Singapore, A Yacht Heaven? Not anytime soon.

Even with 'prestigious' marinas, Singapore is unlikely to see major boost to yacht industry due to lack of crewing solutions and licensing deficits.

Singapore Tourism Board (STB) had marketed the country aggressively with new marinas and with that, aspirations of reinventing Singapore into a glamorous city with multi-million yachts lining up her waterfront. However, if anyone is to think the 'prestige' alone is enough to entice these yachts to pay this little red dot a visit, you are not even anywhere near to the true yachting community.

In Singapore, anyone with a Powered Pleasure Craft Driving License (PPCDL) issued by Maritime Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) is deemed proficient enough to bring his pleasure boat out for a spin. There is virtually no more added requirements as long as the pleasure craft passes the safety inspection, is registered and insured. The course to acquire a PPCDL costs no more than S$350 excluding the examination fees which are merely a small percentage in comparison to the course fee. Yet, this lax licensing system may well be the biggest stumbling block to grow the industry.

Not least to mention, a PPCDL is merely for use in Singapore waters despite the fact that many local boaters enter foreign waters in neighbouring countries that recognize this license on a Singapore-registered pleasure craft. So, what am I driving at?

Singapore, most crucially, lacks proper legislative regulations that enhance the skills of local boaters. This also directly limits the options of yachts in Singapore when employing certified crew within our waters.

If you're well-versed with the yachting scene in EU and US, you would have known by now that you need specific licenses to command pleasure vessels much like a commercial mariner would be required to. Even the size of vessels you can command is broken down according to your experience and training. Don't be awed when you read a line in an American's resume that says USCG Licensed Master 200 Tons or in EU, you are likely to read MCA Yachtmaster 200GT (Gross Tonnage).

What about the rest of the crew onboard a yacht? Until today, MPA has no legislation on the qualification of a yacht crew. All of the crew requirements you read in MPA's guidelines append solely to the merchant shipping industry. In order to be eligible to take some of these commercial courses, you need certain pre-requisites which a normal boater will never ever get to acquire.

Take MPA's Port Limit Steersman for example; you need to work on a Singapore harbour craft for at least 6 months and be supervised by a certified harbour craft master. For most pleasure boat owners, resigning from their full time jobs just to work on harbour crafts in order to meet this pre-requisite is simply not an option. Let's just say, it's stupid.

That's not all. All of our PPCDL holders in Singapore do not possess the full STCW-95 certification unlike the merchant mariners. Although a portion of the PPCDL course includes basic STCW-95 courses, realistic experience tells me none of them are anywhere close to the actual STCW-95 training. My working experience with a uniformed Ministry has also failed to provide me a full STCW-95 training. So, what can we expect since the authorities themselves are not STCW-95 certified?

All of these adds up to the next crippling side-effect in Singapore leisure marine industry, there are simply no trained crew available for yachts should they decide to base their yachts in Singapore long term. Much of them will have to come from overseas or local personnels with previous merchant shipping experiences to satisfy the crewing criteria. Trust me, there are yachts based in Singapore that employ unlicensed crew but if you're a yacht owner, do you really want to risk it? That will also affect your insurance claims which I may choose to touch on in a separate post if I have the time.

What's the problem with employing merchant mariners to crew the yachts? Quite simply, with a vast load of them from Thailand, China, Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia etc, these merchant mariners usually lack proper social etiquettes required onboard yachts. Needless to say, they also lack core skills such as silver service, babysitting, maintenance of high-end products on yachts and so much more. Hence, what Singapore truly needs for a start is to develop the training and availability of yacht crew within her boundaries.

What about a Singaporean travelling overseas to acquire his USCG or MCA license then? Well, USCG awards licenses only to US citizens and MCA, only to Britain/Scotland residents. For foreigners, you need to prove your residence in their countries. That essentially means you have to move there with at least a permanent residence to be eligible. That's stupid number two.

Even cross-recognition of licenses between USCG and MCA proves to be a problem for some. Anyone with a USCG license will most likely acquire a MCA license far more easily than the other way round. Plenty of MCA license holders have been rejected by USCG, one of the most stringent organizations. What are the chances for a Singapore PPCDL holder? I say, don't even dream about it.

Importing qualified crew into Singapore means only one thing, that yacht owners will have to spend more on crewing overheads. While some of the crew may be required to stay onboard for watches, the rest will inevitably require some form of land accommodation. And Singapore, is not the best place with her rising property prices.

The deadly sin for Singapore? None of the marinas or yacht clubs in Singapore offer affordable crew accommodation. It's unlikely that a Captain of a luxury yacht will put up in a small HDB flat, so a S$2,000 to S$5,000 condominium rental fee is likely to show up on the bills. Assuming it's the mid-range of S$2,500, that's an additional S$30,000 per annum for one management crew. Then you have the purser, chief steward/stewardess and chief engineer. Now, do your sums.

Lack of professional crew and the lack of crew facilities, aren't these the perfect ingredients to turn off yacht owners or captains of these luxury beasts?

Therefore, while STB plans for Singapore to be the Monaco of the East, MPA continues to fail to catch up with training and licensing issues. I am most certain that STB and MPA have failed to establish a common understanding towards the yacht industry which differs from the cruise ship industry by a mile? If that's the case, how do we still expect to see a major boost in the yacht industry in Singapore?

Don't even start talking about the recent increase in Singapore's yacht traffic. Do a detailed check on the yacht ownerships before you even attempt to argue with me. There's only so many ways one can "cheat" with statistics. If you're interested in impartial and transparent data analysis, any visiting vessels belonging to the marina/club's management, the marina/club's shareholders or vessels inbound due to sponsorships are promptly deducted away from the visitor statistic. They are technically - by default - due to turn up at these marinas/clubs. After the deduction, only then you will be able to see the true state of Singapore's yachting scene. Why? How else can you tell them between deceitful marketing words and the population of yachts visiting by their own accord? I also refuse to take into account of yachts which are provided with free sponsored berthing which otherwise, wouldn't be here in the first place. It is the gigantic expenditure of these yachts that sparked the interest of Singapore anyway.

If you're keen to find out the true interest in Singapore as a yacht destination, it's better to find out from the yacht owners/operators than such pure-marketing sources. You will see a gross difference in opinions as compared to what you read in Singapore's media.

Don't forget, many of the registered pleasure crafts in MPA registry are based overseas in popular cruising destination like Phuket or Langkawi for chartering purposes.

Effective joint development of the industry should see two positive boosts, namely; new career path for Singaporeans and ease/cost savings of crew manning for yacht owners. Both of these, coupled with new tourist attractions, will present a more robust environment for the foreign yacht community to take Singapore seriously as a cruising destination. Look, I am not even touching on the lack of reasonable maintenance facilities for yachts based long term in Singapore yet.