TWIC is a go
No problem
Crew agents press on after MerrillStevens shutdown.
A12 Vol. 5, No. 1
www.the-triton.com
UK issues its report of the fire that sank Lady Candida. Ax
SURVEY
Shelter Bay Marina was at full-capacity March 19, as seen from the deck of the 177-foot S/Y Shenandoah. The small boats in the foreground are carrying actors and stuntmen filming the latest 007 movie. In the background are the S/Y Independence, the S/F Steadfast, the M/Y Olga, and others. PHOTO/RUSS GOEDJEN
‘I’ve never seen it this bad’ Maintenance work on two locks creates 2- to 4-week backlog The Panama Canal Authority has limited the number of yachts allowed to make the passage to six a day, creating a month-long backlog as of late March. Only three yachts from each direction are allowed to cross and they may only begin crossings every other day. “I have a 100-foot yacht arriving tonight (March 19) and they’re going to have to wait until April 22 or 23 to transit,” said Tina McBride, an agent for a shipping firm that helps arrange crossings between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. “I’ve been doing this 18 years and I’ve never seen it this bad. All the marinas here are full.” A recent steamship agent report showed a projected backlog of 119 boats and some say up to 120 boats
Rules broken
April 2008
PANAMA CANAL TRAFFIC JAM
By Kelly Cramer
U.S. Coast Guard statement affirms mariners need new ID. A10
will have to wait two to four weeks to traffic is one of the measures the transit. authority took to ease the back-up. The canal authority announced Also, yachts are allowed to cross only the restrictions in a March 14 at night, keeping the canal clear for advisory. According to Manuel E. commercial traffic during the day. Benitez, the authority’s vice president Factors such as weather and a boat of operations, a getting snagged in surge of arrivals in a lock also affect A recent steamship late February that whether 25, 30 agent report showed coincided with or 45 vessels get critical maintenance a projected backlog of through the canal work at two locks every day. 119 boats. are to blame for the Capt. Bernard current traffic jam. Calot of the 121Numbers that Benitez’s division foot M/Y Olga waited only nine days released for February since 2005 show and was able to leave March 19. only modest increases from 1,012 “They kept saying this date then vessels that year to 1,040 in 2006, that date,” Calot said. “And for yachts 1,244 in 2007 and 1,069 this year. arriving now, they will have to wait a In his memo, Benitez said all month.” maintenance work has stopped and Calot said he’s been told that the additional staff has been deployed to canal pilots, who have been working the locks. Because commercial traffic without a contract for a few years, is a priority, limiting non-commercial See PANAMA, page A18
Immigration problem-free to most crew By Lucy Chabot Reed Over the past few years, The Triton has published several stories about captains and crew who have had runins with U.S. immigration officials. Are these exceptions to a system that generally operates efficiently and properly, or do many non-U.S. megayacht crew have problems coming into the United States to work on a yacht? In an effort to get a sense of how prevalent this issue is, we asked yacht crew about their experiences. While there are a few passing mentions to crew aboard private yachts on some embassy home pages, we can find no explicit policy or law that plainly states which visa is the “right” visa (generally believed to be the B1/ B2) or “wrong” visa (generally believed to be the C1/D). See SURVEY, page A16
Non-U.S., Euro builders offer savings at a cost At the request of a couple of captains, we assembled operators (and previous operators) of Asian-built motoryachts to discuss the benefits and challenges of ordering yachts at significantly lower cost than Americanor European-built vessels. The conversation From the Bridge veered away Lucy Chabot Reed from vessels built solely in Asia and ultimately incorporated any vessels by builders that were either new to building megayachts or new to marketing their vessels to the
See BRIDGE, page A19