An­drea Perez-Sobers
Se­nior Re­porter
an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

For decades, yachties by­passed Trinidad in favour of neigh­bour­ing is­lands like Grena­da and An­tigua, frus­trat­ed by slow, pa­per-heavy Cus­toms pro­ce­dures.

That is fi­nal­ly chang­ing.

Trinidad’s ma­rine ser­vices sec­tor is poised for a break­through that could re­de­fine the is­land’s ap­peal to in­ter­na­tion­al cruis­ers and the yacht­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

Ma­rine Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MSATT) pres­i­dent Jesse James re­ports that a dig­i­tal clear­ing sys­tem, long promised but nev­er ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed, is now with­in reach.

James told Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian the sys­tem, based on the proven Sail­Clear plat­form used suc­cess­ful­ly across the Caribbean and South Amer­i­ca for more than 20 years, promis­es elec­tron­ic clear­ing in and out of the coun­try.  

James, who has ad­vo­cat­ed for mod­erni­sa­tion of the sec­tor for al­most three decades, de­scribes the re­cent progress as “al­most dream­land.”

Key gov­ern­ment play­ers, in­clud­ing the Min­is­ter of Trade and Tourism, the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in that min­istry and se­nior of­fi­cials from Cus­toms, Im­mi­gra­tion, and Port Health, have been work­ing in tan­dem with MSATT to en­sure T&T fi­nal­ly catch­es up with its neigh­bours.

The ini­tia­tive, said James, will en­able cruise ar­rivals and yacht ser­vices to op­er­ate more ef­fi­cient­ly, in­te­grat­ing dig­i­tal pay­ments and stream­lin­ing the once-cum­ber­some clear­ance process.  

The Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion has al­ready rolled out cred­it and Links card sys­tems, elim­i­nat­ing the need for cash-on­ly trans­ac­tions. Of­fi­cials told Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian they are op­ti­mistic about see­ing full im­ple­men­ta­tion by the first quar­ter of 2026, pend­ing leg­isla­tive amend­ments.|
“This is not about ‘if’ any­more. It’s about ‘when,” James em­pha­sised, un­der­lin­ing the ur­gency and com­mit­ment dri­ving the project.

Cruise num­bers poised to soar

For the is­land’s ma­rine sec­tor, the stakes are high. Pre-pan­dem­ic, the MSATT pres­i­dent in­di­cat­ed Trinidad wel­comed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,500 yachts an­nu­al­ly, a num­ber that had plum­met­ed to bare­ly 800 in the years lead­ing up to COVID-19.  
In 2025, he said ar­rivals are hov­er­ing around 700.  
James es­ti­mat­ed that a ful­ly op­er­a­tional Sail­Clear sys­tem could dou­ble ar­rivals in a short pe­ri­od, un­lock­ing sig­nif­i­cant for­eign ex­change po­ten­tial and re­vi­tal­is­ing lo­cal tourism.
He point­ed to the sys­tem’s holis­tic ben­e­fits. Be­yond im­prov­ing Cus­toms ef­fi­cien­cy, it will en­hance the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence with a ded­i­cat­ed help desk op­er­at­ed joint­ly by the Min­istry of Tourism and MSATT.  
“This dig­i­tal in­ter­face will guide yachties and cruis­ers to mari­nas, ho­tels, restau­rants, and cul­tur­al at­trac­tions across T&T, of­fer­ing a lev­el of con­ve­nience pre­vi­ous­ly un­avail­able.”

James not­ed se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty are al­so be­ing pri­ori­tised. The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s Coastal and Air Sup­port Unit, along with the Coast Guard, has main­tained strong col­lab­o­ra­tion with MSATT, en­sur­ing that yachties feel se­cure while vis­it­ing lo­cal ports. Com­bined with the stream­lined elec­tron­ic clear­ing, these mea­sures are ex­pect­ed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove Trinidad’s rep­u­ta­tion as a wel­com­ing des­ti­na­tion for both leisure and trade ves­sels.

The broad­er eco­nom­ic im­pact ex­tends to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in Ch­aguara­mas, home to the is­land’s main mari­nas and as­so­ci­at­ed ser­vice in­dus­tries. Lo­cal shops, restau­rants, boat­yards, and tour op­er­a­tors stand to ben­e­fit from the an­tic­i­pat­ed in­flux of in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors, cre­at­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in a sec­tor his­tor­i­cal­ly over­shad­owed by oil and gas.
James al­so notes that out­reach to yachties who pre­vi­ous­ly opt­ed for Grena­da or An­tigua has al­ready be­gun. In­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors have been in­vit­ed to wit­ness demon­stra­tions of the Sail­Clear sys­tem, which James says were met with sur­prise and ap­proval, sig­nal­ing the po­ten­tial for re­newed con­fi­dence in Trinidad as a yacht­ing hub.

Lead­er­ship dri­ving change

James high­light­ed that the suc­cess­ful roll­out hinges on col­lab­o­ra­tive com­mit­tees span­ning mul­ti­ple agen­cies, in­clud­ing MSATT, Im­mi­gra­tion, and for­eign part­ners. Site vis­its, week­ly re­port­ing, and ex­ec­u­tive over­sight have re­placed decades of in­ac­tion, il­lus­trat­ing a shift from talk to tan­gi­ble re­sults.
The Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism, he high­light­ed, has spear­head­ed the ef­fort, with strong sup­port from the pri­vate sec­tor, in­clud­ing the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce.  James de­scribes the pace of change as “a tsuna­mi in a good way,” re­flect­ing the co­or­di­nat­ed push to mod­ernise in­fra­struc­ture, es­tab­lish stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures and in­te­grate vis­i­tor-fo­cused ser­vices.
He al­so un­der­scored the sec­tor’s con­tri­bu­tion to broad­er eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts. With oil and gas rev­enues in de­cline, the Gov­ern­ment is in­creas­ing­ly fo­cussed on low-hang­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties like yacht­ing tourism.

The com­bined im­pact of tech­nol­o­gy, im­proved ser­vice de­liv­ery and in­ter­na­tion­al out­reach po­si­tions Trinidad cap­tured a larg­er share of the Caribbean yacht­ing mar­ket while boost­ing lo­cal busi­ness­es and cul­tur­al tourism.

The MSATT pres­i­dent un­der­scored that prepa­ra­tions are al­ready un­der­way for a high-pro­file re­launch of Trinidad’s ma­rine ser­vices sec­tor in Ch­aguara­mas ear­ly in 2026.  

James has be­gun ex­tend­ing in­vi­ta­tions to diplo­mat­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tives, in­dus­try stake­hold­ers, and in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors, sig­nal­ing con­fi­dence in the sys­tem’s im­mi­nent de­ploy­ment. The goal is clear: a ful­ly op­er­a­tional, user-friend­ly, and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly com­pet­i­tive yacht­ing hub that de­liv­ers both eco­nom­ic and rep­u­ta­tion­al ben­e­fits to T&T.

While leg­isla­tive process­es may dic­tate the pre­cise time­line, both gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and pri­vate sec­tor lead­ers ex­press op­ti­mism that the sys­tem will be live by the first or sec­ond quar­ter of 2026. Once op­er­a­tional, the com­bi­na­tion of dig­i­tal clear­ing, en­hanced vis­i­tor ser­vices and strength­ened se­cu­ri­ty is ex­pect­ed to re­store Trinidad’s sta­tus as a pre­ferred des­ti­na­tion for in­ter­na­tion­al cruis­ers, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the fact that the twin-is­land na­tion’s lo­ca­tion places it south of the Hur­ri­cane belt.

James in­di­cat­ed that the trans­for­ma­tion is about more than num­bers. And re­flects a long-over­due shift in the is­land’s ap­proach to trade, tourism, and cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence.  
Af­ter decades of frus­tra­tion and missed op­por­tu­ni­ties, Trinidad is fi­nal­ly po­si­tion­ing it­self as a seam­less and at­trac­tive stopover for yachts and cruise ves­sels, a move that could in­ject mil­lions in­to the lo­cal econ­o­my and strength­en the is­land’s stand­ing in the Caribbean mar­itime sec­tor.

Cus­toms of­fi­cials said the di­vi­sion is push­ing to make the ease of do­ing busi­ness in Trinidad and To­ba­go much smoother, not­ing that this re­mains a cen­tral part of their man­date. They ex­plained that im­prov­ing fa­cil­i­ta­tion is one of Cus­toms’ core func­tions and a key pil­lar of its cur­rent strate­gic plan aimed at mod­ernising op­er­a­tions while still up­hold­ing its law-en­force­ment and com­pli­ance re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.
Of­fi­cials added that the di­vi­sion is fo­cused on strength­en­ing the ar­eas it is al­ready strong in, even as it works to de­liv­er a more ef­fi­cient ex­pe­ri­ence for traders and the wider pub­lic.

Var­i­ous busi­ness groups have been cham­pi­oning  for less bu­reau­cra­cy in try­ing to get things done in a smoother process.