Having sold four of the five highest-priced Newport Harbor waterfront homes during his 24-year sales career, Coldwell-Banker realtor Tim Smith has been “cleaning up,” but not in the way you might think.
An avid fisherman (he owns a Boston Whaler Realm 38’) and Dover Shores resident who “loves this harbor,” Smith has been focused on how he can help make the bay as clean as possible.
The answer came from his firm’s marketing partner, Greg Blake, who asked, “What if we had a boat and a crew to clean the bay?”
It was textbook service marketing, where company efforts both promote good for the community as a whole, while hopefully generating the attention of potential clients.
To that end, Smith ordered a “skimmer,” an all-aluminum, flat-decked, outboard- powered catamaran workboat designed by Elastec Boats of Carmi, IL to suck up floating trash. Fitted out, the vessel cost $120,000 and took a year to build. The Smith Team christened her “The Good Seamaritan.”
She has now been in service for just over three months under the command of local Capt. Robert Sloan. Although he currently works but three days a week, Sloan and the “Good Seamaritan” have collected and ferried thousands of pounds of trash to an offload zone at Marina Park.
Unless one gets down and dirty, it’s hard to realize just what floats above and just under the surface of bay water.
“The most common things I pull out are plastic water bottles, cups and lids, tennis shoes, large wood logs, plus other wooden objects and polypropylene line,” shared the skipper.
On one outing, Sloan snagged a 25-foot waterlogged log, which he had to tow to Marina Park. On his most prolific day to date, the skipper offloaded 550 pounds of trash. He uses boat hooks and a variety of nets that he has purchased to capture the flotsam and has become “good at driving and collecting” without having to stop. Except for that log.
“The more extreme the tides, the more extreme the trash,” Sloan observes. Depending on those tides, the trash seems to collect in certain areas — which he knows well from having skippered a variety of boats for several companies in the harbor since 1985. In terms of collecting, Sloan generally patrols between the Newport Aquatic Center and the harbor jetties.
Although most often crewing and collecting by himself, he is never alone, for his long time partner, Xena, always joins him. Xena is a giant mutt that fits that salty description, “old sea dog.” Sloan, however, is looking for human volunteers to help spot and haul in the trash.
Skipper Sloan doesn’t always concentrate on flotsam; he’ll often stop at various beaches, docks and residences along the route to sweep or rake up the jetsam. Although he now gets paid for his efforts, Sloan has made it a practice for a couple of decades to scoop up anything that pollutes the waters. He is well known along the waterfront for his work.
In the long haul, “Good Seamaritan” may become one of the more famous boats afloat in Newport, even though it will have a trashy reputation—but in this case, that’s a good thing.
