St Maarten charter boat detained in BVI

Daily Herald story

I'm sure they are glad to be back in St. Maarten.

Very lucky to get back with their boat. I'm surprised the boat wasn't kept. Charter guests sometimes make a charter skipper's life very difficult. You get asked to do things not strictly legal on the grounds that 'no one will ever know' but, as this story shows, sometimes you get caught.

Thanks for your insight on this, Mike. I have no idea how such things are normally handled.

Where’s the article?

It's linked in the first post. I just edited the post to put the link as the first line of the post. Just click on the first line.

The story is a bit odd, which leads me to understand why the boat and crew were held. In a valid medical emergency like that, only the sick person and perhaps one assisting would be allowed off the boat, without their belongings or passports. But it seems all of them got off, along with their belongings and papers (otherwise that would have been mentioned). On passage the skipper invariably keeps the paperwork and passports together between outbound and inbound formalities are completed. I've tried raising the police or customs or immigration in the BVI via VHF several times out of hours and never once received a response, so I do believe that part of the story. No mention of where they got off, but the captain doesn't seem to have contacted the police in a timely manner.

Who books a 4 day charter out of St Martin to go to the BVI? That should have sent red flags flying for the charter company and skipper.

George, I agree. After reading the article online, I was trying to make the scenario make sense, but nothing about this does unless the "guests" paid lots in cash to charter the yacht.

".....unsuspectedly taken aboard...." has me scratching my head. It was a booked charter, right?! And the boat arrived in the BVI at 1:00am and the guests went ashore? Why did the captain not anchor out, put up his Q flag and wait to clear in when the C&I office opened in the morning? The captain had to think something was up. As was pointed out in this thread, a 4-day charter from St M to BVI?? Who does that? Was it a round trip charter? If so, even more suspect. IMO the captain and crew are lucky to have made it back to StM.