November December 2019 Marina World

DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Bundeena is much admired for being a
‘sleepy village’ on the outskirts of southern
Sydney but stormy weather made for an
extensive clean-up. Photo: Club Marine
that are more manoeuvrable, and they
will need better skills. Our marinas
will need to be prepared for making
berthing easier. Electric propulsion for
boats is inevitable; it’s just a matter of
when. Ultimately, it will be consumerdriven
and, as consumers embrace
electric cars, they will not favour the
high cost of fossil fuels for their boats.
It will be fascinating to see this market
develop, not only for new boats but for
the ultimate repowering of the existing
fleet with electric propulsion. It is some
way away yet but it does open up the
question about how we prepare for the
future with training and skills for building
and maintaining these systems.
I can see a future where the majority
of boats have electric propulsion
with some form of pods that provide
easy and automatic manoeuvring in
close quarters making boating safer
and more relaxing and making boats
cheaper to maintain and operate. This
ease of operation will open the market
up to more people and respond to the
trend towards shared ownership
and use of boats. Developing and
implementing these technologies
is, in my opinion, a great
opportunity for our industry which
we should be collectively working
towards.
Darren Vaux is president of the (Australian)
Boating Industry Association, executive
committee member of ICOMIA, chairman
of the ICOMIA Environment Committee and
managing director of the award winning
Empire Marina Bobbin Head in Sydney,
Australia.
Seawork
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