TeamHan... sy Condor: Antigua St Maarten Antigua

Returned last night at 0400 on the Condor in Falmouth Antigua..
Nice trip, nice wind..

Devastation in St Maarten..

Piles of remains of roofs etc every where and STILL nothing done in the Lagoon,although I heard Somara's contractor got his permit today and can start working in Oysterpond, so that's nice and fast, good work..

Arriving in SXM

We use Pieter's Passaat mooring.. Passaat not there...

Clearing in in nice ventilated space (under Simpson Bay Prison)

Remains of Mulled pond hide out..

Looks like Paul (was in States with Irma) was lucky..Kim kieler..

Healthy enough for an other 2 years work

Maho beach.. no sand any more where beach was..

Robbie Ferron.. okt 20th

Here in Sint Maarten our Minister of Public Works has chosen to impose regulations on the salvaging of vessels that were damaged by Hurricane Irma .
A huge number of vessels were damaged .Some of them are worth a great deal of money and some have negative value (the cost of moving them is greater than the salvage value ) Never before in recent history that I am aware of has this sort of regulation been imposed on salvaging after a hurricane in the Eastern Caribbean .

Never before has damage been so extensive . The motivation given for the regulation is that it will reduce the environmental damage .
This particular Ministry does not enjoy the services of personnel who have experience in salvaging so they have appointed an environmentalist to make the decisions .

It is my prediction that the following is going to happen :
Firstly more damage will be done to boats and the environment than would have occurred without this regulatory intervention by persons without the required experience .
Secondly many the boats are owned by persons who will be outraged by this unexpected and ultimately counter productive intervention that will reduce the value of their assets .
Thirdly the number of boats whose salvageable value will be less than zero will increase and more vessels than normal will be abandoned with the final result being that the taxpayer of Sint Maarten will bear the cost of removal , not to mention the environmental cost of the boat being abandoned .

The salvaging of vessels is a very complex matter .
Ownership interest can vary , salvageable value can vary very fast .
Bad salvage can change the value from highly positive to negative as a result of an error by the salvage master . Minimizing environmental damage is a commendable goal but the potential gains during the salvage process are likely to be less than the consequences of delays and certainly when this delay leads to complete abandonment of the vessel .
The complete picture here is that a jurisdiction in difficult circumstances (Sint Maarten ) with damaged economy is going to bring extensive negative publicity to itself as well as greater immediate costs due to regulators that enjoy no expertise in a complicated field of activity with regulations that were unexpectedly introduced after one of the most powerful storms on record.

Besides the increased cost to the country's treasury it will reduce the chances of reviving an already declining yachting sector that accounted for 15% of its GDP and operated without subsidies and tax holidays that are prevalent in other sectors .