"NEW" BVI CHARTERYACHT REGULATIONS

The Crown Territory of the British Virgin Islands has had restrictions on the number of foreign flag charter vessel pick-ups on the books for several years - about 14 years, I am told. The fact that they are actually going to enforce these regulations staring in July 2006 has caused an uproar. Wow.

Here's the story: The US Virgin Islands restricts departing charter vessels to a maximum of 6 passengers. So, following the path of least resistance, everybody who owned or operated a charteryacht out of St. Thomas that had a capacity in excess of 6 passengers used to load the six pax up in St. Thomas, and encourage the rest of the passengers to take the ferry to West End in the BVI and board there; or alternatively, board everybody in the BVI.

In response to this situation and uneasy about lack of resources and possible overcrowding of facilities and frankly too many boats in their waters, the BVI Government issued regulations that restricted the number of foreign flag pick-ups to 7 pick-ups per boat per year. When these regs were issued, the BVI did not have the resources to actually enforce this limitation. i.e they didn't really know how many times any given boat actually stopped by to pick up guests.

All this has now changed. New Government + Computerized systems = Enforcement.

So this means that the St. Thomas based 8 and 10 passenger charter yachts are out of business. They have a choice:

a) Actually restrict their charters to 6 passengers.
b) Move their base of operations to the BVI, get a business permit, re-register the boat, etc.
c) Move to another area of the Caribbean.

As charter brokers, we are sincerely hoping that things work themselves out. Let's face it new brooms sweep clean and things in the Caribbean historically tend to "work themselves out" somehow, sometime. Since this is basically a money issue, i.e foreign boats don't pay taxes, don't employ BVI citizens, don't contribute to the economy, perhaps this, too, has a financial solution like, for example upping the taxes or the port fees for foreign flag boats. We'd hate to see these larger boats penalized by both Governments for no really good reason, the US Government by not letting them board more than 6 passengers, and the BVI government by restricting the number of pick-ups.

I'm sure that some boats will opt to move their operations to the BVI. Guess what? Deja Vu all over again.