Safety and Security for Yacht Owners
Yacht owners and charter clients may have unseen targets on their backs, and those taking aim come in many forms. A non-exhaustive list includes unscrupulous business competitors, groups who oppose your industry or affluence for political or environmental reasons, or mentally unbalanced stalkers.
Your first line of defense is not an enhanced personal security detail. Rather, your own powers of observation and analysis honed by the Situational Awareness Mindset serve as your early warning security radar.
The Situational Awareness Mindset
Situational awareness is a heightened mental state of alertness in which individuals observe, process, and react to their surroundings. While some think of it as a skill for spies, one need not be Jason Bourne to adopt this mindset. In fact, doing so is of particular importance for high-net-worth individuals and families due to the possibility of direct targeting by criminals or terrorists. Fortunately, adopting good situational awareness is a relatively simple process anyone can master. The Situational Awareness Mindset is how you do so, and it is composed of three inseparable parts.
Switch On
Deciding one will commit to paying attention at a higher level to the immediate environment is called “switching on.” This is a conscious effort to begin observing in detail and processing what is seen and heard. Keep at it, and these observation skills will soon become second nature.
Put into practice, you are looking for anything out of place, encompassing people and objects. Regarding people, you are looking at body language and behavior. Do they seem aggressive or relaxed? Is someone paying too much attention to you or walking towards you on a deliberate intercept course? Objects include those that are both stationary and moving. Why is that package near the event entrance? Is that car driving erratically? Your habits begin to change. You start looking for the nearest exits at each venue upon arrival, and you begin sitting facing the door to observe who enters.
Vanquish Denial
Denial, already with an impressive body count, can kill you. “It will never happen to me” and “nothing ever happens here” are among the final thoughts of people in denial. Fireworks do not go off in airports, hotels, or markets. That popping noise is always gunfire until proven otherwise. Until denial is defeated, you will be at war with your natural survival instinct, which is the third component.
Trust Your Gut
Often called a “gut feeling” or “woman’s intuition,” your survival instinct is the hunter-gatherer part of your brain still performing its Ice Age job to warn you of danger. Even the most sophisticated among us still possess this primitive instinct. Our modern world, however, sees many of us suppressing this vital function. Why? Many violent encounter victims report that the fear of condemnation for profiling their attackers based on race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status overcame the feeling of danger. I encourage profiling that is based on behavioral and situational factors. If something seems out of place or feels wrong, it usually is. Permit yourself to trust your gut. It could save your life.
Everyday SA
Employing a personal security detail should not dissuade individuals and families from the Situational Awareness Mindset. Often, children of wealth travel unaccompanied during gap years or their time at university, yet they may become targets in their own right. Other family members may only move with a detail at certain times and not at others. Terrorist or criminal surveillance will detect this vulnerability.
Situational Awareness covers you for more than just immediate physical threats. You begin to recognize when a person you are speaking to is probing for valuable inside information. Family members stop posting their locations in real-time on social media and no longer announce future travel plans to the world. Your closest advisors and staff adopt the mindset, further protecting you and themselves. When situational awareness becomes a team sport, you are engaging in the force multiplier of All Hands Security.
Making situational awareness a part of daily life requires discipline, especially early on. Think of it as a relaxed alertness or the defensive driving of your life. Professional training can ensure the mindset rapidly becomes second nature and can be accomplished in as little as a day or two. When I teach situational awareness, I have one simple goal: To change how you see the world for the rest of your life.
The investment pays dividends immediately as your surroundings come into sharper focus. The amount of new detail noticed and the additional confidence acquired ensures you never see the world in the same way again.
About the Author
Michael O’Rourke cofounded the global security and intelligence consultancy, Advanced Operational Concepts, after retiring from the U.S. Army Special Forces. He may be contacted at aoc.security@adopcon.com or via www.adopcon.com.
Contact Your Favorite Yacht Broker
If you have yachting questions, concerns, or you just want to talk boats, Contact Andrew Troyer, Troyer Yachts 954-732-0339
