Seeking superyachts. Signed, Sydney, Nova Scotia

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings Sydney Nova Scotia, a town on Cape Breton Island that has a toxic legacy. Literally. But it is looking for a fresh start and it has an interesting plan. For decades, the fortunes of most towns in Atlantic Canada rose and fell with whatever industry made its home there from fishing to steel to oil and gas, and yes, in the more picturesque places, travel and tourism, that tourism has traditionally come from other Canadians. Canadians of modest means looking for a vacation who arrive by plane or train or car and take in the local beauty. Small town tourism in Atlantic Canada does not generally bring to mind the hundreds of millions of dollars in floating amusement parks. Preferred by the 1% of the world’s 1%, but Sydney Nova Scotia population 30,000 is wondering what if it did? I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Michael MacDonald is a reporter for the Canadian Press who covers Atlantic Canada. Hello, Michael.

Michael MacDonald: Hello.

Jordan: For those who haven’t been there, which includes myself, tell us a little bit about Sydney Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island.

Michael MacDonald: Well, Sydney is a small town. It’s 31,000 people of the 130,000 who live in Cape Breton. It’s on a large harbour that empties into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the downtown is rather pleasant with the usual assortment of shops and restaurants and bars and that sort of thing. It’s really not that unusual at all for a town of its size.

Jordan: And I guess prior to recently, if people did know it for something, what was that?

Michael MacDonald: Well, Sydney was famous for a very long time for its steelmaking, and that goes all the way back to 1900 when the Sydney Steel Corporation opened, and in the early 19 hundreds, that steel plant, that massive steel plant was one of the most advanced in the world and it stayed open until, I’m going to say it was 1967 when it was decided to shut down that plant, and at the time it had 3,700 workers. This was a massive operation that mainly made rails for railways and unfinished steel for many, many other industries. The Nova Scotia government took over. The federal government eventually got involved to try and bail out the steel plant, but its ceased functioning in 1988 and it struggled on for another 12 years, and in 2000 finally the whole operation was shut down. The lasting ugly legacy of the Sydney Steel Corporation were of course the infamous Sydney ponds. That area just at the northern edge of the downtown of Sydney comprised basically 1 million tons of toxic sludge that was known for a long time as one of the worst toxic waste sites in Canada.

Jordan: And you said known for a long time, but not anymore, right?

Michael MacDonald: Yes. What happened was hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on a cleanup project that took quite a long time to finish. It involved all kinds of remediation, not the least of which was pouring in tons and tons and tons of concrete, basically to put a cap on the tar ponds. And eventually, believe it or not, that waste site was turned into a sprawling urban park. It’s called the Open Hearth Park. It’s quite large, it’s quite beautiful, and as far as I know, it’s the pride of Sydney because what was once a hideous eyesore is now a nice place to take your family and hang out on a sunny day.

Jordan: Now that the Tarpons are gone and there’s a beautiful new park, what does Sydney want to do next in terms of its economy and that area, and how is it looking to take the next step?

Michael MacDonald: Well, as you can imagine, when an employer of that size shuts down, the repercussions are very long lasting. It’s no secret that Cape Bratton in general has had a struggling economy for a very, very long time, problems without migration. And what they’ve done, of course, is they’ve tried very hard to reinvigorate their economy. Sydney in particular, has done a lot of work to keep businesses downtown and to attract other businesses from the tech sector, from finance, from the entrepreneurial sector, and as far as I know, they’ve done a pretty good job, but it’s been a struggle. The population in Cape Breton, unlike the rest of Nova Scotia, has been going down for years now. There has been an uptick recently, but really not much of a dent in the overall trend. But as I mentioned, the efforts continued to reinvigorate things to bring people downtown, and the latest plan is to attract what are known as super yachts to Sydney Harbor, but not just to Sydney Harbor, to Cape Breton in general, because as you know, in the center of the island are the Bras D’or Lakes beautiful chain of lakes that are prized by tourists who come from around the world to see them, and now the super yachts are coming.

Jordan: Okay, so for the uninitiated, what is a super yacht exactly? Is there actually a definition like above and beyond a yacht, or is it just like a really, really big yacht?

Michael MacDonald: Well, I think the answer is to your question, yeah, it’s a really, really big yacht. There is no standard definition of what a super yacht is,

Jordan: But give us a sense of them then if there’s no a hundred meter cutoff. What are we actually talking about when you picture these things pulling up to little Sydney Cape Breton?

Michael MacDonald: Right. Well, I mean the one definition I received from the head of super yacht east coast, his name is Adam Langley. He’s the CEO of this rather new organization that is specifically set up to attract these large vessels. According to him, a super yacht is kind of a luxury vessel that is anything over 80 feet long, but as I’m sure your listeners can appreciate, a lot of the yachts that we’ve been seeing certainly in the last 20 years are a lot bigger than that. I did a little bit of research and as far as I can tell, the first super yacht was actually built in 1931, if you can believe that, and that was built for an American Hess, and that particular vessel is 450 feet long. It’s still owned by the Turkish government, but between then and 2000, there weren’t really a lot of what I would call or what we would call super yachts built. It’s really only in the last 20 years that these large luxury vessels for personal use have really taken off. And I looked on Wikipedia, not the greatest source I know, but according to Wikipedia, the top 20 super yachts in the world, most of which are 400 feet and longer one, the largest in the world, is almost 600 feet long. Wow. Virtually all of them have been built since 2020. Now, you have to imagine that these vessels, these yachts are essentially, some of them are like floating palaces or floating resorts. The fanciest of them all have air conditioned helicopter hangers, they have infinity pools, they have all manner of luxuries like jacuzzi and whatnot,

Jordan: And these are owned by some of the absolute wealthiest people in the entire world. How does a town in Atlantic Canada kind of out of the way, a tiny little town known as you point out first for the steel industry and then for a giant pond of toxic sludge go about attracting the richest and most famous of the world’s rich and famous?

Michael MacDonald: Well, since the cleanup of the Tarpons, I mean, there has been a very big effort to burnish the image of Cape Breton. There is an organization called Destination Cape Breton that is charged with attracting tours from around the world to the island, and one of the things they’ve done, I think this was just last year, it was agreed that they would hire super yacht east coast. The CEO is Adam Langley. He is from Nova Scotia. He lives in Halifax and in Baddeck, which is right in the middle of Cape Breton, and he has an extensive background in waterfront development and marine tourism as well, and his organization is the one that is going to try very hard to attract the captains and the owners of these super yachts to Cape Breton and also to the rest of Nova Scotia. He wants more and more of these boats to come to the East Coast. Now you’re asking how are they going to do that? Well, it’s actually quite simple. He and his wife Amanda, they go to boat shows. There was one I believe in November in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. There’s going to be another one in March in Palm Springs, California, and that’s where they will meet with the captains. That’s where they will meet with maybe some of the owners to persuade them that yes, the east coast of the United States is a beautiful spot and obviously visited by a lot of these big vessels, but coming a bit north, they will tell them, and you will find something that is very different, something that’s not as busy, something that is pristine and quiet, and they believe that there is a market for that. I should point out that some super yachts have already come to Cape Breton. Last year there was a yacht called the Archimedes. It’s 200 feet long, it’s purportedly worth about a hundred million dollars to buy, and it’s owned by the head of a US hedge fund, and Mr. Langley worked with the captain and their owner to come up with an itinerary that included going to the BDO Lakes and stopping in bed deck, which is a beautiful tourist town in the middle of that lake system. And I believe, I’m just trying to recall now, that they were going to stay a week and they ended up staying like eight weeks in Atlanta, Canada, and they spent a lot of money.

Jordan: As much as this is a charming little story, and I’ve been kind of kidding here, nobody is doubting the charm of small towns in Atlantic Canada because it’s beautiful. What I want to know is in the bigger picture, what does a visit from a super yacht super rich person like that, or more than one of them, if this works, what does that mean for the economy? Is this a viable strategy?

Michael MacDonald: Yes. Well, Mr. Langley will tell you as will destination Cape Braddon, that this is a good idea for boosting the economy, for boosting tourism. And they are very quick to point out that these floating resorts need a lot of resources to keep them going. For example, the captain of the Archimedes, the super yacht that visited Cape Breton last year is on record as saying that during their trip to the east coast of Canada, they spent $400,000 on provisioning that boat. I’ve heard stories about how one of the vessels that stopped in the deck to pick up provisions just for the crew, spent thousands of dollars at the local co-op store grocery store, and they walked out with 16 grocery carts full of food, and that was just for the crew. Another boat that showed up in Cape Breton, one of the things they did, they spent no less than $10,000 just on flowers. Mr. Langley says that that’s an immediate injection of funds into the local economies and sometimes smaller economies like bed deck. And part of the idea behind getting these larger vessels to come to Cape Breton is to actually attract smaller vessels as well. The idea is that if these big boats show up, there’s an attraction, almost an immediate attraction on the wharf, and smaller vessels will follow. People will come down to the wharf and buy ice cream, as Mr. Langley likes to say, and that’s all very good for the economy. And now don’t forget that keeping these things running is very, very expensive. As you can imagine, like a 200 foot yacht needs a lot of diesel to keep running, so that’s a lot of money right there. I just did a little bit of research on what it takes to keep these vessels running, and one of the things I’ve found out that when it’s at the wharf, a 200 foot vessel can burn about 130 gallons of diesel fuel every hour, and that’s just sitting at the talk.

Jordan: It’s interesting that as the town and the beauty around it becomes a tourist attraction for the super yachts, the super yachts themselves become a tourist attraction for the community.

Michael MacDonald: Yes. That’s the idea. Mr. Langley does talk about that quite a bit, and he talks about it in terms of bringing vibrancy to the waterfront when these boats show up. Of course, there’s a lot of talk when these vessels arrive about, well, who owns it? Right?

Jordan: Yeah. Is it Tiger Woods?

Michael MacDonald: Right. And of course, there’s always speculation about is it a dotcom millionaire? Is it an a-list celebrity? Is it a Russian oligarch? Because of course, we know that Russian oligarchs own a lot of the largest super yachts. I wanted to point out though that when these vessels do show up, it is actually very hard to find out who owns them. And if you ask the people on board, they will not tell you. And if you go online, you can find out all you want about what the vessel is, what it looks like inside, how much it’s worth, but you will actually find it very difficult to determine who actually owns it. Is

Jordan: There a downside at all to this? I mean, it seems like it can’t hurt to try, but also, I mean, you did just mention that the town finished cleaning up a giant pond of toxic sludge, and then you mentioned just how much fuel these things use. Is this environmentally sound

Michael MacDonald: Right? Well, I had a chance to speak with Tom Aniak. He is a political science professor at Cape Breton University in Sydney, and he recently wrote a scathing editorial about the super yacht business and specifically Cape Breton’s decision to attract them to the island, and his main point is that there has to be a larger conversation about what it means to spend public dollars to attract these vessels to an area that’s really not used to them. He went on to say that we have to think about the fact that Canadians are being asked to make sacrifices to deal with climate change, and it doesn’t really make any sense to cater to rich people who really don’t seem to care about their massive carbon footprint. His concern is that the message is one that undermines efforts to do right by the environment. In other words, does it really make any sense to ask people to try to reduce their consumption when they see a yacht like this show up and the cost of consumption just isn’t even an issue?

Jordan: What does the super Yacht Attraction group say about that? Surely they’ve anticipated this complaint. It’s not hard to anticipate when you look at the things. Well,

Michael MacDonald: The response from super yacht East Coast Adam Langley, the CEO, is that it’s his understanding that the super yacht industry, the people who own super yachts are aware of this problem. They are aware that when people look at these vessels, they think, well, why should I have to cut back on my lifestyle to do right by the planet when these people aren’t? They’re aware of that, and that’s why the super yacht industry apparently is looking at hydrogen powered boats, electric powered boats, that sort of thing. But as far as I know, none of those boats actually exist. Yet. More importantly, Mr. Langley says that as he’s drawing up this plan to increase the marine tourism industry in Cape Breon and the rest of Nova Scotia, his plan will be a sustainable one. He caress about this province he cares about its waterfronts. He grew up on the north shore of Nova Scotia and he says he’s committed to making sure that this industry, that the people who own and operate these boats do right by Cape Britain and Nova Scotia. He also says that it’s a bit misleading to talk about Russian oligarchs bringing their 400 foot super yachts to Cape Breton and elsewhere because they’re simply not going to show up. They’re not really interested in coming here, especially with all of the scrutiny they’re under, and that’s just a bit of a red herring. He argues that most of the captains and owners of the 200 foot plus class of super yachts, these people, he says, are in fact very mindful of the environment. They’re interested in a different kind of experience, and he cited the owner of the Archimedes, who I talked about earlier, saying that what that person was most interested in was walking tours. They actually wanted to get off the boat, experience Nova Scotia, walk about town, meet people and get to know the area. He also said that a lot of these super yachts, the ones that he’s trying to attract to this area are what he called explorer vessels or explorer yachts, and they go to some of the most pristine environments in the world, so they have to live up to very stringent environmental standards, and this is the kind of people he says he’s trying to attract. Now, that doesn’t mean that the criticism of this gambit is going to go away. There are larger issues here as raised by a professor, and yeah, we need to talk about them.

Jordan: The last question I have is more of a big picture for Atlantic Canada. This is an area that used to be based on industry, on fishing industry, on steel industry, et cetera, et cetera. As that changes,

Michael MacDonald: How

Jordan: Does this kind of represent a new direction for the region as a whole?

Michael MacDonald: Well, this is something new and that’s why it’s worth having a closer look at it. As I mentioned, the super yacht, they’re calling them mega yachts now, the ones that are up around 400 feet long. I would argue that these vessels represent something more than just wealth. They actually represent the extreme concentration of what I guess would call Uber wealth in a very small group of people, and I think it’s important for people who live in this region to ask the questions, do we really want to be part of that? Does this fit in with what we’re trying to do in terms of saving the planet, in terms of being good to the environment? These are tough questions and these are the sort of things that need to be asked. I think that though the proponents of this plan, they’re a lot more mindful of this than you might think, and they seem pretty committed to making sure that certain standards are kept when these vessels arrive. But I think there was a little bit of surprise when my story came out and there was some pretty harsh criticism from the professor at Cape Breton University, and yeah, I did get quite a bit of blowback from people saying, look, this is good for the economy. We should go for it. I don’t buy these arguments that these ships are really that bad for the environment at all.

Jordan: It’ll be really fascinating to see what happens and see if little Sydney Cape Breton and the towns around it become the next Riviera. Michael, thank you so much for this. It’s a lot of fun.

Michael MacDonald: My pleasure. Jordan,

Jordan: Michael MacDonald reporting for the Canadian Press. That was The Big Story. For more, you can head to The Big Story podcast.ca if you want to give us some feedback. If you like this episode or hated this episode, or the ones that came before it, all 1500 or so of them, we would love to hear from you. You can shoot us an email at hello at The Big Story podcast.ca, or you can call us up and leave a voicemail. That phone number is nine three five five nine three five. You guys are on fire with episode suggestions in this first week, back in the new year. We are looking at all of them. If we haven’t gotten back to you, rest assured we’ve read your email. It’s on our list. We’re looking at your suggestion. The Big Story is available in every single podcast player, and of course on your smart speaker, just ask it to, nevermind asking it, tell it to play The Big Story podcast. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.