Tired of seeing derelict vessels in coastal waterways where you want to cruise or anchor? Boy, does Heather Lougheed have some good news for you.
Lougheed—who got her start at BoatUS 24 years ago in membership and marketing, and then rose up the ranks to become vice president of the 800,000-member-strong organization of boat owners—is now also taking on the role of president at the nonprofit BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water. Issue No. 1 on her to-do list is making good use of a $10 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to address the cleanup of derelict vessels.
NOAA awarded the four-year grant to the BoatUS Foundation in September as part of the government agency’s Marine Debris Removal Program, which includes not only boats, but also derelict fishing gear, plastics and other types of debris that can get in a boater’s way out on the water. Step one for utilizing the grant will be creating a database to document where derelict vessels are located in coastal waters and the Great Lakes. Then, the BoatUS Foundation will create smaller grants that people can apply for to remove the vessels altogether.
“We’re really excited about tracking them and removing them, and then doing educational outreach around that issue,” says Lougheed, who took on her new role with the BoatUS Foundation in November. “They’re not only eyesores; they’re also impediments to travel. They can keep people from boating and anchoring where they want. It’s an access problem.”
Nobody is sure how many derelict vessels are even out there, Lougheed says. Hence, step one for creating the database will include working with individual states to determine what their residents are seeing in local areas. From there, BoatUS will work with NOAA to create a national database of derelict vessels that need to be addressed, with hopes that the database will be up and running by the middle or end of this year.
The project is a big reason Lougheed agreed to take on the new role with the BoatUS Foundation, in addition to keeping the job of
BoatUS vice president, which she’s held for the past 14 years.
“I was excited about the NOAA grant and wanting to help,” she says. “I think it’s exciting anytime there’s something new to focus on and start at the beginning.”
BoatUS and the BoatUS Foundation are often mistaken as the same organization. “They’re both called BoatUS, and a lot of people confuse them as one, but they are two separate entities,” she says.
BoatUS is an association of boat owners that focuses on making boating better for its members, with services and savings on things like equipment, charters, marinas and access to TowBoatUS. By contrast, the BoatUS Foundation is a nonprofit that works on educational outreach around boater safety and clean water.
A key priority for Lougheed’s predecessor at the BoatUS Foundation, Chris Edmonston, was battling regulations that NOAA proposed in August 2022 to require boaters to slow to 10 knots along much of the Eastern Seaboard to prevent vessel collisions with endangered North Atlantic right whales. Lougheed says that issue is still on the radar as she takes over at the Foundation, but the NOAA proposal seems to be on hold following a great deal of industry advocacy against it.
The amount of opposition has been so strong that in June 2023, Frank Hugelmeyer, president and CEO of the National Marine Manufacturers Association, testified before Congress about the need to stop NOAA’s plan. Legislation has been introduced in Congress to try and resolve the problem.
“The issue is still active, but it’s taking a pause,” Lougheed told Soundings in early December. “I think they understand now that NOAA didn’t have the complete picture of who it would impact and how.”
Another priority Lougheed expects to focus on is expanding on-the-water training for boaters. Right now, the BoatUS website lists 17 locations for hands-on training through partner organizations—about double the amount listed since 2022, according to BoatUS vice president of public affairs Scott Croft. Lougheed’s goal is to expand that list nationwide.
“We also want to work with builders and dealers to get this training information out to their customers,” Lougheed says. “As a woman, if I know how to dock, I feel a lot better out there than if I don’t know what I’m doing and I get into a fight with my husband.”
Croft says on-the-water training can truly help people to embrace the idea of boating, which is why BoatUS also works to make sure the courses are affordable. “I’ve seen people come off the boat with a big smile on their face because they’re confident,” he says. “They get it.”
Lougheed says the scope of everything she’s taking on goes back to her time growing up in northern Virginia, in a family that liked to windsurf and kayak. She’s loved the water and the outdoors ever since, including during her years at college in Charleston, South Carolina.
She says she fully intends to keep up the work she does as vice president of BoatUS as well. “I’ve been there for a long time,” she says, “trying to grow programs, partnerships and the value of the association.”
This article was originally published in the February 2024 issue.
