Sustainability at the Dock:

To protect the sea, which as we know is already heavily polluted, it’s not enough to adopt
behaviors that respect marine ecosystem sustainability while sailing. Even in the marina, it’s still the sea, and our actions at the dock, at our boat slip,have a direct impact on the health of these precious habitats. For this reason, even when ourboat is moored, it’s necessary to maintain a high level of attention to reduce pollution and waste to a minimum. At first, changing our habits might certainly
be a bit difficult; however, it will take little time for these extra precautions to become established and automatic habits. Let’s look at some tips for maintaining good sustainability practices at the marina.

Sustainability at the Dock: Refueling

Well-equipped tourist ports, like our Marina Porto Antico of Genoa, also offer fuel service. This is certainly a
delicate moment from an environmental perspective: attention must be paid to avoid even the smallest fuel spill into the sea. It is therefore necessary to be careful not to exceed the full tank limit, and to have a
old cloth ready to wipe up any drops. Taking a few extra seconds helps keep the sea cleaner! Fuel that ends up in the sea kills fish, birds, and aquaticplants. Therefore, in addition to being careful while refueling, it’s important to check that tanks don’t have any leaks, and more generally ensure excellent maintenance of theengine. By doing so, you’ll also achieve better performance with lower fuel consumption.

Restroom Facilities and Tanks

The convenience of a well-equipped tourist port is obviously having access to restroom facilities on land, which not only provides greater comfort but also reduces the
waste of onboard water. In general, discharge into the water should be absolutely avoided
of wastewater, which must be collected in appropriate onboard tanks to be emptied into proper shore-based collection systems.

Boat Cleaning

The port dock is the right place to clean our boat, both inside and outside. However, remember that when we clean the deck and hull, the products and dirty water will end uplargely in the sea. Therefore, cleaning should be done carefully and with the right products, avoiding polluting detergents. That’s not all: to avoid wasting freshwater, it should be usedonly for the final rinse, using a rubber hose with a good seal, even better if equipped with a nozzle that can increase water pressure.In general, it would be best to bring only eco-friendly detergents on board, whether they’refor boat cleaning, washing dishes, or for showers and personal hygiene on board. On this note, it’s worth highlighting that even regular sunscreens are far frommarine environment-friendly: when we swim, we end up bringing microplastics and harmful substances into the water, leaving that annoying surface film. It’s much
better to spend a bit more and protect your skin with more sustainable sun protection.

Onboard Water Management

Indeed, onboard water management is one of the aspects that requires the most attention. The advice is to refill water with your own hose,
ensuring to use only perfectly clean tanks with the appropriate filter cartridge.
This way, the water will stay clean and good, without any waste.

Sustainable Provisioning

The stay at the tourist port is often an opportunity to do some provisioning. And certainly, even “shopping” can heavily influence the sustainability of time spent on board. It’s much betterto prefer local products or zero-mile products, with minimal packaging. The list should be made knowing the actual consumption on board, thus avoiding bringing food on board that won’t
be eaten and will go bad. The refrigerator should be kept at about 4 degrees Celsius to preserve more delicate foods, bringing the temperature to 8 degrees when there aren’t
particularly perishable foods present. To consume less electrical energy, the refrigerator should be always full, possibly inserting simple water bottles to avoidhaving a half-empty running fridge, which is painful for our onboard batteries. One last trick: to avoid unnecessarily prolonged refrigerator openings, it would always be good to load it in reverse, putting the foods we’ll use last at the bottom!

Less Noise, less Light, less Pollution

In port, it’s important to reduce noise and light pollution, respecting both marine fauna and other boaters who have chosen nearby boat slips. Therefore, we should avoid keepinglights unnecessarily on board and underwater lights on, and minimize engine and electricity generator usage. Regarding noise, particular attention should be paid to
mooring springs: it’s better to avoid squeaky ones and use rubber ones instead, which are significantly quieter.

Waste Sorting

The final tip for maintaining good sustainability on board concerns waste management. Just like at home, we must also sort various types of waste on board, so that
these materials can be properly disposed of and potentially recycled.