The boating and yachting community has been trying unsuccessfully to secure the spot in the shallow draught by the flour mill, to build a proper haul out facility as all the other islands have, our little yard at the shallow draught has outgrown its purpose years ago,   Over the years we have had various private investors interested in the project .   The ports response has always been negative to our plight, I can see they had better use for it for the cement.

A Haul Out Marina with a bigger travel lift would 

increase foreign income as we are just on the border of the hurricane belt, preferred by insurance companies as safe havens, the other islands are brimming and overflowing with too much work that they cannot handle in their boat yards.  There is so much business out there once the facility is run properly.

It would also save 90% or our local sailing charter fleet to have to leave the island once a year and seek those services either in Grenada or Trinidad, which uses up plenty of foreign reserves.  The average haul out and maintenance costs  abroad per year per boat is between US$20,000 minimum to US$80 000 and upwards.  

We have discussed this at length in the past and would like to see Barbados as the place to go for boats for haul out and repairs.

Having such a boatyard in Barbados, would certainly encourage more yachts to come and seek shelter and repairs and maintenance here. The crews need accommodation, they need to buy food, they need to rent cars,they need labor to do the work on their boats, which again is an added expense when our local boats go overseas its a costly undertaking and could easily be done here once we have the proper facilities, I guess the shed that was not allowed to be built by the flower mill, but got built, would make an excellent work area for speciality repairs for boats.

by Larry Brenner