Aleem Khan

Yacht own­ers have been in­creas­ing­ly choos­ing Ch­aguara­mas as their pre­ferred des­ti­na­tion for re­pairs since the 1990s. When Ger­man-Amer­i­can Jack Dausend first an­chored in T&T on his yacht Wind Psalm in 1995, he was im­pressed with this coun­try's com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tages and po­ten­tial to dom­i­nate the ship­build­ing and re­pair in­dus­try in the West­ern hemi­sphere. To help fel­low cruis­ers, Dausend ac­tive­ly be­gan pro­mot­ing Trinidad as a haven for yachts and cruis­ers through the mag­a­zine he start­ed, The Bo­ca. He al­so start­ed the an­nu­al Boaters' Di­rec­to­ry in 1995.

Be­tween the di­rec­to­ry and the mag­a­zine, yacht own­ers could tap in­to a myr­i­ad of yacht­ing ser­vices and get valu­able in­for­ma­tion on T&T in­clud­ing weath­er, tides, pet and plant quar­an­tine pro­ce­dures, lo­cal cus­toms and Cus­toms. Of course, Dausend would not have been able to draw yacht own­ers to Ch­aguara­mas with­out ad­e­quate lure. Here are the top ten rea­sons that yachties who are mem­bers of the T&T Sail­ing As­so­ci­a­tion told the Busi­ness Guardian last week Thurs­day and Fri­day they come to these shores.

Start­ing from the bot­tom up:

10. In tenth po­si­tion is hull main­te­nance. Work on the un­der­side of boats in Trinidad is top notch. What is known as an­ti-foul­ing is well done here. From scrap­ing bar­na­cles off the hull to paint­ing with an­ti-foul­ing paint, the yachtie has op­tions.

9. Paint­ing is a plea­sure. The full range of ma­rine paints are avail­able in Trinidad and, as is the case in many en­er­gy-based economies, fair­ly af­ford­able. Lo­cals al­so em­ploy spe­cial tech­niques, like spik­ing the ma­rine paint with some Moru­ga red scor­pi­on pep­per to which no self-re­spect­ing bar­na­cle would dare at­tach.

8. Fi­bre­glass work. When boat­builders com­pete, the cus­tomer wins. As in all pro­cure­ment, find­ing a rep­utable sup­pli­er is key. Al­most every type of boat builder can be found in T&T, so fierce com­pe­ti­tion in this mar­ket pro­pels high qual­i­ty work­man­ship in fi­bre­glass­ing.

7. Air con­di­tion work is cool. With a lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­er churn­ing out air con­di­tion units for ex­port, this T&T in­dus­try is fair­ly ad­vanced. There is al­so no short­age of air con­di­tion re­pair­men and ser­vice teams.

6. Elec­tri­cal work is an­oth­er at­trac­tion to Trinidad. This is the place to find many skilled elec­tri­cians and sup­pli­ers with on­land and off­shore ex­pe­ri­ence.

5. An­oth­er very im­por­tant as­pect of boat build­ing and re­pair is join­ery. Ex­pe­ri­enced sup­pli­ers abound. From the ar­ti­san-type pirogue join­ers to the crafts­men who build and re­pair seam­less­ly, they are all here and have been do­ing it for decades.

4. The fourth top rea­son yachts pre­fer Trinidad for re­pairs is that there are sev­er­al boat­yards to choose from, each with pro­fes­sion­al grade lifts, trol­leys and cranes. Trinidad's spa­cious, well-equipped boat­yards can com­fort­ably hoist larg­er yachts out of the wa­ter for re­pairs. Both leisure and in­dus­tri­al sailors en­joy this fa­cil­i­ty.

3. T&T's strate­gic ge­o­graph­ic and geo-po­lit­i­cal lo­ca­tion makes it an­oth­er pop­u­lar spot among yachties. It may be the gate­way to South Amer­i­ca, but it's al­so a great base from which to sail the Caribbean.

2. It is no se­cret that the price of fu­el in T&T is low­er than al­most any coun­try near­by with like fa­cil­i­ties. This num­ber two rea­son is al­so true for the air­line in­dus­try. T&T is a great place to fu­el up.

1. The num­ber one rea­son yachties choose Trinidad for re­pairs is the nat­ur­al bay and har­bour formed along the Gulf of Paria, out­side of the hur­ri­cane belt in its en­tire­ty. No where else in the re­gion can this com­bi­na­tion be found in a coun­try with fa­cil­i­ties like Trinidad. The peace of mind that this brings to any­one con­duct­ing re­pairs on a boat is price­less.

A yachtie's ex­pe­ri­ence:

Asked about his ex­pe­ri­ence in Trinidad, Ken Rosen­thal, an Aus­tralian yachts­man who an­chored here for re­pairs, and some crick­et in be­tween, said, "I think the qual­i­ty of work and val­ue are ex­cel­lent, but as in all places, you need to stick to rep­utable con­trac­tors with a proven track record." Boat re­pair makes so much sense in T&T that while talk­ing to one sailor, he point­ed to a 40-foot boat owned by a Mi­a­mi-based busi­ness­man who lives in Mi­a­mi, but has some­one work­ing full-time to re­store his boat to its pre-hur­ri­cane glo­ry. Such are the sav­ings to be had in Trinidad.