Marigot Port in St. Martin stands out for its hospitality, offering fee waivers and support to visiting Caribbean Sail Training vessels.
Photo: ‘Wylde Swan’ (right) and ‘Pelican of London’ (left) in the Bay of Marigot, with Anguilla in the background. (Jean Jarreau photo)
Maarten/St. Martin is experiencing a slower-than-usual mega-yacht season, several “tall ships”/sail-training vessels are visiting the island almost every week, Jan Roosens of the non-profit association Caribbean Sail Training (CST) disclosed.
While many of the more than 75 CST member vessels are in Europe (Spain, South of France, Portugal, Canary Islands) and others are sailing in South America, the Pacific, Tahiti or Australia, ships like Wylde Swan, Artemis and Pelican of London have been cruising the Caribbean and have made several stopovers in St. Martin.
Others like Alexander Von Humboldt 2, Sörlandet, Gunilla or Roald Amundsen are scheduled to visit in the coming weeks. Fryderyck Chopin just arrived in St. Martin.
“Marigot on the French side of St. Martin is the top place to be for visiting sail training ‘Wylde Swan’ (right) and ‘Pelican of London’ (left) in the Bay of Marigot, with Anguilla in the background. (Jean Jarreau photo) vessels,” said Roosens. “The port of Marigot, thanks to director Albéric Ellis, has been waiving port and docking fees for CST member vessels already for many years and all the ships appreciate the reduced cost. So, when their offices make the schedules and routes, they always make sure Marigot is an important stopover for fuel bunkering, provisioning, tours and more.”
Roosens said other islands may think that these vessels are not so economically important to them, but with most of the vessels having anywhere from 30 to 80 trainees on board in addition to the professional crew, they spend quite a bit of money on the island. Trainees and crew visit shops for souvenirs and restaurants for food. In addition, some ships have crew or trainees staying in hotels for days or even weeks while they do maintenance or complete crew and trainee changes.
“Our organisation also has agreements with the commercial ship and yacht agency Yacht Assistance for providing all vessel-related services completely free of charge while some cooperating agents on other islands apply reduced fees for their services to CST member vessels,” Roosens noted. “However, none of the governments or harbours is so generous to offer what the Port of Marigot is doing for so long already for us.”
One of the CST Advisory Board members, Charlotte Hooydonck, who runs West Indies Sail Heritage Foundation (www.CaribWish.com) together with her husband Billy Gernertt in Antigua, is making contacts with port authorities, dockyard and government in an effort to establish cooperation with CST and the possibility to give CST member sail training vessels reductions, free docking and more.
“Years ago, agreements were reached with several Islands but due to government and port authorities changes, they need to be renewed or/ and re-installed. During the upcoming summer, several persons from CST in St. Martin will visit almost all the Caribbean Islands to initiate talks with authorities regarding discounts for Caribbean Sail Training member vessels,” Roosens said.
Information regarding Open Ship Days for the public and other events will be announced on the websites and on social media. More information regarding the non-profit association Caribbean Sail Training is available on the website CaribbeanSailTraining.com and on Instagram and Facebook.
Article from the Daily Herald Published on the 23rd of January 2024
