Born in Sydney, Capt. Russ Strang was always out on the water, yet he didn’t find yachting until a little later in life. In fact, he went the other way, up into the mountains, and spent the better part of a decade doing ski seasons and traveling.
Strang studied commerce and hospitality management at university in Sydney, which led him to the life of a seasonaire. “I’m not a good enough snowboarder to be an instructor and I probably don’t have the patience either, so I was happy to shovel snow and pour cocktails.”
“I had a summer with a limited bank balance and a friend pointed me down from the mountains to Antibes. I hitchhiked down from Val d’Isere, hit the docks, and started dayworking.”
Despite the geographical separation, the two industries aren’t dissimilar. “Both are very lifestyle-centered roles. The ski season is an immersive industry and brings like-minded people together where the focus isn’t necessarily on the work so much as the experience. Yachting is similar in that everyone has the same kind of wanderlust mindset.”
His first full-time role was on board White Lady of Man where he worked as a deckhand — one of three crew. Since then, he has harnessed his experience in hospitality and worked on some of the most well-known charter vessels, including Alfa Nero, Majestic, Capri, Lady M, and Sunrays. His latest position on board the new Bering Yachts flagship is the largest boat he has captained in his career so far and his second captain’s role.
At 44 meters, the Bering 145 is a big step up for the builder, whose previous flagship was a 26-meter. Hull No. 1, Heeus, borrows her looks from the shipyard’s Bering 77, with a tall bow for deflecting heavy seas, a forward-raked bridge, and a reduced amount of glass in the hull. A large boat deck carries an eight-meter auxiliary craft, launched and recovered by a 2.5-tonne crane on the bridge deck aft, plus a toy garage with a side opening and beam crane.
“It’s nice and beamy, almost 10 meters wide, and it’s got everything guests need for this size,” Capt. Strang says.
He was involved in the build from the get-go and followed the vessel through its construction at the shipyard in Turkey. “I was there when the main engines were started for the first time; I commissioned a lot of the systems and was there for the sea trials.
“I like to think I had a little bit of input and the shipyard appreciated that as well because we were able to see from a practical side some issues that might appear and deal with them before.”
Key to the Bering Yachts philosophy is building a boat that doesn’t just look like an oceangoing vessel, but is one that can endure harsh and isolated environments and still be able to maneuver in a worst-case scenario. For high-latitude adventures, her hull is 10 millimeters thick at the bottom and 12 millimeters around an ice belt. Beneath the waterline, two large skegs protect the props and rudders, as well as support the vessel in the event of grounding. There are eight watertight compartments with automatic sliding watertight doors, as well as numerous redundancy measures, such as the hybrid generators, the possibility of single-engine operation, and redundant systems for steering and propulsion, ensuring “get home” mode in the event of a breakdown.
Heeus made its Caribbean debut at the Antigua Charter Show after the crew wrapped up their first charter season in the Med and joined the fleet across the Atlantic. “[It was a] stable, solid ride. It has a steel hull which you don’t often get on a vessel of this size and the hybrid battery systems are quite intriguing to me. We saved a bit of fuel and cruised on batteries for a decent part of the crossing while the weather was good,” Strang says.
The hybrid system on the Bering 145 consists of 550kWh of battery capacity and two 100kW Danfoss electric propulsion engines, which together offer eight knots maximum speed, as well as maneuvering silently on thrusters. At full speed in electric mode, the Bering 145 can manage two hours of operation in addition to the hotel load. “Having that kind of capacity and flexibility is great. We can pull out of and in to docks early in the morning without waking guests, or we can sit on anchor just on the batteries with no noise or vibrations.”
So what’s next for Heeus — or more importantly, where? “The vessel was always designed to go further afield, so whether that’s Alaska or Southeast Asia or somewhere different, at this stage I can’t tell you,” Strang says. “We’ll be doing the Caribbean season, the next Mediterranean season, then after that, dot dot dot, watch this space!”
This article was originally published in the February 2024 issue of Dockwalk.