall work where in the spring we bring all the boats down in the Caribbean back to the ports [so] that they can enjoy the summer up there again. Then in the fall we shuttle them back so that they can spend the winter in the Caribbean.”
Business has steadily moved forward over the years as the entire yachting industry has continued to grow. In 2006, DYT transported 1700 yachts to various destinations around the globe. This coming May, the company will start operating the world's first specifically designed (purpose-built) semi-submersible yacht carrier. The New yacht carrier is named Yacht Express, and she is scheduled for launch in Beijing, China. “That ship we designed it basically on the knowledge that we built up over the last twenty years. All the ships that we have now were never designed as yacht carriers,” van der Werf explained. They were designed as heavy lift transportation vessels for the oilrigs. Of course, they are perfectly suitable for the job but we wanted a ship specifically designed for the yacht transfer business. We also wanted a ship that is larger than the largest one we have now, which is 550 feet and the new ship will be 100 feet longer. She has a higher speed as well and she will service the Trans-Atlantic market. She will travel from Fort Lauderdale to Genova, Italy, every month just like a train schedule. So that on the first on the month you can load in Genova and in the 15th, you can load in Fort Lauderdale. We have extra amenities onboard and we can accommodate a yacht crew. There is fitness rooms, cinema, conference room, so there are places for them to enjoy the ride and work on their boats. It is more of a cruise ship for yachts.” Since they have been in business DYT has shipped over 7,000 yachts, which totals up to a lot of hopes, dreams, and safe harbors for sailors worldwide. The question what is on the horizon for the company that is now operating fulltime out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida that was originally a Dutch company with the heavy lift market in Holland? “As with the entire yacht industry the end of the development is not within sight. There are still a number of yachts that will be built and they are being built at the moment,” van der Werf maintains. “They all need transport so I only see growth in the future in the area that we service right now. There will be growth in other areas that we are not present at the moment. We do go to Australia and New Zealand twice a year but we want to increase that frequency to put more capacity into that market. The Far East is developing; it isn’t something that is happening in two or three years time but let’s say ten years it is definitely an area in which we see more and more activity in the yacht business. People are looking for new destinations, everyone has seen the Caribbean and the Mediterranean and they want to go somewhere else and that’s what we anticipate and that’s why we want to add new routes to new destinations over time. There is still a lot of growth in our business as we increase the capacity of the current routes we serve and open up new routes in the future.”
So the next time you want to ship your mega yacht, well, now you now about another option on the high seas. However, if you are perfectly content to stay put and enjoy those warm sea breezes down in the Caribbean right about now, well, we understand. Like I said at the beginning, that’s a problem most of us should all experience from time to time.