Dockwise Yacht Transport: Carpooling Across Oceans
Dockwise Yacht Transport: Carpooling Across Oceans
I had seen commercial ships before-plowing through weeknight racecourses on Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, navigating the twists and turns of Ohio's Cuyahogoa River-but I never understood just how big they are until yesterday, when I took a tour of Yacht Express, the 685-foot flagship of the Dockwise Yacht Transport fleet.
The world's first purpose-built yacht carrier was making its inaugural visit to Newport, and Dockwise invited members of the media aboard to witness the loading and unloading process.
Approaching the ship through the fog, I didn't grasp its enormity. It wasn't until a few minutes later, standing on the upper deck, looking over the dock bay where boats were floating in and out like transients at a marina, that I realized the scale of the operation. Wait a minute, I just watched a 49-foot boat pull a U-turn in the belly of a ship!
As colossal an undertaking as the Dockwise process may seem to a first-time observer like me, it's becoming part of the routine for many sailors. William Borel is project manager for Challenge Twelve, the 1983, Ben Lexcen-designed 12-meter based in Antibes, France. When the boat's owner opted not to sail in the 2009 12 Metre World Championships (Sept. 22 to 27), the crew came together to finance the regatta themselves-and chose Dockwise as the logical means of transporting the boat from France to Newport. On Tuesday morning, Borel met Challenge Twelve at the end of its Atlantic crossing and, with a skillful touch and an air of insouciance, backed it off the ship and into Narragansett Bay.
