Sail-World.com : YachtAid Global: superyachts serving communities in need
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YachtAid Global: superyachts serving communities in need |
Winner of the 2009 ISS Distinguished Crew Award, YachtAid Global founder, Captain Mark Drewelow has done more than his share of nautical miles on luxury yachts around the world. Through his business, Port Agent company, C2C, Mark uses his connections with Captains to encourage owners to 'donate' their yachts to deliver supplies and manpower to communities in need.
As he explains: “A common feature in some of the remote regions we cruised was that the local people always provided help to the best of their ability no matter what their economic situation. It didn't matter if I was looking for provisions ashore in Roti, seeking medical aid in Cabo, trying to locate a ride to the airport in the Anambas, looking for fishing information in Niue – the local people were always there to help.”
With this as his motivation, Mark formed YachtAid Global – committed to bringing relief to isolated and under privileged people by delivering school and medical supplies to locations that need the help, using luxury yachts, engaging Captain, crew, owners and guests.
Mark’s background equips him well to manage and run YachtAid Global.
“My father was a Marine, so travel and the ocean were always a part of our lives. We moved to Orange County when I was in Grade 4. I guess you could say I was always a waterman. But my career on boats started in the summer of 1984 when I was travelling in the Mediterranean and I ran out of money. I found out I could earn a couple of hundred dollars a week working as a deckhand, so I took a job on a 65ft sailing boat and spent a few months learning the ropes.”
He soon got a taste for life at sea and each summer, worked his way up through the ranks. Eventually, Mark achieved his Captain’s qualifications and made yachting his livelihood and life.
When his first daughter was about to turn two years old, Mark decided it was time to build a life onshore and he and his family settled in San Diego. He saw a need for the diverse services of a Port Agent for superyachts and his business, C2C was born. For the past eight years, Mark and his team have worked with boats from Panama to Alaska and west to Hawaii, coordinating parts, supplies, consulting work on regulatory requirements to conform with Coast Guard, EPA and state rules and law.
But Mark had a yearning for more than the sea. He wanted to help the communities he had come in contact with over his two decades on yachts. “Most of my time at sea was spent in remote and undeveloped areas of Mexico, Central America, South America and Southeast Asia. Once C2C was up and running, I was looking for a way to exercise corporate responsibility tying into our yachting interest and benefiting the places that I had been.
“One morning in May of 2006 I woke up with a solution to what I was seeking and the perfect name. YachtAid Global was born. Our tag line is ‘Changing the world without changing course’. The original idea, and the current key concept work: Move school and medical supplies around the world utilizing luxury yachts.”
Through visiting coastal villages and islands around the world, Mark has witnessed first-hand how giving basic items like pencils, books and medicines can bring change to an entire community.
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“It was our aim to not limit our work to a one-time drop off of goods, but to create a lasting and sustainable legacy. Education is the key. Our focus is to supply goods and items to help the kids to learn to give them the tools of education, as well as basics like medicine, water and equipment.”
As Mark explains, his generation and indeed his area of the US are tremendously interested in practical assistance. “Charity work and tything are a part of the culture to some extent. My generation has a huge interest in charitable giving, whether that’s through physical labour, donations of clothing, or money – there’s a very progressive attitude.”
Through YachtAid Global, Mark devised a way to satisfy his need to contribute as well as engaging his clients in the objectives of the project. While Captains are YAG’s main contacts, Mark says, the YAG message is also highly visible on all his C2C invoices.
“We use our invoices to promote the concept to owners, who take a great interest in all the costs of their vessels. Their boat is their baby, so they’re extremely interested in any expenses incurred. This way, our ethos gets directly to owners as well.”
When you are dealing with owners of yachts that are worth US$5-$100 million, asking them to employ their vessels for charitable purposes “represents a complete paradigm shift of how people use their superyachts and how they cruise around”, says Mark. But the benefits far outweigh any imposition to owners.
“Most high net-worth people are very generous already and do a lot for charity. One common feature yacht owners seem to have is their pride in their boats and their interest in a deeper experience of the places they visit. The different between writing a cheque for a charity and lending your boat for YAG is that owners, Captains and crew all engage with the locals of a particular area. It opens a door to the local community and provides an experience at a level that is greatly enhanced. You’re not just buying fuel and food, fishing and picking up a local trinket. The Chief puts on a feast, there’s native dancing, you become part of their family.”
It’s also a thoroughly practical means of reaching out to communities who have no way of receiving charitable funding. “We can pin-point specific communities and target their needs. This is helping at a grass roots level and 100% goes to the people in need.”
From Australia, there are destinations many and varied open to owners and Captains to lend assistance: Tonga, Fiji, Indonesia. From the US, Mexico, South America and the islands of Panama are just a small distance. In Europe, while logistics are often trickier, there’s Egypt and African island and coastal communities.
A recent example of AYG’s work is of a delivery of school books to Bali. “It’s an interesting story and shows the tight network we work within,” elaborates Mark. “Over the last three years we have been active in Bali and Komodo. Through that work, we came in touch with a yacht Captain’s brother who has access to school books in Australia. We had a yacht named Seljm, going to Bali directly from Auckland. We had another yacht, Slojo, going from Sydney to Auckland. Slojo delivered the books to Seljm and in turn, Seljm delivered them to Bali. How neat is that?”
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It’s not all serendipity and smooth sailing, and in some regions, YAG has to spend many months researching the legal, logistical and Customs requirements to deliver much-needed goods.
“We are always careful and diligently study the regulations, as well as the complexities of culture before we set off,” says Mark. “We recently made a delivery from Florida to Belize City with medical supplies, and that trip took us two years of planning before we had the information we needed, the documents and procedures we had to follow to carry it out.”
For information, visit www.yachtaidglobal.org
by Jeni Bone
8:26 AM Sat 30 Jan 2010 GMT
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