Even before the aluminum pontoon boat “The Good Seamaritan” left the dock, captain Robert Sloan’s keen eye spotted trash strewn near the waterline.
He gingerly navigated the boat close to shore, rolled up his jean pants and hopped off without hesitation, collecting a battered skateboard with seagrass growing on its wheels, plastic bottles and a chunk of styrofoam just feet from the glistening Newport Harbor water.
The pontoon boat he navigates isn’t for sailing, or fishing, or leisurely cruising around – its purpose is to scoop junk out of the water.
The boat was bought and brought to the Newport Harbor by coastal real estate agent Tim Smith, who launched the undertaking as a way to do good, but also a clever way to get his name out to boaters and homeowners who may be looking for representation.
The idea was spawned by sales partner Greg Blake, who also works at Tim Smith Real Estate Group, as they were thinking about ways to market themselves to their target customers in a way that would also have a positive impact, Smith said.
They did some research and found out there was a trash-collecting boat operating in Long Beach.
That boat belongs to Long Beach resident Lenny Arkinstall, founder of the nonprofit Los Cerritos Wetlands Stewards, who in 2015 was the first on the West Coast to buy one of Elastec’s Omni Catamarans, one of seven different vessels he uses to care for delicate habitats and waterways.
Arkinstall uses the boat to clean around Rainbow Harbor and near the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, estimating he’s picked up “thousands of tons” of trash in the past decade.
“The amount of trash – I don’t know how to put a number to it, but it would be huge,” he said, describing the front of the boat like a manta ray that opens its mouth to scoop in the trash, funneling the debris into a metal bin. “It’s very efficient.”
Like the crew in Newport Beach, the mission is the same.
“We all have one goal – keep plastics out of the ocean,” said Arkinstall, who earlier this month was honored by the city of Long Beach for his years helping keep the area’s waterways clean.
Removing trash from the waterways can be an arduous, and costly, undertaking. Typically, it is up to municipalities to do the dirty work, and nonprofit cleanups can also put a dent in the debris.
Newport Beach will soon have onboard its long-awaited “trash interceptor,” a giant wheel staged in the San Diego Creek just east of Jamboree Road Bridge to capture trash before it hits the Back Bay and harbor. Cost for that system was about $5.5 million.
The Good Seamaritan, as it has been dubbed, is believed to be the first privately funded litter skimmer boat in Orange County’s coastal waters, with a price tag of about $130,000.
When Sloan learned about the boat’s purpose, the longtime Newport Beach captain quickly jumped aboard the venture. Boater and friend Christian Buhl also volunteers on the boat to help the cause, on a recent day helping to scan the sea for debris.
“If it’s clean, it’s just better for everybody,” Buhl said. “And it feels good to do good.”
So far, the crew has only used pool-skimming nets and a few other tinkered tools that have been transformed into trash pluckers.
The last two months have been a soft launch and they haven’t yet started operating the metal cage that opens like a mouth to scoop in trash, opting to wait for more debris to flush into the harbor with the winter season.
Brian Koontz, industrial sales representative for Illinois-based Elastec, said it’s rare to have an individual buy the boats, typically purchased by organizations or townships, he said.
“With the price, most individuals can’t just fork out that kind of money,” he said.
The company sells the boats for a variety of services, but about two dozen have been sold for trash retrieval, with similar systems in use everywhere from New Jersey to Kentucky, Dallas to Lake Tahoe, he said.
The watercraft aren’t built for the ocean. They go a “whopping” 8mph, he said, and aren’t designed to withstand breaking waves. But they work well in harbors and lakes.
When Arkinstall first heard of Smith’s initiative, a private citizen buying the boat to do good, he said he was impressed by the undertaking.
“He’s taking a leadership role and dealing with an issue we all need to help out with,” said Arkinstall. “He’s going to make awareness out of it and show people – hey, just one guy can make a difference. If we all help, we can make a big difference in keeping the trash out of water. What he’s doing is awareness and education, and it can grow from there.”
Smith said the idea is to one day have street sweepers doing a similar task, with his name and company’s name advertised – what he calls “service marketing.”
“I’ve found in my life, the more I give, the more I receive,” Smith said. “And the more you give, the more influence you have.”
Mailers that come to people’s homes get tossed out and have a shelf life of about three seconds, he said.
“If you start adding up the amount of money that you put into mailers or print ads, they don’t do anything,” Smith said. “Or, I could be in front of people doing something that actually has impact.”
The boat is distinct, with a big green flag and banners with “Tim Smith Real Estate Group” splashed on every side, with the company’s motto “who you work with matters” and “cleaning the harbor,” along with a QR code that takes people to the company’s website.
Smith is originally from Utah and landed in Irvine doing commercial real estate before finding his niche in the coastal residential market. It’s a place he now calls home, an avid boater who is in the process of building his own home in the Newport Back Bay, where he keeps the trash-cleaning boat.
“I want to keep where we live super clean, and I feel pride about what I do and I want to give back,” he said. “It feels good.”
Homeowners have started calling with complaints about trash piling up in front of their houses and the crew will happily go and help out, Smith said.
“I thought it was probably the simplest way for us to give back,” Smith said. “How do we influence more, how do we get in front of more people?”
He also envisions it as a way to not just keep the harbor clean, with ideas of having internships for students during summer months or storing jumper cables on board for boaters in need.
Newport’s Harbormaster Paul Blank said he admires and appreciates what Smith and the crew are doing – the city is on board to collaborate on trash disposal.
As of early November, the skimmers have brought in 294.5 pounds to the Marina Park weight station since Sept. 9. The Harbor Department, by comparison, has brought in nearly 2,000 pounds since it started keeping stats on Aug. 3.
“We weigh it in and then it is removed in the same process as the stuff we collect,” Blank said.
Sloan said they’ve already spent weeks sifting through rocks and cruising shorelines to remove as much of the trash stuck between docks.
“Right now, the bay is as clean as it gets,” Sloan said. But as a longtime boater who has spent his life on this waterway, he knows the upcoming winter season will keep them plenty busy.
“When it rains, everyone is going to be overwhelmed and they will be happy to see me,” he said. “I’m going to have my hands full.”
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