The news about the yachting industry in Sint Martin never gets old. A couple of months back there was already news about a mega yacht hitting the Simpson Bay bridge and this week another Youtube video turned up. This week a big mega yacht had a mechanical failure and was out of control in the lagoon. This ended up in this gigantic yacht ramming the docks of the Sint Martin yacht club not once but twice.
I guess this video gives you a pretty good sight of how big these boats actually are compared to existing buildings, and it gives you a good sight on how the boat is trying to reverse as fast as they can, but what is not working.
The entrance of the Sint Martin lagoon is absolutely notorious for the difficulty of going in and when sitting at the Sint Martin yacht club which is public, you can have a beautiful view of these boats entering right next to you while enjoying a beer.
I guess this enjoying was a lot less when you see how this gigantic boat is on course to ramm you and potentially destroy the whole building.
Most likely all of this damage will end up as insurance work, but people have to realise that getting stuff done on a small island takes a lot of time and not always all building materials are immediately present.
This could end up in a lot of extra costs for the yacht club which most likely is already having a challenging year due to covid.
I used to take sailing lessons from these docks and it is a pity to see them being smashed up so much. I already saw announced that sailing classes were suspended and will be taking place from another location, which of course is always extra effort.
As said, most likely this is a mechanical issue from the vessel and the crew does not have to do anything with it, but still this will always haunt you on your resume. You can say that there are only losers in this story.
Yachting remains a very interesting but also very weird industry which is better seen when watching the series 'Below Deck' which ofcourse is turned into the step-in version about yachting life.
From my island days I love watching these kinds of things, and I will surely be watching what will happen around the rebuilding of the docks of the Sint Martin yacht club