Shipping Stuff to St. Martin

[DefinitelyMe]

Afternoon all. I'll be leaving Bermuda in November or December and my first stop will be St. Martin / Sint Maarten, exclusively for the purpose of procuring stuff. Some of this stuff has to be ordered from overseas (a sail, a largish watermaker and a couple of other things) so I'm looking for options to have stuff shipped to somewhere. Basically I'm looking for a shipping agent or someone similar whose address i could use to have stuff sent to and who would be willing to store this stuff somewhere for a short period until i turn up. Do such services exist? Do marinas provide services like this? I don't normally use them (I prefer to anchor) but it might be a good option if this were doable.

Any and all suggestions welcome. Cheers!

p.s. the reason i'm not just having it shipped to Bermuda is that customs duty here is 22.5%. it doesn't make sense to pay thousands of dollars in duty only to leave immediately and not come back for a few years. Am i right in thinking that St. Martin is duty-free?

[callistov42]

Me:
St Martin is a duty free port and it is EASY to ship in supplies. I think most of the marinas will receive and hold a shipment if you have a slip reserved and let them know the details of the shipment and when it will be arriving. We keep our boat at the marina at Anse Marcel (at the Riu Hotel) and I can also recommend Simpson Bay Yacht Club.

[monte]

There is a decent agent there on the Dutch side. They handle mail. About $10 for a small package and $30 for a large package. I think FedEx is just down the road and a better option. I don't think they charge for a holding fee so you just pick it up there. A couple of minute walk from the Simpson bay dinghy dock.

[robert sailor]

Get in touch with 4 Star Shipping in Miami. Register with them and they will give you the address for all your stuff to be sent to in Miami. They will forward it to you in St. Maartin for a very reasonable rate which they will quote you on before its shipped if you wish. We used them to have a lot of stuff sent to us in St. Maartin and we would get an email from them with dates/times of arrival and we would dink over to a landing across from the airport, take a 5 minute walk to their place and a couple of minutes later you have your stuff. No taxes or duty on anything, good service highly recommend.

[Zanshin]

I've used 4-star to ship to St. Martin several times and they are fastvand cheap. You can use their online pages to set up an account, prepare a shipment and get price quotes. Basically, you send your stuff to their address in Miami and from there they do next-day to their warehouse at the airport via air or within 4-7 days via ship and pickup in P'burg. You have a couple of days to pick up the goods before you get charged for storage. Tropical shipping is the other commonly used shipper.
Since the service is so fast, I'd recommend waiting until you get there before shipping rather than arranging pickup and storage.

[DefinitelyMe]

Cheers guys this is great info. I will look up 4-star and also contact a couple of marinas and see what their policy is a little closer to the time. Cheers!

[MarkJ]

I use Four Star for air freight and Tropical Shipping for sea freight.

They will warehouse at Tropical and I pick up from them. But I think Gour Star charge $10 per day wearhousing.

If you want an address to ship to you could use Shrimpys Shrimpy's Yacht Support Its on the French side, a dinghy ride from the Dutch side. Email Mike. He runs the vhf radio net in the mornings.

One thing you NEED is an invoice for the goods you are sending via Four Star or Tropical. They will just hold everything in Miami without the invoice and not tell you! If its second hand stuff just write an invoice giving items and aprox value and email.

I had a genoa sent by Tropical from Miami to St Martin for, I think, $62. Bargain.

[DefinitelyMe]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

I had a genoa sent by Tropical from Miami to St Martin for, I think, $62. Bargain.

$62?! That really is a bargain! It's looking like i'll be getting a jib made in Florida so Miami is perfect.

Thanks again guys!

[hellosailor]

Import duties in Bermuda? Even if the goods are marked "For Yacht In Transit" ? That usually exempts them from duties, in most countries. Unless of course you are Bermuda-flagged.

[DefinitelyMe]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

Import duties in Bermuda? Even if the goods are marked "For Yacht In Transit" ? That usually exempts them from duties, in most countries. Unless of course you are Bermuda-flagged.

Yes, you are correct and that facility does exist here, but i am indeed Bermuda flagged so it's not an available option for me. Cheers.