R-Mode: the radio beacon we thought was obsolete could once again become GPS’s backup

From Pulse by James Crawford

What I learned watching DGPS stations go dark

I started navigating during the GPS boom, when radio direction finding was already part of the recent past.

For decades, mariners had tuned into coastal radio beacons to take bearings on reference points and establish their position, but in the mid-1990s the Chilean Navy began dismantling those stations because of their high maintenance cost and low accuracy compared with satellite constellations.

For my generation, the satellite was simply how you navigated.

Radio Navigation Development Plan for Participating Commonwealth of Independent States

for 2019 to 2024

 

Years later, during the 11 years I represented the State of Chile on the IALA Council, I watched history repeat itself with DGPS stations.
One after another, those medium-frequency antennas next to lighthouses and headlands stopped transmitting, and we experienced it with a mix of logic and nostalgia.
The logic was clear, because the service was born to correct an intentionally degraded GPS, and that problem no longer existed.
The nostalgia was real, because those stations had been a quiet part of the aids to navigation system for decades.

The decisions made sense for their time.
The United States switched off its last stations in June 2020, and the UK, Ireland and Canada followed in 2022.
The reasoning was sound, since undegraded GPS, supported by satellite-based augmentation, met navigational accuracy needs.

Yet today’s problem is no longer GNSS accuracy, but its availability and integrity.
In June 2025, IMO circulated a communication from several governments warning of increasing GNSS disturbances in European waters, particularly in the Baltic, and that same month the Swedish Maritime Administration issued a notice to mariners on recurring interference across the region.
A very weak signal, transmitted from roughly 20,000 km above us, remains the position and time reference for ships, pilots, VTS and port systems.
That is the paradox, because the terrestrial infrastructure we watched being dismantled as unnecessary is precisely what could now give us resilience.

The key idea is called R-Mode (Ranging Mode).
Instead of building a new system, it reuses the same medium-frequency beacon, synchronises it precisely and adds two continuous-wave carriers on either side of its signal.
The shipborne receiver measures the phase of each station, estimates its range and, with three or more stations, computes a position without satellites.
For an AtoN manager, what matters is that existing DGNSS receivers keep getting their corrections as before, and that medium-frequency propagation allows wide coastal coverage with few stations.
 

The concrete example is the Baltic.
Germany, Sweden and Poland modified existing beacons to build a testbed, and in 2021 medium-frequency R-Mode delivered positioning at sea for the first time, with horizontal accuracy better than 12 metres (95%) in the central area between three transmitters.
For reference, IALA Recommendation R-129 calls for 100 metres in coastal navigation and 10 metres in port approaches.
Moreover, this is no longer just research, as IALA published Guideline G1187 in December 2024, standardising the signal and navigation message, and in June 2026 IMO’s NCSR 13 finalised draft performance standards for shipborne R-Mode receivers, which go to MSC 112 this December.

That said, it would be a mistake to present R-Mode as a cost-free solution.
At night, sky-wave propagation degrades performance and, in the Baltic trials, forced stations to be excluded from the position solution.
Transmitters themselves can show phase instabilities that require monitoring and corrections, and many States, Chile among them, have already dismantled their radio beacon infrastructure, so reinstalling or upgrading stations carries a real cost.
On top of that, receiver standards are still awaiting approval and the system is conceived as a voluntary backup.

There is also a factor the Baltic does not face and that is decisive in our reality: geometry.
Mariners who used radio direction finding knew it well, because a good fix depended on crossing lines from radio beacons at favourable angles, and the same principle governs R-Mode today.
The system computes position from ranges to several stations, and its accuracy improves when those stations surround the ship.
In an enclosed sea like the Baltic this happens naturally, but along a long, narrow coastline such as Chile’s the stations would be almost aligned, which would weaken the solution precisely in the direction perpendicular to the coast.
This is why no technology should be assessed in isolation.
South Korea, for example, already operates three eLoran stations covering the Yellow Sea as a terrestrial backup, and VHF R-Mode over VDES shore stations emerges as another possible complement.

For the same reason, the relevant question for Chile is not whether to adopt R-Mode, but who assesses whether it makes sense, where, and with which complements.
Answering it requires analysing coverage, geometry, risk, integration with other services and operational continuity, a task for certified professionals in marine Aids to Navigation and telecommunications, able to, among others, apply IALA standards to the reality of each coastline and each port.
Looking back, the lesson I take from that period is that when we assess decommissioning a station, we tend to judge it by the function it was built for, but the site, the mast, the frequency and the timing hold value that can resurface through another service.

 

Links :

• Inside GNSS : eLoran Surging as Protection for GNSS and Users 
• GPS world : 10 answers about eLoran / South Korea partners with broadcaster on eLoran and 10-cm GPS  / eLoran: Part of the solution to GNSS vulnerability  / China expanding Loran as GNSS backup / Russia-CIS navigation plan emphasizes GNSS, Loran, inertial 
• SplashTech : Shipping builds a new navigation stack for the spoofing age 
• GeoGarage blog : Loran leap: China's boost to maritime navigation accuracy / GPS back-up: World War Two technology employed / eLoran: Part of the solution to GNSS vulnerability  /Britain urges ships to prepare for life without reliable GPS / Cyber threats prompt return of radio for ship navigation / Navigational backup to aid ships in Dover straits /  GPS jamming and spoofing: when good signals go bad

Banque Populaire XI : a trimaran taking flight at 50 knots

Aboard the Maxi Banque Populaire XI. At the helm, Armel Le Cléac’h steers his giant trimaran through the waves at 50 knots—about 90 km/h. 

Spectacular footage offering a glimpse into Ultim-class sailing in the context of the 2026 Route du Rhum.
The bow lifts, spray sweeps across the deck, and the boat accelerates.

Carried by its foils, the Maxi Banque Populaire XI lifts its hulls out of the water and appears to glide over the waves.

But behind this impression of lightness, every movement reflects the considerable forces the trimaran is subjected to.
At this speed, the landscape flies by, and the impacts serve as a reminder that flight is a delicate balance that must be maintained.

The boat rises, drops, and regains its trim.

These moments offer a tangible sense of what a 50-knot top speed means on an offshore racing yacht: noise, spray, and constant vigilance.
Armel Le Cléac’h at the helm, heading for the Route du Rhum
At the helm, Armel Le Cléac’h responds to the boat’s movements.

His gaze shifts from the sea to the sails, while his actions seek to maintain course and stability. For the skipper, harnessing the power of Banque Populaire XI also means preserving the vessel.
With an eye toward the 2026 Route du Rhum, these images bring home the full scale of the Ultim challenge: crossing the Atlantic solo, from Saint-Malo to Guadeloupe, at the helm of multihulls capable of such high speeds.

Gitana 18, the new Maxi Ultim

Tomorrow, on November 1st, the Maxi Edmond de Rothschild will set sail in the legendary Route du Rhum, its first major race and transatlantic crossing (Gitana team)

Croatia layer update in the GeoGarage platform

 

3 new charts added & 107 updated

see GeoGarage news 

Portugal layer update in the GeoGarage platform

1 new nautical chart added & 45 updated

see GeoGarage news 

 

Closing the sea: lessons from ancient Mediterranean blockades

Naval battle at the harbor of Syracuse, illustration circa 1890 (artist unknown / public domain)

From CIMSEC by Dr. Stephen DeCasien

Nearly a century ago, Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, U.S.N., wrote in the foreword to Arthur M.
Shepard’s seminal work, Sea Power in Ancient History, that “Readers of this work cannot but be impressed by the similarity between the problems of sea power in ancient times and problems of sea power which are engaging the attention of maritime nations today.”

Practitioners of naval power have long looked to the past for warnings, lessons, and insights that might inform the challenges of the present and future.
This post follows in that tradition by considering what antiquity might offer for understanding one of the most enduring applications of naval power, the blockade.

The British naval theorist Julian Corbett distinguished between commercial blockade, intended to restrict an enemy’s maritime trade, and naval blockade, directed against an enemy’s fleet.
The latter could itself serve different purposes, either keeping an enemy fleet confined to port or watching it closely while encouraging it to put to sea, where it could be brought to battle.
Although Corbett developed these categories from the experience of more recent naval warfare, their basic purposes would have been readily recognizable in antiquity.
Ancient fleets likewise sought to restrict maritime commerce and supplies, contain hostile naval forces, or compel an adversary’s fleet to come out and fight.

The relevance of these forms of blockade is hardly confined to the past.
At the time of writing, the United States is enforcing a blockade against Iran, restricting maritime traffic to and from Iranian ports as part of the ongoing conflict.
At the same time, across the Indo-Pacific, the possibility of a Chinese blockade of Taiwan remains a central concern in discussions of a potential cross-Strait conflict.
Chinese military planning considers blockade operations as one means of isolating and coercing Taiwan, alongside the considerably more demanding possibility of an amphibious invasion.
Despite enormous differences in political circumstances, technologies, and scale, these situations underscore a common problem.
Establishing control of the sea is one thing, but maintaining that control long enough to achieve a political or military objective is another.

There are, of course, many examples of naval blockade in the ancient Mediterranean, but four cases highlight particularly well the different challenges such operations presented: Samos in 440–439 BCE, Syracuse in 413 BCE, Rhodes in 305–304 BCE, and Roman operations around Lilybaeum and Drepana in 250–249 BCE.
Each exposes a different problem associated with blockade, including maintaining forces on station, preserving or contesting command of the sea, restricting or sustaining access to supplies, and protecting the forces involved.

Samos, 440–439 BCE: The Challenge of Maintaining a Blockade

The Athenian campaign against Samos in 440–439 BCE provides a clear example of both the effectiveness and fragility of naval blockade.
After an earlier Athenian intervention on the island, a group of Samian exiles returned, overthrew the Athenian-backed government, and revolted.
Athens responded by sending sixty ships under the command of Pericles and other generals.
After defeating a Samian fleet of seventy vessels near Tragia and receiving additional ships from Athens, Chios, and Lesbos, the Athenians landed troops and surrounded Samos with three walls while simultaneously blockading the city “from the sea at the same time” (?κ θαλ?σσης ?μα).

The blockade quickly revealed a problem that remains fundamental to such operations, as forces maintaining a blockade may also be required to respond to threats elsewhere.
Reports reached Pericles that a Phoenician fleet was approaching to assist the Samians.
He therefore took sixty ships from the force stationed around Samos and sailed toward Caunus and Caria to meet the anticipated threat.
His departure weakened the blockade at precisely the moment the defenders needed.

The Samians exploited the opportunity.
They attacked the inadequately protected Athenian naval station, destroyed the guard ships, and defeated the vessels sent against them.
For fourteen days they “controlled the sea in their area” (τ?ς θαλ?σσης τ?ς καθ? ?αυτο?ς ?κρ?τησαν) and, as Thucydides puts it, “brought in and carried out whatever they wished” (?σεκομ?σαντο κα? ?ξεκομ?σαντο ? ?βο?λοντο).
When Pericles returned, however, the Athenians reestablished the blockade by land and sea.
Further reinforcements arrived from Athens, Chios, and Lesbos, and after a nine-month siege the Samians surrendered, demolished their walls, surrendered their fleet and hostages, and agreed to repay the costs of the war.

For fourteen days, the diversion of part of the Athenian fleet was enough to reopen Samian access to the sea, demonstrating the importance of persistence in maintaining a blockade.
For those under blockade, even a temporary weakening of the forces on station could provide an opportunity to restore maritime access.

Syracuse, 413 BCE: The Reversal of a Blockade

When the Athenians arrived at Syracuse in 415 BCE, seeking to conquer the city and extend their power into Sicily, their overwhelming superiority at sea was one of the expedition’s greatest advantages.
Over the course of the campaign, however, they gradually lost that advantage and ultimately found themselves trapped in the Great Harbor.
By 414 BCE, the campaign had developed into an effort to isolate Syracuse by land and sea.
The Athenians occupied Plemmyrium at the entrance to the Great Harbor, using it to protect their ships and store equipment, while their army attempted to complete a wall of circumvallation around the city.
Thucydides emphasizes how far the Athenian works had progressed by the time Spartan support for Syracuse arrived under the command of Gylippus.
Much of the wall toward the Great Harbor was already complete, while materials had been prepared to extend the line toward the opposite coast.

Gylippus’ intervention changed the strategic situation.
Syracusan counter-walls prevented completion of the Athenian circumvallation, while the capture of Plemmyrium deprived the expedition of its principal position at the mouth of the Great Harbor and cost it substantial stores and naval equipment.
The Syracusans also refused to remain blockaded within the Great Harbor, continuing to contest Athenian control of its waters.
In 413 BCE, they modified their triremes for its confined waters, strengthening and shortening their prows for direct, head-on, prow-to-prow attacks (?ντιπρ?ροις), rather than the maneuvering attacks (?κ περ?πλου) for which the more lightly constructed Athenian prows were designed.

After defeating the Athenians at sea, the Syracusans closed the mouth of the Great Harbor with merchant vessels, warships, and other crafts moored across the entrance.
The fleet that had arrived with overwhelming maritime superiority now had to fight its way out of the harbor it had once helped control.
In the final naval battle, the Athenians attempted to break the Syracusan blockade, attacking the barrier across the harbor entrance, but the Syracusan and allied fleet prevented their escape.
The surviving Athenians abandoned their ships and attempted to retreat overland, ending in the destruction of the expedition.

Syracuse demonstrates that a blockade depends on continued control of the surrounding maritime space.
As Athenian control weakened through setbacks ashore, the loss of key positions, Syracusan tactical adaptation, and defeat at sea, the Athenians went from attempting to cut off Syracuse to being trapped themselves.
For a force under blockade, contesting control rather than simply accepting isolation can fundamentally alter the strategic situation.

Rhodes, 305–304 BCE: The Limits of a Blockade

Few commanders in antiquity possessed a reputation for naval siege warfare comparable to Demetrius Poliorcetes, yet his enormous effort against Rhodes in 305–304 BCE failed to isolate the city completely.
Maritime commerce was fundamental to Rhodian wealth and strategic power.
Diodorus Siculus describes Rhodes as possessing considerable naval strength (?σχ?ουσα ναυτικα?ς δυν?μεσι) and notes its particularly close economic relationship with Ptolemy I of Egypt.
When Antigonus and Demetrius attempted to force Rhodes away from its relationship with Ptolemy, separating the city from outside support became a central part of the campaign.

Demetrius arrived with a formidable fleet.
He attacked the Rhodian harbor defenses from the sea, deployed ship-mounted artillery and siege machinery, and later shifted much of his effort ashore.
Yet his fleet could not make the waters around Rhodes impermeable.
Rhodian warships continued to operate, and outside powers repeatedly sent assistance.
Ptolemy, Cassander, and Lysimachus supplied the city, with Diodorus describing major shipments of grain and other provisions.
Their importance was reflected in the honors Rhodes later granted its benefactors.

Every successful entry weakened the coercive purpose of Demetrius’ effort to isolate the city.
So long as Rhodes retained sufficient maritime access to receive supplies and outside assistance, time did not necessarily favor the attacker.
After roughly a year of fighting, Demetrius accepted a settlement.
Rhodes preserved its autonomy and its relationship with Ptolemy, while agreeing to support Antigonus except in conflicts against Ptolemy.

Rhodes illustrates the difficulty of maintaining a fully effective blockade.
A blockade does not need to stop all traffic to exert pressure, nor does every successful passage render it ineffective.
Its effectiveness ultimately depends on whether enough traffic is restricted to achieve its strategic purpose, while even limited access may be sufficient for the defender to sustain resistance.

Lilybaeum and Drepana, 250–249 BCE: The Costs of Maintaining a Blockade

By 250 BCE, during the First Punic War, Roman successes in Sicily had narrowed the Carthaginian position to a handful of strongholds in the west, but the effort to blockade Lilybaeum exposed the Roman fleet to risks that would ultimately threaten the operation itself.
Polybius notes that the Romans believed its capture would open the way for attacks against North Africa, while Carthage resolved to hold it at virtually any cost.
The Romans therefore invested Lilybaeum by land and sea.

The harbor proved exceptionally difficult to blockade effectively.
Carthage exploited local knowledge, favorable winds, and skilled seamanship to penetrate the Roman blockade.
A force under Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, carried approximately 10,000 troops and supplies into Lilybaeum despite the Roman presence.
Hannibal “the Rhodian” later repeatedly sailed between Carthaginian territory and Lilybaeum, running the Roman blockade until the Romans captured a sufficiently fast Carthaginian vessel to intercept him.
These episodes demonstrated the difficulty of transforming naval superiority into complete control of a contested area.

The blockade also imposed costs on the Romans.
Combat, siege operations, and disease depleted the fleet’s manpower, requiring 10,000 replacement sailors.
In 249 BCE, the Roman consul Publius Claudius Pulcher used the reconstituted fleet to strike the nearby Carthaginian naval base at Drepana, apparently hoping to surprise the Carthaginian commander Adherbal and eliminate the threat to Roman blockade operations around Lilybaeum.
Instead, Adherbal brought his ships into open water.
The Romans, caught close to the coast with less maneuverable ships and inexperienced replacement crews, suffered a devastating defeat.
Polybius reports that ninety-three Roman vessels were captured while Claudius escaped with about thirty.
Carthaginian forces subsequently returned to the vicinity of Lilybaeum and attacked Roman ships there.

Lilybaeum and Drepana reveal the sustained costs of blockade.
Maintaining pressure exposes the forces involved to attrition, crew exhaustion, enemy action, and competing operational demands.
As these pressures accumulate, they can create opportunities for the opposing force to challenge the blockade and reshape the balance at sea.

Ancient Blockades and the Problem of Sea Power

Ancient and modern blockades operate with radically different technologies.
Samos, Syracuse, Rhodes, and Lilybaeum offer no tactical prescriptions for fleets operating with submarines, aircraft, missiles, satellites, or unmanned systems.
Their relevance lies instead in the strategic problems they expose.

Taken together, the four cases suggest that blockade should be understood as a continuing contest rather than a condition established simply by achieving maritime superiority.
Samos demonstrates the demands of persistence, as even the temporary removal of part of the blockading force created an opportunity to reopen access to the sea.
Syracuse shows how control can be reversed, as the Athenians went from attempting to isolate the city to being trapped within the Great Harbor themselves.
Rhodes demonstrates that a blockade need not be broken completely to fail; sufficient access may allow a defender to continue resisting.
Lilybaeum and Drepana show how the accumulating costs and vulnerabilities of maintaining a blockade can create opportunities for it to be challenged.

These cases raise several enduring strategic questions about blockades.
How difficult is a blockade to impose, sustain, resist, or break?

How much force does it require, and for how long?

How complete must it be to achieve its political or military objectives?

How much traffic can continue to pass through before its effectiveness is undermined?

What outside powers might intervene or provide support?

And what forces, bases, or geographic features might strengthen, weaken, or threaten a blockade?

The central question is therefore not simply whether a blockade can be imposed, but whether it can be maintained long enough to achieve its purpose in the face of resistance, changing circumstances, and the costs of sustaining it.

That broader lesson returns us to Moffett’s observation nearly a century ago.
The instruments of sea power have changed beyond anything an ancient commander could have imagined.
The underlying strategic problem has not changed.
Control of the sea is only valuable insofar as it can be translated into lasting political or military results.

How AI is transforming hurricane forecasts

A satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows Hurricane Isaias approaching the Gulf Coast of Alabama and Florida on Friday, Oct. 9 2026.NOAA/NOAA

From NPR by Jessica Meszaros

 
Hurricane forecasters are increasingly using artificial intelligence to make predictions — and they say the technology is rapidly transforming the field.

When the first hurricane of the Atlantic season formed this month, an AI model beat out traditional models at predicting where it would go.

In early October, Hurricane Isaias made landfall near Destin, Fla., as a Category 2 storm.

Conventional forecasting models initially predicted it would head further west, toward southeastern Louisiana.

But Google DeepMind's artificial intelligence model called it right out of the gate: the hurricane was going to hit the western Florida Panhandle.
"Google DeepMind, in particular, has really proven itself the last few years as the gold standard model," says Michael Lowry, a longtime meteorologist and hurricane expert in Miami, who has previously advised both the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
"That model has been, by far and away, the best performing computer model that we've ever seen. Period."

A different kind of model

The National Hurricane Center first started incorporating the Google DeepMind model into its official forecasts last year.

By the end of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, it was already one of the best at predicting a storm's path and strength, says Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher for the University of Miami.

Usually, new models take years to refine after first being introduced.
"It's something we're not used to – to have a model, the new kid on the block, very quickly becoming the best model out there," McNoldy says. 

"This pretty much came out of the gate in first place, and that's a pretty impressive feat."

Traditional physics-based hurricane models use real-time atmospheric data, like temperature, humidity, pressure and wind shear, as measured by satellites and aircraft.

Then they use complicated equations to predict what path a storm might travel and how strong it could get.

An AI model operates very differently: it relies more on history.

It identifies patterns by analyzing thousands of past storms along with atmospheric data.

"The AI models don't really know anything about the atmosphere other than the current picture," Lowry says.

"Beyond that, it's not leaning on the governing equations of the atmosphere, the physics, to make predictions."

Most of the people designing and developing these models aren't even meteorologists, Lowry notes: "They're software engineers, and they're developing neural networks."

A "neural network" is a set of computer algorithms modeled on the human brain and trained to find patterns in massive amounts of data.
As a result, the models can seem like a "black box," Lowry says: "We don't know why they might get a forecast right. We also don't know why they might get a forecast wrong."

It can be unsettling for meteorologists to depend on a system they don't totally understand – especially during storms when millions of people might be relying on their forecasts.
"It makes us a little uncomfortable, because we like to know why you're getting the right answer," McNoldy says. 

"And I feel like we don't – or at least I don't know why."

Not all AI models have performed well, though.

There are lots of unproven weather forecasting AI models out there, Lowry says.

The two that have so far proven to be the most accurate, despite some pitfalls, are the models developed by Google DeepMind and by the U.K.-based European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

People retrieve belongings from a collapsed boat house in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaias in Destin, Fla., Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026. An AI model from Google Deepmind beat out traditional physics-based models at predicting the path of the storm, though it didn't do as well in forecasting the storm's strength.

Gerald Herbert/AP

Relying on a "blend" of models

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center use several proven models – both AI and traditional – when putting together their official forecasts.

"Every storm has different forecast challenges," says NHC Director Michael Brennan.

"That's why we take that consensus approach and use that blend of the best models."

And it's still humans who have to interpret the results of those models before deciding what to tell the public.

The NHC provides updates every six hours during active hurricanes.

The models by themselves can sometimes show drastic changes from one update to the next. Forecasters have to translate those shifting predictions into clear guidance that people can act on.

"That's one thing that the human forecaster provides a lot of, is continuity," Brennan says.

"We're using our expertise and our understanding to translate that hurricane forecast into the hazard space, and that's what people really need to pay attention to."

Scientists expect rapid advances

The Google DeepMind model still needs some work, Brennan says.

While it topped other models in tracking the path of Isaias, it didn't do as well as the NHC's blended forecast in determining the intensity, or strength, of the storm.

Brennan's team gives regular feedback to Google DeepMind to help improve the model.

Google didn't respond to questions from NPR for this story.

The "future of forecasting has always been changing," Brennan says. 

"It's never just one thing that's driving those improvements."

It wasn't that long ago when forecasters couldn't predict how strong a storm would be even within a couple of days, he notes.

That changed, because of advances in prediction models and better data collected by satellites and planes.
"Errors are about half of what they were, say, at the time of [Hurricane] Katrina, in terms of intensity forecasting," Brennan says.

The exciting thing about AI, says meteorologist Michael Lowry, is how quickly it's improving.

AI updates take only months or even weeks, unlike traditional models, which are updated annually at best.
"They are making advancements in skill and hurricane predictions over the course of a year that would have taken us 10 years, a decade or more, to make," Lowry says.

But even with AI coming in fast and strong, Lowry says he's not worried about artificial intelligence replacing people.
"For me, I don't feel some sort of existential crisis with AI," Lowry says. 

"If anything, I think it is a boon for our business."

Links :

• NPR : The Pacific is churning with hurricanes. The Atlantic is quiet. Blame El Niño / As the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season ends, the future of forecasting is AI 
• GeoGarage blog : Google DeepMind's new AI model is the best yet at ... / Introducing WeatherNext 3, our most advanced and ... / AI breakthroughs could improve weather forecasts /
  AI hurricane predictions are storming the world of weather ... / Are weather forecasts better with artificial intelligence? / AI quickly and accurately predicts major storms' path and ... / A new AI-based weather tool surpasses current forecasts / How the latest advances in machine learning are enabling ... / Weather forecasts have become much more accurate / The danger of leaving weatherprediction to AI

Spain layer update in the GeoGarage platform

3 new nautical charts added
see GeoGarage news

Who do you call in the Mediterranean?

. Mid Mediterranean map

From Pulse by Antonio Martorell Dominguez

The question nobody could answer

It started in the Indian Ocean.

In every maritime security meeting I attended during my time with EUNAVFOR, with shipping companies on one side of the table and navies, agencies and rescue centers on the other, the same question came up: if something happens to one of our ships in this area, who exactly do we call?

Nobody was quite sure, and the answers did not agree.

The network already existed.

Most people in the room knew the centers, the agencies and the operations.

What nobody had was their details in one place: the numbers were scattered across documents and websites, hard to find, and sometimes out of date.

So we put order on it, for that ocean first: we identified every stakeholder, established who does what, checked one way to reach each of them, and put all of it on one map where anyone could find it in seconds.

Then we saw the same thing in every sea we looked at: the same question, the same scattered and outdated numbers, and nowhere more than in the Mediterranean, with more agencies than any sea we knew.

Then we saw that the Indian Ocean was no exception.

The same question, and the same scattered and outdated numbers, came up in every sea we looked at, and nowhere more than in the Mediterranean, with more agencies than any sea we knew.

So we kept going, and this time we built a team for it: David Parla Duque on the design and the platform, Hector Salvador, who had worked on the Indian Ocean map with us, and Caroline Abu Sa'da with the Foundation for Humanitarian Action at Sea (FHAS), who opened the rescue center network to us.

Where it started

The first map was the Western Indian Ocean Maritime Emergency Contact Map.

David Parla Duque and I built it together, under the organizations we each worked for at the time; it was published on the MSCIO website and sponsored by MSCIO.

One map: every rescue center, every reporting center with the primary one marked, the regional fusion centers, the naval presence and its areas, with a checked number for each.

The problem was bigger than one operation or one ocean, so we decided to go further: map every sea, one region at a time, as an independent effort.

That decision is the Abyssal Initiative.

The Indian Ocean map came with it, and the Mediterranean was the first map built under its name.

Where it started: the Western Indian Ocean Maritime Emergency Contact Map, Edition 1, July 2025.
The Mediterranean, with FHAS

The Mediterranean took about a year and three maps, Western, Mid and Eastern, from Gibraltar to the Black Sea.

We built it with Foundation for Humanitarian Action at Sea, whose co-founder and director, Caroline Abu Sa'da, brought the rescue center network and current contacts we could not have reached alone.

The maps carry:

• Every rescue center, with its phone number, its email, and the languages its staff speak, so you know before you dial.
• The international contacts in their own box: NATO Shipping Centre, UKMTO and Frontex on every map, plus EUNAVFOR MED IRINI and the Italian and Maltese coast guards on the Mid map.
• Civil organizations that can pass on a distress call when no official line answers.
• The area of every naval and agency operation, drawn on the map: EUNAVFOR MED IRINI, Mediterraneo Sicuro, NATO Noble Shield and Sea Guardian, and the Frontex operations.

 

The Eastern Mediterranean map

Put it in the hands of an officer of the watch with a security incident developing.

The officer sees which rescue region the ship is in and the center that owns it, which operation areas the ship is inside, and the reporting centers on their own lines.

Do the numbers work?

We did our best to make sure they do.

Together with FHAS, we checked every contact against official sources and then with the center itself: a call to confirm the number, the email and the languages.

Even so, the maps will have mistakes. Numbers change, people move, and a line that was right in September may be wrong by December.

That is why the network matters more than the paper: the people who use the maps are the ones who will keep them right.

If you see an error, tell us, and we will check it with the center and fix it.

The map goes digital

We wanted the maps to be easy to use, so we built a digital version as well: the Abyssal SAR Map.

It is free, and it does more than paper can.

Both regions sit on one globe.

You can filter by rescue regions, centers or operations, search for a center by name, click on it to get the number and the languages, and switch on the operations layer to see every area drawn.

We still recommend printing the maps and keeping them on the bridge.

Connections at sea are not always good, and the day you need a number may be the day the screen is blank.

The digital map is for everyone else, and for the bridge when the connection holds.

This is not only for seafarers.

Anyone who works in maritime safety, security or shipping, ashore or at sea, can use it alongside the tools they already have.

On every screen there is a button to report a correction.

The platform is the work of David Parla Duque and his team, and it shows.

They keep improving it, and the website with it, so what you see today will be better next month.

 

The Abyssal SAR Map: both regions on one globe.

Example: Tunis MRCC, with its contact details

Example of the operations layer: Frontex Themis drawn on the map, with its contact at the top of the screen.

Example of the operations layer: Frontex Themis drawn on the map, with its contact at the top of the screen.

Who keeps it current

People do. The Foundation for Humanitarian Action at Sea, the Maritime Search and Rescue Council, the NATO Shipping Centre, EUCRIMARIO are part of this network.

Each of them does a great deal for the wellbeing of seafarers.

Since the launch, rescue coordination centers and people with deep local knowledge have written to us on their own to correct a line or add one.

So this is a thank you.

To Caroline and the FHAS, to the partners, to the centers that picked up the phone, and to everyone who has written in with a correction or feedback.

This is a joint effort, the result belongs to all of us, and it is for everyone working to make the sea safer.

The network is what makes the maps worth printing.

Next: the Pacific

Next is the Pacific, and Latin America follows.

We will report the whole process, step by step, on the Abyssal Initiative page as the map is built, so anyone who wants to follow it or contribute can do so from the first draft.

Thank you to everyone who is contributing and to everyone who wants to be part of this network.

No vessel sails alone.

Oil spills wreak havoc on the bottom of the ocean, even a decade later

Photo: Getty Images

From Wired by Bob Berwyn

THIS STORY ORIGINALLY appeared on Inside Climate News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

While oil is known to float, new research finds that over time it can permeate even extremely deep marine habitats, with animal populations declining by as much as 80 percent.

ACROSS HUNDREDS OF miles of the northern Gulf of Mexico, a deepwater ecosystemcollapsed after the massive 2011 Deepwater Horizon oil and gas spill, and recovery is uncertain, new research concludes.

The study, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that animal populations—including octopus, krill, squid, and shrimp—declined by 60 to 85 percent in the three and a half years after the spill, with few signs of recovery since.
Krill and lanternfish, both foundational species in the Gulf’s food web, were among the hardest hit.
The findings also suggest that the die-off is causing genetic bottlenecks that could further hinder ecosystem recovery.

The researchers identified it as the “fastest and most severe faunal decline reported for Earth’s largest ecosystem type” ever documented.
The widespread die-off of marine organisms may also reduce the ocean’s ability to transport carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the deep sea.
After ruling out other factors, such as water temperature and oxygen levels, the researchers identified the Deepwater Horizon blowout as “the most parsimonious explanation” for the ecosystem’s collapse.

Comprehensive natural resource damage assessments and restoration efforts involving federal, state, and tribal trustees are ongoing.
In 2016, BP agreed to a $20.8 billion settlement, including up to $8.8 billion for environmental restoration.

The 4.9 million barrels of oil that spewed out of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling operation after the rig exploded in 2011 spread widely through the Gulf of Mexico, and a new study documents the damage and limited recovery to species in remote deep-water habitats.

Credit: NOAA

 

Remote ocean depths and habitats miles below the surface may seem buffered from the impacts of human activity, the authors wrote, but their findings suggest an industrial disaster pushed part of it into a diminished state with “limited resilience to facilitate recovery.” They said their findings also show that proposed industrial deep-sea mining could damage the ecosystem before baseline conditions are assessed.

A transoceanic drilling rig, operating for BP about 50 miles southeast of the Mississippi Delta, exploded on April 20, 2010.
The explosion and fire killed 11 people and triggered the largest accidental marine oil spill in history.

Oil and gas spewed uncontrollably from the broken well nearly a mile deep for 87 days, ejecting 4.9 million barrels of oil at a rate of about 400 tanker trucks per day, enough to fill up 1.2 million cars.
The spill also released about 7.7 billion cubic feet of fossil gas into the deep sea at a rate of 88 million cubic feet per day, enough to supply about 820,000 US homes.
State and federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, also authorized BP to apply 1.84 million gallons of chemical dispersants to try to reduce the impacts.

Some of the oil and gas dissipated and was transported out of the deep Gulf of Mexico region.
Some coated barrier islands and devastated coastal wetlands and shellfish habitat, and some settled onto the ocean floor, where currents can stir it back into the water.
But enough hydrocarbon and chemical-dispersant remnants stayed suspended long enough to do almost immeasurable harm.

A series of studies since the spill have shown a wide range of toxic effects on marine organisms, from impaired development and reproduction to increased mortality and lasting health problems in dolphins and whales.
The new paper suggests that lingering pollutants may interfere with some species’ ability to find mates in the dark by disrupting their highly developed sense of smell.

The impacts continue to ripple through the ecosystem, said lead author Tracey Sutton, a professor of marine and environmental sciences at Nova Southeastern University in Florida.
A 2024 study found an 80 percent decline in deep-diving toothed whales, he said.

“We used to have a big resident population of sperm whales right off the Mississippi River, but we haven’t seen a sperm whale in 10 years,” he said.
Large predators need big, occasional dense patches of prey, and those have disappeared, he added.

Scientists have developed accurate ways to count fish.
For this study, they started with a baseline from nine months of sampling in 2011 and compared it with nine subsequent surveys between 2015 and 2023.
The researchers sampled deep-pelagic habitat along a large grid around the spill site from about 650 feet below the surface to about a mile down.
The deep-pelagic zone accounts for about 90 percent of the Gulf’s total volume.

Across a grid of stations, scientists on slippery decks lowered and hoisted nets that open and close at different depths, with experts from different species groups to identify the catch.
They sampled around noon and midnight to account for species that migrate vertically each day.
Ship-mounted scientific echosounders provided an independent check, measuring sound reflected by marine life in the water column.

The research is “comprehensive and carefully composed,” marine biologist Bruce Robison, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, said via email.
“There is no other study that I know of with such an incredible number of net samples,” added Robison, who did not participate in the new study.

The research focuses on species that are not commercially fished and shows for the first time that human impacts can deplete marine life even in very deep ocean water, he said.

“It is important for the public to understand just how disastrous this oil spill was,” Robison said.
“The Gulf has not recovered, and it’s been over 15 years.”

Robison said other activities, such as deep-sea mining, could also have severe negative consequences for deepwater pelagic ecosystems by discharging wastewater containing metals or lubricants.

Three lines of evidence—net hauls, acoustic surveys, and genetic sampling—corroborate each other, which is “unusually strong evidence to support his conclusions,” said Jeffrey Drazen, a marine ecologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who did not participate in the new study.

The study examines all possible causes of the decline and shows only one aligns with the scientific evidence, he said.

“Through logical elimination,” he said, “and without actually pointing a finger, they leave no doubt that the oil spill is the cause of the decline.”

Germany launches cleanup to remove dumped munitions from WWI and WWII

Munitions on the seabed just off Lubeck, Germany (GEOMAR)

From The Maritime Executive

Germany has embarked on an immediate project to recover tons of munitions that were scattered on the floor of the North and Baltic seas at the end of World Wars I and II.
The discarded bombs and shells are becoming a threat to the marine environment due to the release of toxic chemicals.

More than 1.5 million tons of ordnance were intentionally dumped in German waters at the end of WWII, with around 300,000 tons of unexploded ordnance lying in the German Baltic Sea and the rest in the German North Sea.

Visit the Atlas

A study by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel last year found that the ordnance was increasingly becoming a risk to the marine environment owing to corrosion and the release of toxic chemicals.
Ammunition-related chemicals were detected in water samples collected from the Baltic Sea, with concentrations in some samples approaching critical toxicological thresholds.
(The concentrations in most samples were well below all relevant limits for health and safety, including drinking water limits.)

As corrosion progresses, contamination is expected to increase, raising the risk to the environment.
The threat is exacerbated by rising temperatures and increased storm activity due to climate change, which further accelerate the release of chemicals.

Following a push for the dumped ordnance to be classified as “historical contaminants of emerging concern,” the German federal government has launched a project to remove the munitions.
As an immediate task, the government has contracted for the construction and operation of a platform that will be used to remove dumped ordnance.

As part of the project, the research vessel Heincke has also been deployed on a two-week expedition to visit several dumping sites in the German Bight to map hidden munitions under the sand and prepare a pilot recovery operation.
The research team aboard the 55-meter vessel, which is operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), will also investigate how chemicals released by the munitions are affecting marine life by sampling water and sediments around wrecks lying on the seabed, most of which have been mapped and documented.

During the expedition, the team intends to survey the wreck of SMS Mainz, a German World War I light cruiser that sank in the North Sea in August 1914 during the Battle of Heligoland Bight and is among the wrecks that have already been the subject of research.
The team will also visit the wreck of the battle cruiser Blücher.
For both wrecks, the researchers will analyze their condition, and specifically the threat their munitions pose to the marine environment.

“After over 100 years on the sea floor, there is a heightened risk that the wrecks will collapse.
That is why it’s important to monitor their condition.
In addition, with increasing corrosion, toxic and carcinogenic explosives are released from the remaining munitions.
These pollutants pose a threat to marine life, food safety and human health,” said Matthias Brenner, leader of the REMARCO project.

 

Links :

• OSPA commission : Dumped chemical & conventional munitions 

The impressive mathematics behind the system that enables ships to anchor

Gemilerin demirlemesini sağlayan sistemin arkasındaki etkileyici matematik. https://t.co/SbWYAHoX6Q

— Mühendislik Harikası (@muhendisIiktr) October 23, 2026

Storm Austen captured from space

🛰️ Storm Austen captured from space today The swirl of cloud marks the eye of the storm as it sweeps across southern parts of the UK in today's satellite imagery https://t.co/opggJ7IN3Z

— Met Office (@metoffice) October 23, 2026

Storm Austen is currently developing in the Atlantic The jet stream drives it towards the UK on Thursday into Friday, bringing wet and very windy conditions to some areas Another system is likely to form into the weekend bringing more wind and rain Stay #WeatherAware https://t.co/pjMoq1AEtn

— Met Office (@metoffice) October 21, 2026

Le Four Lighthouse (Posporden) during the Austen storm in northern Finistère 

©Emmanuel Roger.

 

photo by Mathieu Rivrin

 

photo by Gaëlle de Trescadec

Marina mania: super-rich compete for superyacht slots

The Monaco Yacht Show is one of the highlights of the boating calendar 

© Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images

 

From FT by Ivan Levingston

 

A shortage of places to park the world’s growing fleet of luxury vessels is driving up prices — and turning marinas into a hot new asset class for investors

A group of white yachts — sails down, masts tall — float off the Greek island of Corfu, waiting to dock at the Gouvia marina in the late afternoon sun.
It is the first Friday in September and the weather is perfect for sailing — hot, with an occasional breeze.

 

Gouvia Marine in the GeoGarage platform (HNHS ENC)

The Gouvia marina occupies the site of a former Venetian shipyard, built during an Ottoman invasion in 1716.
It now encompasses circa 200,000 sq m of green-blue waters, protected from the choppier Mediterranean Sea.
Across its pontoons, it can dock 1,300 craft, from small motorboats to multistorey yachts, and today there seem to be almost that number in residence, hardly a spare berth in sight.

“You see each year more and more boats in the Mediterranean Sea, and it is super-tough to build new marinas,” says Oliver Dörschuck, chief executive of D-Marin, which owns the port at Gouvia and more than 20 others in the region.
“We normally have three to four boats inquiring for one berth.”

 

The marina at Gouvia is one of about 400 premium marinas located in the Mediterranean, the global capital of the yachting industry, with around a thousand in total in the region.

It is in the same league as the likes of Port Hercule, host of September’s Monaco Yacht Show, and Porto Montenegro.

Port Hercule, venue for the annual Monaco Yacht Show © Alamy

Yet while the number of yachts is flourishing, the number of marinas is not.

 

Port Hercule, Monaco with the GeoGarage platform (SHOM raster chart)

 

Thanks to regulatory barriers, environmental restrictions and a limited supply of suitable locations, it remains difficult to build a port.

This mismatch is turning an overlooked sector into big business.
Earlier this year D-Marin was sold by its private equity owners, CVC, to the French investment group InfraVia for more than €1bn.
The sale auction drew interest from numerous companies, the latest deal to underscore the attraction of the business model.
Industry executives expect further acquisitions.

Marina mania is more than a business play, although it is certainly that.
The market is fragmented, with few large-scale players, and demand has grown from clients around the world.
But what gives the phenomenon its real spice is that it forces the super-wealthy into competition with each other for a defiantly limited, slowly expanding stock of berths.
They may have all the money in the world, but that does not mean they can dock where they please.

Josephine De Luca, who runs an independent consultancy representing boat owners, says that she never had trouble finding a berth at Port Vauban in Antibes for her clients before the pandemic ignited the yacht boom.
“It’s actually about scarcity now, for me that’s really key,” De Luca says.
“Berthing — it’s not just more expensive but because the yachts are bigger and there’s a finite amount of berths, the bigger change is being able to get the berth you want.”
Boating consultant Josephine De Luca says some berthing fees have doubled in 10 years

Difficulty finding ideal yacht mooring risks frustrating owners who are used to having their way.
“The egos are only getting bigger,” she says.
“Unfortunately there are some people in this industry that have come into a lot of money really quickly and perhaps they don’t quite get the nuances of decorum required.”

As the ranks of the ultra-rich have grown in the past decade, swollen by buoyant stock markets, their minds have turned to what they can spend that wealth on.
It never takes long to hit on a yacht.

The total number of yachts longer than 12 metres, which are too big to easily store on land, was set to reach about 210,000 last year, according to data compiled by consultancy McKinsey, rising by about 8,000 per year.
That compared with just 160,000 marina berths for such vessels.

The surge is even more pronounced at the top end of the market.
The global fleet of superyachts — longer than 30 metres — grew around 40 per cent to reach 6,239 in the decade to 2025, according to industry publication SuperYacht Times.
Oceanco and Feadship in the Netherlands and Benetti in Italy are among the top shipyards that have fulfilled orders for the likes of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in recent years.

The pandemic helped — a cohort of consumers looked to the water for fresh air during government lockdowns — as has the rise of satellite internet.
It is now possible to work from anywhere including the most remote sailing locations, a trend branded “yacht-desking”.

“We’ve definitely seen a lot more younger people buying boats, and especially very big boats,” says Merijn de Waard, founder of SuperYacht Times.
“A lot of people realise now they can work remotely with Starlink, there’s very good internet.
And there’s just enormous wealth being created.”

Of about 6,000 global coastal marinas, 65 per cent are in the US, according to McKinsey.
The remainder are scattered elsewhere in Europe and in the Caribbean, with a nascent industry in Asia and the Middle East.
Meanwhile, about 6,500 yachts are delivered each year and a new marina typically takes between five and 10 years to build, adding on average only about 300 berths, McKinsey said.

“The fact that demand is outstripping supply is unquestionable,” says John Nery, managing partner at Squircle Capital, which owns the superyacht repair group MB92.
“Waterfront land is scarce and, wherever you are, [getting permits] is difficult.
You’ve got high barriers to entry.”

For example, at one marina near Seattle, more than 200 vessels are on the wait-list for berths stretching beyond 20 metres.

Two decades ago, De Luca got her start as a chartered accountant before she found her way to the yachting world, eventually leaving KPMG to work for Lukas Lundin, a Swedish-Canadian mining magnate who had owned the 80-metre superyacht Savannah.
Her first position was as the ship’s purser, an onboard administrative role, before becoming an executive officer — essentially the owner’s representative.
“I absolutely loved it.
You have to be a special type of person to enjoy living out of a suitcase, but it was a home,” she says.

The Savannah was the world’s first hybrid-engine superyacht when it launched in 2015, and includes an onboard pool, gym and elevator.
Its weekly charter fee was about €1.2mn, De Luca says.

During her time working with the yacht — she left in 2025 — the price of docking it had surged to about €3,500 per night during the peak summer months at top locations, De Luca estimates.
“It approximately doubled in the 10 years, specifically in the premier locations,” she says.
“That is scarcity pricing. You’re a yacht owner, you own a new 80-metre yacht, you want it sitting in the south of France.”

Bob Hoogendoorn, who led McKinsey’s yacht practice before this year becoming a founding partner of the marina group Balmaris, compared finding a good berth to getting seats at a top sports event.
“It’s almost a bit like Wimbledon, and then there isn’t even a shortcut,” he says.
“When you own a yacht, the last thing you want to compromise on is your boating spot.”

 

Bob Hoogendoorn, former head of McKinsey’s yacht practice and co-owner of marina group Balmaris

 

Where, when and how you berth is affected by the boat’s size.
A regular yacht — up to about 50 metres in length — is unable to cross the Atlantic or other oceans.
Such boats might pay for berths on an annual or even multiyear basis while roaming around their local region.

The largest superyachts can travel the world, by contrast.
A typical one might spend the summer in the Mediterranean, then head across the ocean to winter on a Caribbean tour.
In between, there can be a few weeks at a port for repairs and to give the crew a break.

They do not often dock — the point of owning a yacht is to be out on the water — so there is a premium on location and access to amenities, both for guests and crew, when they do.
At a marina, superyachts will often have their own quay, with restricted access.
At Port Vauban, its 1,500-berth marina has 18 for superyachts over 54 metres on their own quay, with tighter security including drone surveillance.
Customers can arrive by helipad and spend time in the new yacht club, while there is a dedicated crew centre for staff including a gym.

The crew — dozens on the largest yachts — are important in determining where yachts dock.
“You want the crew to have access to gyms, culture, sport etc,” says Tim Clarke, who runs the yacht staffing agency Quay Group.
“You don’t want to be in a location where the nightlife is too good because that can cause problems as well.”
For instance, docking in Ibiza raises the chance the crew will get into trouble at nightclubs or become victims of crime, as has happened in Barcelona.

Such stopovers must be planned at least three to four months in advance, says former superyacht captain Chris Durham, who piloted the Savannah for several years.
Even that may not be enough lead time.
“If it’s a really special trip like the Monaco Grand Prix or Cannes Film Festival, you’d need to think much more in advance,” he says.
“Relationships still are really important and the way in which you conduct yourself, the crew conduct themselves, and the way in which you operate still goes a long way . . . It’s a small industry.”

It might be a small industry, but it is a desirable one for investors.
“There are two factors that make the industry so attractive.
The first one is fundamental growth in demand for yachts, full stop.
And berthing space is characteristically limited,” says Squircle Capital’s Nery.
“You put all this together and it’s turning marinas into an infrastructure asset class; people didn’t think of it that way 10 or 20 years ago.”

Indeed, marinas appear to have all the traits of a strong business model suited to private capital investors — rising demand, constricted supply, recurring revenues, fragmentation ripe for consolidation.
The industry is a $15bn market that will grow about 8 per cent annually to 2030, said McKinsey.
A marina investor notes: “If an asset can continuously increase its prices and keep its occupancy high, that usually suggests that it is a defensive asset, so we thought the marina sector demonstrated those.”

In a major deal that underscored this investment desirability, Blackstone paid $5.7bn last year for Safe Harbor Marinas, the largest marina and superyacht servicing business in the US.
Then, this August, Blackstone’s Safe Harbor agreed to acquire MarineMax for $1.5bn, paying nearly a 100 per cent premium for the company’s share price before the disclosure of takeover interest in the group.

The big money comes with plans for expansion, through both further acquisitions of independent, often family-owned, marinas and investment in areas such as technology.
D-Marin’s story is a good illustration of the boom.
It was founded in 2003 by a Turkish conglomerate, with its first location on the Bodrum peninsula, and over the past five or six years has expanded to become one of the leading marina operators in the Mediterranean, with its nearly two dozen premium ports.

Chief commercial officer Matthias Gehring touts the ability to book berths online — a contrast to the analogue operations at most marinas — and other innovations such as remote monitoring of vessels’ heat, water intrusion and battery voltage, and augmented reality directions for how to navigate to a specific berth.
D-Marin’s model “enables us to build a platform and scale”, says COO Andrea De Santis.

 

D-Marin, owner of Gouvia marina in Corfu, was sold this year for more than €1bn
© Getty Images

There is a risk, industry figures acknowledge, that the investment boom and constant premiumisation might cause these businesses to lose their charm or personal feeling.

The arrival of serious investment has coincided with the hyper-gentrification of marina spots.
By the Rybovich marina in Florida’s West Palm Beach, not far from US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, one superyacht captain fondly remembers an affordable café outside the marina which crew members frequented.
However, in recent years that café has been transformed into an upscale restaurant with valet parking.
“It was all really reasonably priced and it was a really nice place for everyone to meet and mingle and socialise, but sadly that has been turned into a swanky, very expensive restaurant, which is not very accessible to crew,” the captain says.

 

Crew guide a superyacht into its berth at a D-Marin marina
© @VangelisPaterakis

The marina investor says: “These are neighbourhood businesses, particularly in the US and southern Europe . . . When you have big money, private equity or big brands come in, that creates a lot of backlash and that’s something a lot of the platforms struggle with.”
For example, regulars who previously used the marinas feel disenfranchised.

Port Vauban, Antibes with the GeoGarage platform (SHOM raster chart)

 

The large marina groups are going up against the likes of Port Vauban, owned by the local municipality, which has a focus on making its economic impact benefit the broader region.
“We are a public entity, which makes quite a difference, because we operate not to maximise returns for shareholders but for our city and our region,” says Olivier Astolfi, director of the region’s ports.
“We have a more long-term vision for sustainable development.”

“Hotspots in yachting change very slowly,” says SuperYacht Times’s de Waard.
“A wealthy person in Singapore or Hong Kong might still want to go boating in the Mediterranean or Caribbean.”

But as yacht owners proliferate across the globe, in the long term the superyacht industry may no longer prize the Mediterranean alone.
Locales in Asia and Central and South America are gaining popularity either for their existing marinas or as sites for new ones, since it remains so challenging to build them in the Mediterranean.
Hong Kong is creating a 500-berth port for superyachts, part of its airport bay development, that will open by late 2028, while Japan’s Kobe Marina is finalising its site for the country’s first dedicated marina hub for superyachts.
Emirati developer Aldar is building Abu Dhabi’s largest yacht marina on Saadiyat Island.

“In the Mediterranean, at least, and in the US and Caribbean, you can’t build new sites.
It is pretty rare,” says the investor in the marina industry.
“Asia and the Middle East — Turkey, for example — are where you’re starting to see new assets being created.”

 

‘You wouldn’t want to take your Lamborghini or Ferrari to a truck stop’
© Tanya Cooper

But marinas that can accommodate superyachts are still not available everywhere, meaning that captains must sometimes look for other options in more remote locations, such as docking at a commercial port.
These tend to come without amenities and include potential hazards, such as the risk that metal filings could damage the paint job or that VIP guests could be exposed to unwanted publicity.

“As soon as you go outside the Mediterranean and Caribbean, and the odd place like Costa Rica, Thailand and the Seychelles that have a superyacht marina, they’re few and far between in most countries,” says Durham, the former captain.
“You wouldn’t want to take your Lamborghini or Ferrari to a truck stop.”

The generation of younger yacht buyers is also driving the industry to new frontiers, says Quay Group’s Clarke: “We’ve definitely seen owners being much more adventurous, and they’re more interested in seeing things that maybe they haven’t seen, as opposed to just doing St Tropez, Monaco, Capri.”
He suggests Central and South America and the Pacific Islands are more popular than Asia.

 

St Tropez © Getty Images

But while the marina industry is globalising, ultimately superyachts are constricted the world over by the same factor that makes them unique: their size.

“It’s certainly becoming more challenging, especially with the larger yachts,” says one captain.
“I’m captaining a 100-metre yacht at the moment and there are only a finite amount of places you can put one of these.”
But not if the marina industry has its way.