Spent the last two days at the show... got here first thing Thursday morning. Most of our time was spent talking to the Lagoon and FP dealers, along with the great people of TMM. What I can tell you is that new boat orders are being made fast and furious. On Thursday the next available slot for an FP 44 was September 2019. As for Lagoon, there were a couple of July 2018 slots for 450s, but as of Friday night that had been pushed to December 2018 (actually at the Lagoon Owner’s party I heard December was booked and they were now taking orders for January 2019). Rumor is that on Friday Dream Yacht Charters placed an order for fifteen 450s.
Biggest issue at the show is all the boat owners who don’t know the status of their boats. Everyone we talked to who had a boat in BVI wants to stay in the charter fleet, but are awaiting word from their insurance company. Tough place to be because they know that every day they wait to place an order for a new boat (if their boat is ultimately totaled) the longer it will be before they can take delivery of a replacement. As noted above, between Thursday morning and Friday night the lead time increased by four months for the Lagoon 450.
The folks from TMM are doing okay considering everything. Listening to all the people who came by their booth reminded me just what a fantastic, professional, compassionate group of folks they are. The support from their owners and past customers has been overwhelming, which say’s it all. With money that has been raised by boat owners in their fleet, they will be sailing their show boat back to BVI stuffed with supplies and generators for their staff. (
Help TMM Staff Rebuild)
TMM is are actively working to rebuild their business and are pushing to be back open in December. Fortunately their offices and storerooms did okay, and a number of boats are reasonably well off. They also had a number of new boats in transit and some that were off island and not affected by the hurricane.
As many have said, our job in the sailing community is to support BVIs efforts by booking charters and visiting the islands just as soon as they are ready for us. Anyone who balks because things won’t be perfect must have been planning to visit some place else because things were never perfect in BVI. They were just beautiful... both the places and the people. We have a charter booked and fully payed for in June, and have just bought a boat to place in TMM’s fleet. Looking forward to many years of great sailing in some of the best waters in the world.