Hurricane

Multiple murders? Piracy? Killer hurricanes? It is hard to think of anything that is going to disrupt yachting tourism more than the new API regulations.

The first I heard about it was through a customer’s email (italics mine):
           “We have been given the impression that if we choose to cruise the Islands this coming season, then we will have to comply with new legislation that obliges us to send API ( Advance Passenger Information) to JRCC (Joint Regional Communications Centre) whoever they are. No later than 15 minutes after departure from every national stop. This apparently is done via the Net or Fax (neither of which we have on board.)
          We think we may be the victims of a hoax, as we cannot imagine it working to anyone's advantage.
           We do however want to make an early decision whether to cruise or not and such cumbersome nonsense will be the decider.”

These new regulations, which are now supposed to be in effect for all yachts, require you to fill a long form with lots of details about your boat, the registration, last ports, next ports and more, then for everyone on board you have to give many passport details including: full names, document type, country of origin, expiry date, number, issue, date of birth etc. You then have to fax or email it to the JRCC within the following time period:

Arrival/Departure from/to outside Caricom (say from Martinique) “No later than 24 hours before arrival”. Departure “no more than 15 minutes after departure”

Arrival/Departure from/to inside Caricom: Arrival and Departure: “No later than 1 hours before departure from the last port”.

What on earth is all this about? As far as I can tell it is some anti-terrorism move connected to the USA – and all that data is going to be sent through USA security. Something similar was put in place in the USVI about 2005, and their beleaguered charter industry has been trying to get redress from it ever since, so they can back to work.

I hope all readers who are as outraged at this absurd legislation as I am will immediately contact their local representative, or for visitors, the tourist offices of the countries concerned and let them know what you think (we give a list of the tourist offices on www.doyleguides.com). All those ashore who consider yachts a significant part of their business, will be affected and need to help us get this changed now.

If this legislation is allowed to stand without modification (and have some suggestions about that later in this article) it will be immensely damaging to the entire Caribbean yachting industry, and yachting tourism. By hampering the free movement of yachts with a mass of red tape it will make the Caribbean way less attractive to visitors both on their own boats and those who come to cruise here. In the long term, as the news gets out, it will mean fewer yachts and fewer yachting visitors, the bareboat charter industry, always struggling find it very hard to manage.

In the short term it will particularly hit “pass by” islands more than “destination islands” as people are just not going to be bothered with the formalities and will skip a country rather than bother with the paperwork. Thus in terms of the charter industry, I predict St. Lucia, Dominica and Carriacou will loose many of the pass-by charter boats that previously visited.

It has been clear to many of us, that custom procedures are a barrier to generating more charter and cruiser revenue and I am just one of many people who have spent considerable time trying to cut down on such red tape and make procedures easier. So this comes as a devastating setback.

I also wonder about our state of governance. In generally, many governments have been very good at talking with the local yachting sector. How can ALL the Caricom countries in the Eastern Caribbean sign onto this bureaucratic nightmare with ZERO consultation with anyone in the yachting industry? I do realize that there may have been pressure to sign this thing, but there has to be have been some wiggle room in ways and means – and we could have produced something more reasonable. To throw this at out, fait accompli, is a dreadful and very inefficient way to govern. How could it happen? My guess is everyone who read and signed onto this thought it was to do with ferries and cruise ships and it never occurred to them that yachts were included.

At this point Antigua seems to be the only island in compliance and many other country’s officials are somewhat confused as to how this can work. Even the Antigua system is not working well. They are not enforcing the advanced notice for small yachts, but when you clear you are asked to go and do the API bit on your own at a local internet station. Many find this difficult and confusing, and there have been complaints. This is when there are practically no boats visiting, it is hard to see how it could work during the season. Antigua has put a law in place, but at his point it only applies to yachts of over 100 tons.

Having said this, I will now try to offer some logical suggestions about how we could make this better.

This legislation is trying to make sure yachts are not carrying possible terrorists on board. The procedures have been designed as if yachts could arrive from anywhere, anytime, with a bunch of new passengers on board. The reality is most yachts, after initial arrival in the Caribbean, sail with the same people for considerable periods of time and even when they change crew, these new guest usually arrive by plane where they will have already been checked. So about 95 percent of what this is going to do, apart from diving us all nuts, is to send the same old data round and round the computer.

There are many ways to improve on this. I will offer several solutions here any of which would help.

1. Apply this to passenger carrying commercial yachts only. Private yachts are not passenger-carrying vessels and should not be treated as such. This is how it was in the USVI.

2. For yachts that are not changing crew make the Caricom region a single space as far as API is concerned. In other words you have cleared into Grenada with Jane, Harry and Joe – their names have spun round the computer – make that information available to all the Caricom countries and they should not need to do anything else till they change crew or leave the Caricom area. This alone would make things easier. It means that a charterer coming from Martinique could feed his information into the JRCC and then be free from further API as he visits St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada.

3. Make the system for yachts, yacht-based, not movement based. So once you are on the API system with your vessel and crew, you undertake to record with API any crew changes you make and where you make them. Otherwise they leave you alone, even when you go outside the API region, as long as you come back in with the same crew you are OK. This makes sense, because there is no benefit to sending the same names round and round the computer countless times. It will also be very important for Dominica and Antigua, and St.Kitts and Nevis if these countries are to benefit from the French charter industry. This way the charter companies could feed the guests information into the computer as they arrived and they would be good to visit those countries as before.

4. And this is where we should be headed: make these Caricom countries a single space with regards to yachting – you clear into the Caricom area, you are free to go move around till you leave the Caricom area. Yes, there are details to be worked out – such as how we charge and distribute fees, and how long people may stay, but if we put our minds to it we can sort this out and end up with a better and more profitable industry, which will help create small business and employment along our shores.

Hi Sharon,

I think you are looking for input with regards to each state at this point so am no sure how I can contribute. However if we can get over this attitude:

"The JRCC has advised that APIS for yachts has been implemented throughout the ten participating CARICOM states with the exception of Trinidad and Tobago at this time. It is not going to be retracted."

I am sure we can make some progress.

I think Don maybe holds the solution when he says: "In this regard, APIS should replace all other Immigration forms for all CARICOM states; it must not duplicate each state’s existing forms. Once APIS has been completed before departure, it should not be necessary to again complete Immigration forms upon arrival."

If the powers that be are willing to get off the idea "Its a done deal - now go do it!", and get together we can come up with something constructive. My aim if I were doing this would be to try an make Apis registration easier and thus more attractive than the current systems. A few things will have to change as they are impractical, and one of these is the 24-hour notice arriving from a non-Caricom country. But beyond that let us consider the following. Yachts can clear as now, and each time they do so the immigration will fax the details off to Apis.

Alternatively they can send their information into APIS on the computer system (someone needs to go over the forms and makes sure they are simple and easy to deal with). In this case each customs and immigration officer has a computer with the ability to go on line and access the information for the yacht. Now the yacht no longer has to fill any forms in at customs ad immigration - they just use the information that is on line. They then answer any questions customs or immigration have and get from the officials a bit of paper telling them how long they can stay and pay their dues. Simple - one form filling does the work of multiple check-ins, and the check into the next country should serve as the check out from the last, so if you are working on-line you do not actually have to visit customs to clear out. If we can get this streamlined and easy enough it could be a plus instead of a minus. But there must be a long transition time. Instant compliance cannot work.