Solving the Lovebug mystery starts with superyachts in Annapolis

Archimedes figured out how buoyancy makes a boat float 2,300 years ago.

It’s up to the Maryland Natural Resources Police and federal investigators to sort out why the Lovebug, 104 feet of floating opulence and high-tech nautical equipment, did not.

“We’re treating it just like any other recreational boating accident,” said Hunter Dortenzo, a police spokesperson.

Except, it isn’t.

The superyacht capsized last month about 12 miles south of Annapolis, just inside the West River. The captain reported taking on water and heading for the shallows, where the crew abandoned ship. Passersby safely plucked all five from the water.

People who build, work and follow these boats say the most likely cause was a faulty valve in the system that brings in water to cool the twin diesel engines or a problem with the exhaust system.

No matter what investigators find when the boat is refloated next week, maybe the way Lovebug and other superyachts have changed Annapolis is just as important.

Maryland’s waterfront state capital was once a working harbor, where brigantines and schooners mingled with flat-bottom tonging boats and skipjacks plying the oyster trade. Day sailers and cruising ketches replaced them by the late 20th century, creating a popular spot for pleasure trips.

Today, the slips around Annapolis are filled with commodious power yachts, long-voyaging trawlers and graceful excursion boats.

Capping 280 years of maritime evolution is the superyacht — the modern apex of waterborne excess.

No one may know that better than Todd Lochner, one of Maryland’s top admiralty lawyers. His office is an anchor toss from Back Creek and its array of boats in piers, docks and marinas.

When a millionaire buys a superyacht — who else buys one, really? — they often come to Lochner’s firm. It helps move the millions involved in a sale, ensures the boat is delivered and registered, sets up corporate ownership and signs with a clearing house for charters. It’s another way to reduce costs.

It is a complicated business involving both U.S. and international law.

“It’s what we do,” Lochner said.

The Panama Papers, millions of secret documents leaked in 2016, exposed the world of the superrich registering their boats in foreign ports to hide their wealth — money sometimes based on corruption and crime.

Two years ago, the United States and its allies focused even harder on the practice of foreign flagging after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They began seizing boats worth hundreds of millions secretly owned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the country’s oligarchs.

There are no boats owned by foreign despots in Annapolis, probably. It’s not glamorous enough. But it does attract billionaires like bitcoin promoter Michael Saylor and Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, who both keep their U.S.-flagged boats in or near the city.

Even the Naval Academy Sailing Foundation has one, a 91-foot Burger yacht that the nonprofit recently listed for sale.

People who own superyachts, generally anything 75 feet long and bigger, may have legitimate reasons to keep a low profile. Registering a big boat under a flag of convenience has tax advantages, particularly avoiding U.S. excise taxes.

It also has safety benefits. Flying the Stars and Stripes can invite trouble in some foreign waters. Even if the threat never materializes, sailing outside the U.S. can have financial consequences, mostly because insurance companies charge accordingly.

Lochner said the right thing to do is to register boats in a country where their regulation mirrors U.S. safety standards.

“We do more Marshall Island flagging than anyone else,” he said. “We do many of them there because it’s the right thing to do.”

Lovebug is registered in the Marshall Islands and is the property of Bees Honey LLC. Police have yet to release information about the crew, let alone the owner.

Foreign registration explains something else about Lovebug: why it was docked at the Yacht Basin in Annapolis this summer and how it was being used.

Federal law prohibits foreign-flagged vessels from being hired out for trips between U.S. ports unless they include a stopover outside the country. The Coast Guard has been cracking down on illegal charters since 2023, but there’s no sign it’s common on the Chesapeake Bay.

Although Lovebug is listed as a charter vessel, Natural Resources Police says there’s no indication that it was being hired out.

People familiar with the boat say it was spotted a few days before the accident at Stan and Joe’s Riverside, a popular dock bar in Galesville. That meant the crew was familiar with the river, where the channel can be unmarked and the muddy bottom in the shallows filled with abandoned crab pots.

TowBoatUS Annapolis/Baltimore is supervising the salvage of the Lovebug. Donjon Marine Salvage, the New Jersey company involved in removing debris from the Key Bridge collapse, is sending a crane sometime early next week. Investigators can’t start their survey until after that.

Superyachts docked in Annapolis for a season most often do charter business in the Caribbean, and insurance companies require them to be north of a certain latitude during hurricane season — June 1 to Nov. 30.

“It’s not surprising to see that there are boats that are sitting there that are purportedly for charter that are not really for charter,” Lochner said.

Fırat Gürelli thinks he may have seen the Lovebug while working a charter in the Caribbean.

“Beautiful boat,” he emailed from his current job somewhere in the Mediterranean.

He’s a professional charter captain, someone hired by brokers for a set time or a destination. It’s usually his job to hire the rest of the crew.

“From a first glance, I can see that the captain did the right thing: saving the lives onboard and saving the boat to an extent by driving it to the shallows.”

Not surprisingly, most of Gürelli’s clients are wealthy. One charter agency listed the Lovebug for $125,000 a week. M3, a 147-foot charter vessel flagged in Jamaica and docked at Yacht Basin, goes for $150,000 a week in peak season.

Crews usually keep passengers occupied with activities offered on the yacht, from dining to jet-ski, kayak and paddleboard trips to beach excursions, snorkeling and scuba dives.

Their primary job, though, is safety. What that means varies based on itinerary, regulations where the boat is registered, the size of the yacht and the captain’s choice.

“But it is safe to assume that a 30-meter yacht [like Lovebug] would be crewed at least by 4, including the captain,” Gürelli said. “Depending on the design, it might be more. Watchkeeping rules are not defined too much in detail for a yacht like that, but there are still international regulations.”

Why wealthy people buy or charter superyachts is anyone’s guess.

Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon and The Washington Post, famously built a $500 million megayacht — when you’re worth an estimated $181 billion, a superyacht just won’t do.

Whatever the reason, there’s a certain parallel between the rise of big yachts in Annapolis and the sense that the place is far less affordable than it once was.

You can still get a $1 oyster at McGarvey’s, a popular bar near the water. But you can also spend $600 a night in a historic home converted into a boutique or hotel. If you own a 108-foot yacht, what’s $24 for a small bowl of crab dip and a warm baguette?

No one in Annapolis is more concerned about ensuring the safety of charter boats than Jake Iversen. It’s just an entirely different kind of boat.

Iverson is the president of Watermark, a tour company that operates a fleet of vessels out of Annapolis and Baltimore.

The company charters special events like weddings and company parties, but also runs regular routes — tours of Annapolis, trips to the Thomas Point Lighthouse, or daylong expeditions to Baltimore and St. Michaels — for a fixed fee.

Watermark’s boats are much more tightly regulated than Lovebug, classified by the Coast Guard as an uninspected passenger vessel.

Whether it’s the 95-foot Catherine Marie or the 20-foot water taxis, all undergo regular safety checks. That includes yearly in-water hull integrity scans and a drydock inspection once every three years.

Watermark runs its own stability tests involving up to nine 55-gallon drums. The goal — to prevent exactly the kind of accident suffered by the Lovebug.

“It’s so we know if 100 passengers go to one side and we have 30-knot gusts, that’s where all these safety factors come in to make sure that we’re not going to capsize,” Iverson said.