MYS 2022: Martin Baum on Mitigating Risk of Superyacht Fires

Fires onboard superyachts have been grabbing headlines and causing concern in the industry, with casualties adding up over 2022. As the leading yacht insurance firm around the world, Pantaenius has reacted swiftly to work on solutions to counter these risks.

“I wanted to raise this topic because it’s very close to my heart,” says Martin Baum. “A fire on a boat is one of the most dangerous things that can happen. We don’t want to scare anyone, but we’ve seen in the last 24 months about 18 boats have burned down and were total losses.

“They’re in the size between 20 and 30 metre, and that is a trend that we find quite worrying and has to be looked at. That’s what we’re doing at the moment.”

Martin Baum continues to address the attention that has been thrust on lithium batteries as one risk of potential fires, before catching us up on Pantaenius’ priorities in terms of possible solutions.

“It’s important to educate and to have a few more regulations in terms of the toys and the mobile batteries that you bring on board. That’s something that we’d like to continue with.”