The future is a network.
Marinas, moorings, people, technology and services, connected around the boat.
Boats were built to move.
Yet much of the infrastructure around owning them assumes they should spend most of their lives standing still.
Marinas remain essential, and for many boats they always will be. But they are becoming more expensive and new capacity is difficult to build.
At the same time, boats themselves are changing.
Satellite connectivity can keep them connected almost anywhere. GPS can tell us where they are. Sensors can report battery condition, bilge levels, temperature, fuel, movement and other onboard information. Cameras and connected systems can help people see what is happening remotely.
Some systems are also becoming semi-autonomous, able to monitor, respond or assist with routine tasks without somebody physically standing beside them.
None of this removes the need for people.
But it may change where those people need to be, how many boats they can look after, and how much of the work around ownership needs to happen in a fixed location.
So perhaps we should ask a different question.
Not:
“Where should we park all the boats?”
But:
“What would the marine industry look like if the infrastructure followed the boats?”
Some things worth questioning
Why does a boat designed to move need a permanent parking space?
At what point does keeping a boat cost more than selling it for less?
What changes when we can increasingly know what is happening on a boat without physically being there?
Could every boat have a living digital record of where it is, what condition it is in, what has been maintained, what needs attention and what it costs to operate?
Could that same information make maintenance easier, remote stewardship safer, ownership clearer and, when the owner chooses, selling simpler too?
Could better connectivity, sensing and semi-autonomous systems allow one skilled person to safely manage several boats rather than one boat requiring one dedicated person?
What happens when the cost of parking becomes greater than the cost of professionally managing a boat afloat?
Could one skilled custodian look after several boats rather than every owner paying separately for passive storage?
Could modern mooring fields work alongside marinas, supporting boats with water, fuel, waste collection, maintenance, provisioning and transport?
Could better mooring systems protect sensitive seabeds while increasing access to the water?
Could marinas play a different role for some boats, as places they visit for repair, resupply and people, rather than places they stay permanently?
Could money currently spent immobilising boats instead create skilled marine employment?
And fundamentally:
If the asset is mobile, why must all of its infrastructure be fixed?
We don’t know the answer.
The Floating Network is not proposing one grand solution.
It is an experiment.
We want to examine the assumptions that have accumulated around boat ownership and ask what might happen if some of them are no longer true.
Some answers may involve marinas.
Some may involve moorings.
Some may involve people.
Some may involve technology.
Some may involve entirely different ways of owning and accessing boats.
Different locations and different boats may need completely different answers. We are interested in how all of these things might connect.
The interesting part is finding out.
One question at a time.
We’ll ask one question at a time, mostly on LinkedIn.
Owners, operators and people across the marine industry can challenge it, improve it, add to it or tell us it makes no sense.
This site simply keeps a record of the questions and, occasionally, what we learned.