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View Full Version : Guadalupe Island Race - a few questions to the PSSA team ?



brianb
12-10-2013, 02:31 PM
Hello PSSA (Slacker),

In case I get my act together and find myself in Marina Del Rey around Feb 15 I wanted to find out a bit about the GI race. Here are a few questions:

1. While in Mexican waters what sort of permits/licenses should be carried ?
1.5 Is a Norcal PHRF cert OK ?
2. Are there any activities at the finish line area (Avalon ?), or does everyone move on to home ports ?
3. What do you folks use for tracking ? Looks like maybe Spot ?
4. Any sense of the fleet size/content this year ? Is this going to be the year of the Mini ?
5. Is is legal to stop at Guadalupe and add ballast to the port rail ?

Thanks,
Brian

Ragnar
12-16-2013, 10:49 AM
Hi Brian,

OK, here we go:

1. Yes, we're learning about a new permit process to enter Mexican waters if you go within 12 miles of the mainland or an island. The link is here & it describes the process: http://www.inm.gob.mx/index.php/page/Pesca_Deportiva_Turismo_Nautico/en.html . You will also need a Mexican courtesy flag, and your registration papers. To my knowledge no one has ever been boarded, but the Mexican Navy does come up on Ch. 16 down at the island with some regularity and ask some questions.

1.5 I shouldn't speak for the PRO, but more than likely he would accept the NorCal rating.

2. We've only had one finish near Avalon, so we haven't yet had anything organized. Though Jerome & I had a good time "recovering" there in 2012.

3. Most likely we'll be using the Kattack system that consolidates SPOT tracks

4. Around 15 boats are intending to race. Probably means 12 or so on the line, and yes, should be a good mini fleet.

5. Sure. Just pick up some island shell fisherman by offering some rum & drop them in Avalon. Downside is they smell funny. Just hope for some spray to wash everyone off on the way up. Oh, and they hate Bob Segar, by the way. :)

jfoster
01-08-2014, 05:05 PM
The Poop From Impounded Boats In Mexico Hits the Fan

January 8, 2014 – Mexico



For decades Mexico has been a favorite cruising destination of both American and Canadian sailors. But will the recent impounds now scare them away?

A month after 338 foreign boats were illegally impounded in various marinas around Mexico, the poop is really starting to hit the fan. Officials from various Mexican agencies, such as Tourism, were hoping that AGACE, a subdivision of Hacienda (the Mexican IRS) which mistakenly created the fiasco, would be able to resolve the situation by Christmas or at least the beginning of the new year. They didn't succeed.

There are three kinds of poop currently hitting the fan.

First, Cleve Hardaker, Staff Commodore of the Pacific Coast Yachting Association, reports that "a good many racers are already canceling plans to sail to Mexico." During a phone conversation, Hardaker said that "hardly anybody is signing up for the Ensenada Race," which is historically the biggest race to Mexico. This certainly doesn't bode well either for MEXORC, the every-other-year major sailing regatta on Banderas Bay. The Mexican government regularly invests several million dollars in that event. Hardaker also reported that one San Diego yacht club that had regularly held races into Mexican waters — i.e. the Coronado Islands — has now revised the courses to keep boats out of Mexican waters.

The second poop is that a Mexican television producer has been filming and interviewing boat owners, marina staff, and officials in Ensenada — where a large number of boats have been impounded — for a segment intended for American television. That's not good for Mexico or the rest of the West Coast sailing industry.

The biggest bomb of all, however, is that Associated Press, which provides stories for every major newspaper and television in the United States, is planning to run a big story on the problem late this week or early next week. Our understanding is that the impetus for this story was the impounding of a multimillion-dollar boat in Ensenada, a boat that had gone to Ensenada for a few days for boat work, and a boat that was in full compliance with all Mexican regulations. The owner and captain were aboard when AGACE auditors came around. The auditors told them that everything was fine, but nonetheless put the boat on the impound list, later saying they didn't observe a HIN (hull identification number) on the boat. The HIN is clearly imprinted in the hull exactly where it should be. (This experience roughly matches that of ours and our catamaran Profligate.)

Our plan at Latitude had been to begin a petition campaign to only officials in Mexico, the United States and Canada. We didn't want to go to the mainstream media just yet, as the story is going to create massive negative publicity for Mexico and a lot more innocent victims. But with the AP story a fait accompli, we agreed to be interviewed extensively by the AP. We tried to make it clear that our belief is that this is all a giant mistake, and that when President Pena Nieto and others in his Administration learn what has happened, they aren't going to be very happy, especially since AGACE, having impounded 338 boats, hasn't been able to figure out the process for un-impounding them. Few, if any, want their names associated with any part of this drama, but that's not our way. So we suppose if things go south and AGACE needs a boat owner's head to use as a piñata, it will be ours.

The bottom line is that a lot of boat owners, boat businesses, boat workers, and a wonderful destination country are suffering for the blundering of one new sub-agency of the Mexican IRS. We implore all of you to take a few minutes to copy and send a petition — see next item — to as many officials and media outlets as possible. Then get on your Facebook page and encourage all your friends to do so also. For while on the surface it may appear to only affect boat owners in Mexico and nautical tourism in Mexico, it actually has major negative ramifications for the whole West Coast sailing industry.

- latitude / richard

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Sample Letters to Officials & the Media

January 8, 2014 – World of Latitude 38

For the sake of American and Canadian boat owners, the country of Mexico, marine businesses and workers in Mexico, and marine businesses and workers on the west coast of the United States, we beseech you to take a few minutes to send your thoughts to Mexican and US officials, as well as the US media. This is very important, as we need thousands of emails sent to make an impact.

At the bottom of this page, we'll provide a list of officials and their email addresses. If they are Mexican, send the Spanish version of the letter we provide or a Google translation of one of the short sample messages. In the case of President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, US House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senators Feinstein and Boxer, it's a little more complicated, as you generally have to fill out your name and address before you can send a message. Please don't let this be an obstacle, as it's important to get their attention or that of their underlings.

If you want to keep it short and quick, send a message similar to one of the following:

1) I have followed the reports of tens of millions of dollars worth of US and Canadian boats having been illegally impounded in Mexico for more than a month. These boats need to be permitted free transit as guaranteed by international maritime law.

2) I have cruised Mexico aboard my boat before and loved the country and the people. But the unfortunate illegal impounding of 338 US and Canadian boats means I will not be returning any time soon.

3) I have spend years preparing my boat for a cruise to Mexico, Central America and the South Pacific. The actions of AGACE have convinced me it's not safe for foreigners to bring their vessels to Mexico, so I will reluctantly bypass Mexico.

4) I was about to buy a boat/condo/property in Mexico. If AGACE can illegally impound foreign boats, there is no way I can believe my investment will be safe, so I am looking elsewhere to invest.

You get the idea. All these represent the thoughts contained in letters we've received at Latitude 38. Length and formality of emails are nowhere near as important as the number of emails. Be respectful, and please realize the actions of AGACE absolutely do not reflect the attitude of Mexico as a whole. President Pena Nieto, Immigration, Tourism and other major industries have emphatically been encouraging nautical tourism and trying to make it easier for visitors.

If you want to get a more detailed message and explanation of the situation, we've created the following letter for your consideration. The President of the Mexican Marina Owner's Association has read it and said " . . . it describes the problem very clearly." The Spanish translation was done by the manager of a marina in Mexico that has not been hit by AGACE, but he is frightened not just for his marina, but for the entire marine industry in Mexico.

THE ENGLISH VERSION:

Three hundred and thirty-eight pleasure vessels worth tens of millions of dollars continue to be illegally impounded at 12 marinas in Mexico. Most of the vessels are American and Canadian, and range in value from $10,000 to several million dollars. In many instances these boats represent the single most valuable financial asset of the owners.

I am urging your help in seeing that this injustice — as well as the damage to the reputation of Mexico — is brought to an immediate halt.

In late November about 100 auditors of the AGACE division of SAT (the Mexican IRS), backed by a large contingent of marines armed with machine guns, descended on seven marinas in Mexico, from Ensenada to Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta to Cancun. Their goal was to make sure that all the boats in the marinas complied with Mexico's very reasonable regulations for visits by foreign vessels, and they ended up thinking they had caught over three hundred foreign boat owners who owed big tax bills.

Unfortunately, the head of the relatively new agency, which is charged with overseeing the importation of 'merchandise' to Mexico, is a politico and did not understand that foreign cruising vessels are not imported "merchandise" like appliances or electronics, but rather a very valuable part of the nautical tourism industry. Foreign cruising vessels are not in Mexico for permanent importation, which is why they are issued 10-Year Temporary Import Permits.

Most of the 338 vessels that AGACE claimed were out of compliance were not out of compliance. The problem was that the owners were not aboard, and thus were not able to show auditors their Temporary Import Permits, the location where their HIN numbers were permanently engraved in the hulls, the engine serial numbers and so forth. It did not help that the auditors knew nothing about boats and were thus unable to distinguish between basic things such as boat brands from brands of electronic components in the boats.

Much of Mexican law is based on Napoleanic law, so if the boat owner wasn't around to show AGACE agents the necessary paperwork and numbers, the boat was assumed to be out of compliance, and thus put in 'precautionary embargo.' Embargoed boats are not permitted to leave the dock. Astonishingly, AGACE has yet to officially inform a single boat owner that their boat has been impounded, so many boat owners still aren't even aware that their boats have been impounded.

About a week after the initial raid, AGACE did a second check, usually with marina managers and their lawyers present, and found out that almost every boat they had impounded was actually in compliance with Mexican law. You would think that AGACE would immediately release these innocent boats. Alas, AGACE has said it will take 45 to 120 days for them to complete the paperwork necessary to do this.

This delay in freeing the boats is both outrageous and in violation of international maritime law that guarantees free passage of vessels except in cases where a crime has been committed. The damage can also be seen in the sudden lack of interest by Americans in racing to Mexico, the cancellation of a three-race series from San Diego to Mexico, and American cruisers vowing never to bring their boats to Mexico. The reason is simple: foreigners now have reason to fear that their financial assets and investments can be capriciously taken from their control. Officials of other branches of Mexican government, such as Tourism, have understandably been horrified by this action by AGACE, which they described as "ridiculous."

For the sake of the owners of these boats, as well as the wonderful country of Mexico and its people, I beseech you to do whatever you can to help resolve this unfortunate situation. Time is of the essence, for by the end of the week the Associated Press will be sending a story on this to every major newspaper and television station in the United States, at which point the damage to Mexico could be even more significant and long-lasting.

I want to emphasize that I, like all others who cruise Mexico, love Mexico, love the people of Mexico, and believe in full compliance with Mexico's laws. Please see that the best 'ambassadors for Mexico' don't become victims of the unfortunate misunderstanding of the law by one small agency of the Mexican government.

SPANISH VERSION:

Trescientas treinta y ocho embarcaciones recreativas con un valor de decenas de millones de dólares continúan siendo incautadas ilegalmente en 12 marinas en México. La mayoría de las embarcaciones son de origen Americanas y Canadienses, y están valuadas desde $10,000 dólares hasta varios millones de dólares. En la mayoría de las instancias estos botes representan el único activo financiero valioso de los propietarios.

Estoy pidiendo tu ayuda para ver esta injusticia – también el daño a la reputación de México. Esto debe cesar inmediatamente.

A finales de Noviembre alrededor de 100 auditores de la división AGACE del SAT (el IRS Mexicano), respaldados por un gran contingente de Marinos armados con armas automáticas, descendieron en 12 marinas en México, desde Ensenada hasta Acapulco y Puerto Vallarta a Cancún. Su objetivo era asegurar todos los botes en la marina cumplieran con las regulaciones razonables Mexicanas para la visita de embarcaciones extranjeras, y terminaron pensando que habían capturado mas de trescientos dueños de embarcaciones extranjeras que deben grandes cantidades de impuestos.

Desgraciadamente, el jefe de la relativamente nueva agencia, que es encargado de supervisar la importación de “mercancía” a México, es un político y no entendió que las embarcaciones de crucero no son importadas como “mercancía” como electrodomésticos o electrónica, sino más bien una parte muy valiosa de la industria del turismo náutico. Las embarcaciones foráneas de crucero no están en México como importación permanente, razón por la cual solo tienen un permiso de 10 –años temporal.

La mayoría de las 338 embarcaciones que AGACE incauto estaban fuera de cumplimiento no estaban fuera de cumplimiento. El problema fue que los dueños no estaban abordo, y esto no permitió que fuera posible mostrarle a los auditores sus permisos temporales de importación, numero de documento permanente gravado en el casco, la localización del numero HIN, el numero de serie del motor y así sucesivamente. Esto no ayudo a que los auditores no conocían nada acerca de los botes y no se pudieran distinguir entre las cosas básicas entre marcas de botes y marcas de componentes electrónicos en los botes.

La mayoría de la ley mexicana es basada en la ley de napoleón, así que si el dueño del bote no estaba alrededor para mostrarle a los agentes de AGACE los papeles necesarios y los números, se asume que el bote esta fuera de cumplimiento, y esto pone en “embargo precautorio”. Los botes embargados no se les permite que dejen el muelle. Asombrosamente, AGACE debe informar a cada uno de los dueños de cada embarcación que su embarcación ha sido embargada, así que muchos de los dueños de embarcaciones ni siquiera saben que sus embarcaciones han sido embargadas.

Alrededor de una semana después de la incursión inicial de AGACE hizo una segunda revisión, usualmente con los administradores de la marina y sus abogados presentes, y encontraron que casi todos los botes embargados, estaban en cumplimiento de la ley Mexicana. Uno pensara que AGACE inmediatamente soltaría los botes inocentes. AGACE ha dicho que le tomara de 45 a 120 días para completar el papeleo necesario para hacer esto.

Este retraso para liberar las embarcaciones a la vez es indignantes y viola las leyes marítimas internacionales que garantizan la libre navegacion de las embarcaciones con excepción de aquellas en que se haya cometido algún crimen. El daño también puede verse en la falta de interés en las regatas organizadas a México, la cancelación de una serie de carreras de San Diego a México, y los navegantes Americanos han jurado nunca traer embarcaciones a México. La razón es simple, como extranjeros ahora temen que sus activos financieros y sus inversiones puedan ser caprichosamente tomados de sus manos. Oficiales y otras ramas del gobierno mexicano, como la de turismo, se han horrorizado justificadamente por esta acción "ridícula" por AGACE.

Por el bien de los propietarios de estas embarcaciones, y por el bien de México, y la gente de México, te suplico que hagas todo lo que puedas hacer para ayudar a resolver esta desafortunada situación. El Tiempo es esencial para el final de la semana la prensa estará mandando una historia a todos los periódicos y televisoras en Estados Unidos, a este punto el daño a México será significante y duradero.

Quisiera enfatizar que me gustan todos los que navegan por México, aman México, Aman las personas de México, y creen estar legalmente conforme con las leyes Mexicanas. Por favor, como los mejores embajadores de Mexico no se conviertan en víctimas del desafortunado malentendido de la ley por una pequeña agencia del gobierno Mexicano.

ADDRESSES:

1) Claudia Ruiz Massieu, Secretary of Tourism for Mexico.
cruizm@sectur.gob.mx

2) Carlos Joaquin sub secretary of SECTUR, which is Tourism.
C. P. Carlos Joaquín González
Subsecretario de Operación SECTUR
cjoaquing@sectur.gob.mx

3) Luis Lara, a political appointee, the one at AGACE who ordered the audits:
Lic. Luis Lara
Administrador General de Auditoria de Comercio Exterior (AGACE)
luis.laragutierrez@sat.gob.mx

4) Lic. Aristóteles Núñez, Jefe del SAT, which is the Mexican IRS, and thus is Lic. Luis Lara's boss.
Lic. Aristóteles Núñez
aristoteles.nunez@sat.gob.mx

5) Lic. Sergio Alcocer Martinez de Castro,
Subsecretario para America del Nortes:
salcocer@sre.gob.mx

6) Ambassador E. Anthony Wayne, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico.
Emb.eua.mex@state.gov

7) Eduardo Medina-Mora, Mexico's ambassador to the United States. Mexembusa@sre.gob.mx

8) Mexico's Consulate in Los Angeles:
lapublico@sre.gob.mx

9) Mexico's Consulate in San Francisco:
lapublico@sre.gob.mx

10) President Barak Obama:
president@whitehouse.gov.
You have to sign up for this. No, we do not expect President Obama to threaten to nuke Mexico is they don't release the 338 U.S. and Canadian boats impounded in Mexico. But if the office gets enough emails, the right person may be alerted to look into it. Every little bit helps.

11. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Go to http://contact-us.state.gov and fill out the form.

In addition to these elected and appointed officials, please write to your local and regional newspapers. The important thing is that the word gets spread as far and wide as possible. Mexico needs to feel the heat. Thank you for your help.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
01-10-2014, 03:10 PM
Foreign Boat Impoundment Story Goes Mainstream

January 10, 2014 – Mexico

If you're tired of reading about the foreign boat impoundment fiasco in Mexico, you can imagine how sick we are of writing about it. But we'll soldier on until there is a resolution. The following are our comments to an AP news story that has appeared in Yahoo, the Washington Post, Fox News, MSN, and all over the place.

1. U.S. and Canadian boats are not left "in limbo." If impounded, they can be restricted to the dock to up to four months . . . at which point the Mexican government could decide to release, fine or confiscate them.

2. "Storming" the marinas wasn't an accurate characterization of what happened in late November. While AGACE agents arrived with marines armed with machine guns and a prison bus, and worked all through the night, the auditors were unfailingly polite. Indeed, they often told boat owners everything was fine, which is why some boat owners were so surprised to later find their boat on the impound list after all.

3. Big boats have been impounded, too. In just a short circle of our boat on Banderas Bay, five boats worth a total of more than $5 million have been impounded.

4. A Temporary Import permit does not prove ownership, a boat document does that. A TIP does not guarantee Mexico that a boat owner won't leave Mexico without their boat. Indeed, TIPs were created specifically to give foreign boat owners a legal means to leave Mexico without their boat. Having a TIP does not make it illegal to sell one's boat in Mexico, although there are legal guidelines that have to be followed.

5. It is indeed the responsibility of boat owners to comply with Mexican laws, which are easy to comply with. The problem was that if a boat owner wasn't aboard his or her boat, the auditors couldn't see some of the information they needed to see, and their default was to put most of these boats on the impound list. Even if the auditors were shown the necessary information when they visited again 10 days later, the boat stayed on the impound list. In the case of the marina we're in, AGACE discovered that 52 of the 53 boats they'd put on the list were in fact in compliance with Mexican law. Alas, they are still on the impound list and may be unable to move for four months.

In the last 17 years, our catamaran Profligate has been cleared into virtually every port and marina in Mexico without a problem. Despite their being no change in the law with regard to TIPs, she was nonetheless impounded because nobody was aboard to show auditors things like the documentation number in the hull, engine serial numbers, and point out she's a custom-built boat and therefore doesn't have a brand or model name. Unfortunate and ridiculous.

6. In one case, a rep for the owner of a number of boats showed AGACE agents the same information for all the boats in his control. Most were not put on the impound list, but one inexplicably was.

7. A TIP is not a tax, it's a permit.

In the case of the AP story that appeared on the ABC International news site, the reader comments were devastating, citing a list of alleged abuses that would tend to make one's hair stand on end. Such as this one from Lou Kief: "In 1984 we came to Mexico on an old wooden sailboat we had rebuilt and spent the hurricane season in Puerto Vallarta's only marina at the time. We did all our paperwork to the letter, were good visitors, and waited for the weather to be favorable for us to continue our trip to the Panama Canal. While in Mexico, our "Temporary Import Permit" — which is issued for one year at that time — was set to expire. In bold letters at the bottom of the permit it said that it could be renewed at the port captain's office for an additional year for no fee. When I went to the port captain's office to get my free renewal, he told me it would cost $600 US dollars! I showed him the print where it said the renewal is free on the page. His reply: 'It is free but I'm going to make you go back to the United States to get it for free there. If you want it renewed here it will cost you $600 USD — that's how much you will spend on airfare to go to San Diego, hotels, meals.' It was extortion plain and simple, something officials in Mexico have been very good at for a long, long time."

Oh geez, just the kind of stories Mexico and fans of Mexico don't need to hear. Two points: 1) There weren't any Temporary Import Permits in 1984; and 2) 1984 was a long, long time ago, and Mexican port captains — and other civil servants — have become much, much more professional. While we're not saying bribes and corruption have disappeared in Mexico, we don't believe it's anything like it used to be.

There was also a different story in the Orange County Register:

1. Auditors weren't coming looking specifically for HINs (which are hull identification numbers), but primarily for Temporary Import Permits, document numbers in the hull and such. Unfortunately, the Mexican officials don't realize that HINs are poor indicators of anything, as boats built in the U.S. before 1974 don't have them, nor do most boats from many countries in Europe. In many other cases, the HIN number was ground out when the boat hull was sanded for repainting. Additionally, many hull numbers, even by companies such as Catalina, were inscribed with cheap engraving tools. As such, it's easy for anybody to put any hull number on any boat. That's why the document number permanently affixed to the hull is the U.S. Coast Guard standard.

2. The quotes from Juan Hussong, our friend from Ensenada, made it appear that he and the owners of impounded boats are at cross purposes: "Juan Hussong, a Mexican national with homes in both San Diego and Ensenada, had his boat inspected and cleared during the audit. He argues that the boat owners are responsible for the correct documentation. The marina managers are worried because they think they are going to lose customers, but honestly, it’s a new government and we have a new president, and they are trying to make things legal."

We agree with Juan that owners are responsible for correct documentation, which is why we and the overwhelming majority of foreign boat owners have it. It's so easy and inexpensive to get, why wouldn't anybody have it? The problem was that if nobody was aboard to show auditors evidence of compliance, the boat was put on the impound list — and stayed their even if the auditors were later shown the evidence within the prescribed time.

Hussong is also right about the new president and attitude toward tax collection in Mexico. Mexico has long had one of the lowest tax collection rates in the world, and the abuses are rampant. But the thing is, the abuses are primarily with regard to income and real estate taxes. Unlike the fateful assumption made by AGACE, cruisers sailing around in Mexico with a TIP are not tax cheats.

What's next? One would hope that the tremendous negative publicity will help resolve the issue quickly. AGACE has sent most of the impounded boat's TIPs to Banjercito for verification, and is soon going to learn that they are not fraudulent, and the owners of the impounded boats are in Mexico legally and don't owe any tax. Hopefully AGACE will swallow their pride, with a big help from Tourism and others, and the boats will be released.

Sometimes, however, Mexican agencies can be stubborn. As such, there is no guarantee that AGACE won't respond by hitting all the other marinas in Mexico, such as the three big ones in La Paz, the three in Mazatlan, two more big ones in the Vallarta area, as well as Barra, Ixtapa and others. If they do, and they heed the same standards as they did auditing boats in the first eight marinas, there could soon be more than 1,000 foreign boats impounded in Mexico.

The Register article notes that Mary Baker, owner of the Mary Conlin Company in Newport Beach, which specializes in boat documentation services, is advising clients not to go to Mexico at this time. Rafael Alcantara, Harbormaster at Riviera Nayarit in La Cruz, encourages U.S. mariners to come to Mexico, noting that AGACE hasn't conducted a raid since late November.

We at Latitude 38 aren't giving any advice. Given all the negative publicity, we can't imagine that AGACE and Mexico would double down on this blunder. Then again, it's unimaginable that they ever made the blunder in the first place. After all, as we pointed out, cruisers are Mexico's greatest goodwill ambassadors. To have so severely punished innocent goodwill ambassadors has been a disaster.

The 32nd biennial San Diego to Vallarta Yacht Race is slated for March 13-21, and so far there are 22 superb entries. Presumably most of whom will stay for MEXORC, an event the Mexican government usually pours millions into. Given what's happened, and what might happen, it's unclear if entries will drop out or what. We hope the whole mess is resolved before then, and that Mexico starts a road back to redemption with a great Vallarta Race and a great MEXORC.

What about the Ha-Ha? We expect there will be a 21st Annual Ha-Ha at the end of October, but only because we expect this fiasco will be long over by then. Obviously we would have no interest in luring anyone to Mexico if we felt there was any significant chance their boat would be recklessly impounded or confiscated.

What to do if your boat is in Mexico now? Given the terrible publicity the first raid has generated, we can't imagine there will be others. But you never know. If might be cheap insurance to put copies of all your documents and TIP, as well as directions to the document number in your hull, and the HIN number — assuming your boat was ever given one — in a plastic bag and tape it to your lifelines. We know it sounds crazy, but these are crazy times, and others have decided to do it.

- latitude / richard

Mewes
01-11-2014, 03:12 PM
Yup. Ben borrowed Tiger Beetle's dremmel tool and put the number "2" on Georgia's transom. We are heading to La Paz, where there will be a Club Cruceres meeting Wednesday evening.

John, we are headed to the Mainland early February Hope to see you!

Lucie

jfoster
01-14-2014, 04:48 PM
Jeremy Leonard:
Hey, Richard! Will any of this affect boats entering Mex for the PV race or MEXORC?
7 hours ago via mobile · Like

Richard Spindler:
Jeremy, one of the entries has been writing officials in Mexico saying that his participation, and that of 20 in his group, in both events is uncertain if he can't be assured his boat won't be impounded. The PV race has a great fleet, and the MEXORC is an event the Mexican government usually lavishes millions of dollars on. Mexico needs to resolve the impounded boat issue and AGACE problem immediately to prevent both these great events from being in jeopardy.
7 hours ago · Like · 1

jfoster
01-14-2014, 04:49 PM
Richard Spindler
9 hours ago ·
HUNDREDS OF FOREIGN BOATS WORTH TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS REMAIN IMPOUNDED IN MEXICO. It's true that some 16 boats were freed from Opequimar Marina in Puerto Vallarta the other day, an unknown number were in the process of being released from Cabo San Lucas yesterday, and there were vague reports that some boats had or were about to be released in Acapulco. But the huge majority of boats still haven't been freed. To clarify a point, there are two levels of embargo or impoundment in Mexico; in the lower level, people can still go on their boats and live on them, and a higher level where yellow tape is put around them and nobody is allowed aboard. During the current fiasco, it's our understanding that all boats have been under the lower level embargo. One person has claimed that these boats have been free to come and go. Our understanding is that to do so would be a federal offense. For what it's worth, the definition of 'embargo' is "a government order prohibiting the movement of ships in and out of ports". All we know is that we, in conjunction with Dino at Grand Marina in Barra, were hoping to team up and start a new charity regatta from Tenacatita Bay to Barra. But as Profligate was on the list of boats in precautionary embargo, the port captain was under instructions not to let her leave. While he technically couldn't do that without a court order, we weren't about to push it. The really creepy thing in Mexico is that AGACE is firmly standing by their "obligation" to conduct these audits, and to take a month or so, according to a letter to Senator John McCain, to "verify" that the boats aren't stolen. Is there any reason to think that AGACE won't soon hit marinas that haven't been hit yet? And in some cases revisit boats that were already cleared but not given any record of being cleared? Not that we know of. Our thinking is that since AGACE had to put 338 out of 1,600 inspected foreign boats in embargo, the problem is not with foreign boat owners, the problem is with AGACE auditing and Mexican law that is not in compliance with reality (i.e. the demand to see what in some cases were non-existent HIN numbers). Mexico better get their stuff together soon, because the damage keeps getting worse. As we mentioned before, one of the reasons cited for the cancellation of the Cabo race was "events in Mexico". And now, at least one signed up entrant for the Vallarta Race and MEXORC is second guessing his participation in those events, for which he planned to have 20 people participate. If boat owners are scared, they're not going to come to Mexico. And lots of boat owners boat in the States and in Mexico remain concerned if not scared. In other news, yesterday we received the announcement that one new marina was about to open in Mexico and others are being planned for Mag Bay and the Chacala area. In other, other news, at the beginning of the year Mexico instituted a 16% tax on all food and beverages, even those sold in grocery stores. Given Mexico has a massive population of genuinely poor people, particularly in the south, we're confused at the thinking behind hitting them with a staggering new expense they can't afford. Mind you, this while the property tax on a half million dollar waterfront condo is a mere $150 a year.

jfoster
01-14-2014, 04:53 PM
Richard Spindler
6 hours ago ·
WHAT DOES 'EMBARGO' MEAN IN MEXICO? Elizabeth Shanahan has written that it's a FACT that people with boats that have been embargoed can take their boats out of the slip. That's not what we heard, so we posed the question to Neil Shroyer of Marina de La Paz, who is as up on Mexican maritime law as anyone. Neils writes: “Depositario” is a person that the provisionally impounded goods are entrusted to while the legal process goes through its stages. He can do with the goods as he sees fit, as long as they are not sold, destroyed, modified, or made unavailable to the legal process, So in answer to the question, it depends on the circumstances. If the vessel was officially “Deposited” with the owner of said vessel alter the “Embargo Precautorio” (a possibility), then that owner can move around on the vessel as long as she / he can produce the vessel at any time that the AGACE authorities request it be produced during the legal process. It I like being out on bail kind of. If the Owner/Depositario does not produce the vessel when required by the AGACE, then he could face fines and jail. If the vessel was “Deposited” with the Marina representative/ manager/ owner, after the “Embargo Precautorio, it would be entirely up to that person to allow the owner to move about, but if the owner took of with the vessel the person that was named “Depositario” would be responsible for the vessel not showing up or be available for trial and could even face jail time. If no “Depositario” is named by the AGACE, it means that the vessel is technically in AGACE´s possession and they are the “Depositarios”. That is why AGACE is or was pressing the Marinas to accept the “Deposito”, because if something happens to the vessel they would be responsible. Half the marinas accepted the deposito of the vessels impounded, the other half did not. Some vessels that were in marinas that did not accept the deposito have left the country and I do not know what AGACE can or would do about that. The law permits the return of the vessel (merchandise) so maybe if the owner proves it has left the country than possibly (in a positive scenario) they would pay the fine and that would be that. Worst case, maybe charged with wrongful disposal or theft of impounded goods." As AGACE has not named us the Depositario for Profligate, and our marina has refused to be the Depositario for our boat, AGACE is the Depositario. Since they have not only not given us permission to leave the slip — they haven't even contacted us — they have put us on the 'no go' list with the Port Captain — so we're not going anywhere. We don't think it risking an asset worth hundreds of thousands of dollars when it's in the control of an agency that doesn't seem to care how badly it damages Mexico's marine tourism industry. As we think everyone can see, the less you know about the complexities of Mexican maritime law, the better you'll feel. While everything was flexible in Mexico, everything was warm and fuzzy, and all problems could be solved. But with the cold, harsh actions of AGACE, Mexico suddenly seems like a much less friendly place, where one's valuable assets aren't as safe as they once were. Just ask any of the hundreds whose boats are still impounded after more than six weeks. Mexico needs to act quickly and forcefully to regain the confidence of visitors and investors. Just as anyone in the Tourism Department.

jfoster
01-15-2014, 03:22 PM
Richard Spindler
BREAKING NEWS FROM MEXICO: Forty-Eight of 53 Boats to be Released at Riviera Nayarit Marina, La Cruz,

Neil Shroyer the Marina de La Paz tells Latitude that 48 of the 53 boats that were impounded at the Riviera Nayarit are to be released. This according to officials at the marina, who have left the office for the day. Apparently AGACE officials are expected from Guadalajara tomorrow, which is presumably when the 48 boats will be released. The other five boats will continued to be held in precautionary embargo pending further investigation.

Shroyer further tells us that 10 of 16 impounded boats have been released in Cabo San Lucas, and the marina is working with AGACE to free the other six boats.

"Regarding future inspections," Shroyer, who is one of the most knowledgeable people in Mexico about maritime law, says, "there is nothing to be done regarding the right of the AGACE to do inspections of vessel TIPs since it is a legal obligation of every boat to have one. What I hope can be done is to have the AGACE agents better trained and to have a better inspection process that does not lead to the situation that their actions generated this time — which basically was that a whole bunch of boats that were correctly imported got temporarily impounded anyway. We hope AGACE will give us a chance to help them work out a system that promotes legal certainty both for the boaters and the authority. I don't expect AGACE to embark on a similar excursion in the near future without working out a better system with better trained personnel , one that would result in only boats that do not have their TIP being impounded and fined.
"Another issue is constancy of inspection by AGACE. If you do not inspect for 15 years and expect everyone to be in compliance, and come down on boaters with an inspection process like the one they used, is not correct either. A constant low key inspection process should be in place, with a phase in time frame for non compliant vessels to comply, and then move into sanctions for non compliance.
"The Marina Association has been working for the last three years with Aduana to try and get the Temporary Import Permit formats improved, get the documentation requirements simplified, get the information on the web page corrected, get the, Reglamento and especially the Reglas and Manuals to be clearer about the process."
More updates as we get them, but things seem to be moving in the right direction.

jfoster
01-15-2014, 03:47 PM
Hundreds of Foreign Boat Remain Impounded In Mexico

January 15, 2014 – Ensenada to Vallarta, Los Cabos to Cancun

It's going on six weeks now that over 300 foreign-owned boats remain impounded in Mexican marinas following a sub-agency of the Mexican IRS conducting audit/raids on at least eight marinas. Thanks to their dubious auditing techniques and lack of familiarity with Mexican and US law, the agency saw fit to impound 338 out of 1,600 boats. That's 21% of all boats they inspected! Had they — or if they — hit all 30+ marinas in Mexico, it's likely that over 1,000 foreign boats will be impounded.

Despite the public relations nightmare that has resulted for Mexico, the agency, AGACE, remains defiant, saying they have been working for the "safety" — what a joke! — of boat owners and to make sure that Mexico collects all the tax it is owed. AGACE suspects that many foreign-owned boats in Mexico have really been imported permanently and thus the owners are 'tax cheats'. This is ridiculous, of course, as AGACE has been finding out. In one marina 52 of the 53 boats impounded were shown to have the required 10-Year Temporary Import Permits, and one had an outdated permit. At least as bad is the fact that AGACE insists that it has up to four months to assess each case. Can anybody say, "Ruined winter cruise?" And think about those boats that are, against their owners wishes, confined to expensive marinas. Who should pay for that?

Most of the boats that have been impounded were in compliance with all Mexican law, the only problem was the owners weren't aboard to show the auditors the things they needed to see, but couldn't see from the dock. In a land where you're innocent until proven guilty, hundreds of the impounded boats never should have been impounded. It would have helped if AGACE hadn't conducted sneak raids backed with marines armed with machine guns, but had simply made appointments with owners or owner's reps to confirm compliance. It would also have helped if AGACE made contact with the owners of the boats, which they have yet to do, and which is why many boat owners don't even know their boats have been impounded.

As of this morning 16 boats had been released from Opequimar Marina in Puerto Vallarta, an unspecified number in Acapulco, and some were reportedly being released yesterday in Cabo San Lucas. But that means around 300 boats are still impounded.

Even as some boats are being released, there is no assurance that defiant AGACE won't hit the marinas that haven't been hit yet — such as Marina Vallarta, Paradise Village Marina, the three big marinas in La Paz, and the three marinas in Mazatlan. People with boats in those marinas have a right to be concerned if not scared.

The worst case would be if your boat had been in a marina AGACE had already visited, and been cleared. But then you moved to another marina, AGACE agents showed up, and you weren't aboard to show them what they needed to see. Your boat could end up impounded because AGACE doesn't give out certificates saying your boat had been cleared. We're not saying it's going to happen, we're just saying it could happen.

The fallout for marine tourism and Mexico has been terrible, and with each passing day it gets worse. Here are a couple samples of the kinds of letters we've been getting:

"As I recently wrote in a letter to Mexican officials, I recently purchased a Peterson 34, and was planning to sail her from my home waters of San Francisco Bay to Ensenada to have her refit. I planned on spending about $30,000 on the refit. I would then continue on to La Paz and the Mexican Riviera, where I wanted to spend the winter and spring before turning right for Polynesia in May. I figure I would have spent another $20,000 on a vacation with my wife in Mexico before continuing on to the South Pacific. Why did Mexico spend all these years encouraging visits by nautical tourists and then shoot itself in the foot like this? Unless this problem is resolved, I will spend my money elsewhere."
— Steve Bryant, Peterson 34.

"I am writing to you [a Mexican official] about the recent impound of more than 300 boats by a branch of the Mexican AGACE. I have sailed my own sailboat up and down the Mexican coast from Ensenada to Zihuatanejo for more than 10 years. At this time my boat is in the US, for which I am very thankful. My wife and I were planning to purchase a home in La Paz on our next visit to your beautiful country. I am sorry to say, we will not be returning to Mexico, at least not by boat. And after watching what has happened to the boat owners recently, I believe it would be a mistake to buy property in Mexico, when it can so easily be taken away for no reason. We have cancelled our intention to buy property in La Paz or anywhere else in Mexico. I love Mexico and have made many friends there. This incident is going to bring terrible hardship and undeserved consequences to the thousands of workers who derive their living from marinas and other tourism. What a sad, awful mistake you have made. I cannot imagine why, but it breaks my heart. It is shameful.
— Charles Lane, San Francisco.

"We're in the process of buying a new boat. As it's in Southern California, we were thinking of taking it to Mexico to get some work done on her. There is now ZERO chance of us doing that. There is a few thousand dollars that won't be spent in a Mexican boat yard, along with hotel rooms, air fares, etc. This is idiotic, and I have yet to get a reason why these folks would be so stupid."
— Beau Vrolyk of Santa Cruz.

In a side note to the last letter, one of the most expensive impounded boats had come to Mexico from San Diego for a few days of boat work. Despite AGACE agents assuring the captain and crew that everything was in order on their boat, when they tried to leave Mexico the port captain refused, saying the multi-million-dollar boat was impounded. That was in early December and she's still impounded.

While many people in the Mexican government understand that it's not a good idea to scare the hell out of guests, potential guests, and investors by recklessly impounding foreign-owned assets — without telling the owners of those assets — for months at a time, at least one branch of Mexican government apparently doesn't care. We don't know of any boat owners who have a problem with Mexico making sure boats aren't stolen and making sure every boat is legally in the country and has all the proper documentation — especially since it can be so easy and inexpensive in Mexico. It's just that AGACE couldn't have done it in a less competent, slower or more frightening way. May it all end soon.

By the way, there has been a lot of misinformation on this whole matter. Consider, for example, the claims of the Elizabeth Shanahan, who owns a marine business is Nuevo Vallarta. Consider two of her 'facts':

"Fact: Per the requirement of a TIP, the sticker portion must affixed to the vessel."

What Shanahan fails to report — or maybe she simply doesn't know — is that many TIPs never came with stickers. People need to realize what happens to them is not something they can carelessly project as happening to everybody else. What happens in Shanahan's world, for instance, hasn't necessarily been happening in the world of other boat owners — as demonstrated by her next so-called 'fact':

"Fact, the vessels in Nuevo Vallarta and Opequimar shipyard have not been impounded, they are on a 'precautionary embargo' and are free to come and go from the dock. They just must provide copies of their paperwork that was missing or incorrect, and will be released to freely travel Mexico."

In addition to noting that Shanahan uses the future tense in saying boats "will be released" — when will that happen? — we also note that she specifies that boats will be able to "freely travel Mexico," but says nothing about them being able to leave the country. Errors of omission or intent? We're not sure.

Despite what some people claim, Mexican maritime law is very complicated, which is why we asked Neil Shroyer of Marina de La Paz, who is as up on chapter and verse of Mexican maritime law as anyone we know, to weigh in on the concept of 'precautionary embargoes'. Neil writes:

“Depositario is a person [or business or agency] who the provisionally impounded goods are entrusted to while the legal process goes through its stages. He can do with the goods as he sees fit, as long as they are not sold, destroyed, modified, or made unavailable to the legal process. So, in answer to the question, it depends on the circumstances [as to whether an embargoed boat can leave the dock]. If the vessel was officially 'deposited' with the owner of said vessel alter the 'embargo precautorio' (a possibility), then that owner can move around on the vessel as long as she / he can produce the vessel at any time that the AGACE authorities request it during the legal process. It's kind of like being out on bail. If the Owner/Depositario does not produce the vessel when required by the AGACE, then he could face fines and jail.

"If the vessel was 'deposited' with the marina representative/manager/owner after the 'embargo precautorio', it would be entirely up to that person to allow the owner to move about. But if the owner took off with the vessel, the person that was named 'Depositario' would be responsible for the vessel not showing up or being available for trial, and could even face jail time. If no 'Depositario' is named by the AGACE, it means that the vessel is technically in AGACE´s possession and they are the 'Depositarios'. That is why AGACE is or was pressing the marinas [and later port captains — ed.] to accept the 'deposito', because if something happens to the vessel they would be responsible.

"Half the marinas accepted the deposito of the vessels impounded, the other half did not. Some vessels that were in marinas that did not accept the deposito have left the country, and I do not know what AGACE can or would do about that. The law permits the return of the vessel (merchandise), so maybe if the owner proves it has left the country then possibly, in a positive scenario, they would pay the fine and that would be that. Worst case, maybe they would be charged with wrongful disposal or theft of impounded goods." So wrote Neil Shroyer.

It's our understanding that Opequimar agreed to be a depositario for the embargoed boats in their marina only because AGACE threatened to shut them down the next day if they didn't. The marina our boat is in refused to be a depositario, so the situation in Shanahan's marina is entirely different from that in our marina — and many other marinas in Mexico. As AGACE has not named us personally as the depositario for our boat, Profligate, AGACE is Profligate's depositario by default. Since they have not only not given us permission to leave the slip — they haven't even contacted us, but they have put us on the 'no go' list with the Port Captain — we're not going anywhere. After all, we don't think it's worth risking an asset worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to go for a daysail when it's in the control of an agency that doesn't seem to care how badly it damages Mexico's marine tourism industry.

As we think everyone can see, the less you know about the complexities of Mexican maritime law, the less you'll worry. And don't even get us going about the questions of whether US zarpes and captains licenses are needed to legally bring a boat to Mexico, and whether a $100 sanitary certificate is necessary for a boat to leave Mexico. In the old days — before the third week of November of last year — things were friendly in Mexico, and all the inevitable paperwork hiccups and legal contradictions could be worked out in a few minutes with a smile. But with the cold, harsh actions of AGACE, where the agency insists it has up to 24 weeks to decide whether your boat should be released, fined or confiscated, Mexico suddenly became a much less friendly place to foreigners with any kind of significant assets.

We're hoping and praying, for the sake of all cruisers in Mexico and potential cruisers to Mexico, as well as all the nautical tourism businesses — and the owners of impounded boats — that Mexico puts an end to this self-destructive insanity immediately. And furthermore, that they give assurances that similar episodes won't happen again. Mexico has steadily been making life easier and more attractive for cruisers, so let's hope this is an aberration, not the start of a really horrible phase.

By the way, as of January 1 Mexico instituted a new 16% IVA tax on all food and drink in Mexico, including that sold in grocery stores and restaurants, as well as on other things like pet food. Mexico has many millions of really poor — not US-style poor — people. Minimum wage is about $6/day. How the government expects them to suddenly cough up another 16% for the basics of survival is beyond us, especially when the property tax on a half million dollar condo on the water is a mere $150 a year. Why do staples for the poor have to be taxed? As for restaurants, some are collecting the new tax, others aren't, the latter saying the new rule hasn't been constitutionalized, it's not legal, their accountant told them not to pay it, etc, etc. Inconsistency ought to be the motto of Mexico.

There are signs that the new Pena Nieto Administration is doing some good things, such as cleaning up the very corrupt teacher's union, opening Pemex to much-needed foreign investment, and cracking down on the many major tax abuses in a land where the amount of tax paid compared to GDP is ridiculously low. Hopefully AGACE's action is an anomalous brain fart on the way to a better Mexico, but we can only wait and see.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
01-17-2014, 03:04 PM
The Dreadful Impoundment Fiasco In Mexico Endures

January 17, 2014 – Selected Marinas in Mexico

Despite the fervent wishes of almost everyone, most of the 338 foreign owned boats impounded in eight Mexican marinas as a result of AGACE actions in late November are still impounded. The sad fact is that most of these boats have been absolutely legal all along.

A couple of days ago, an insider in the marine industry in Mexico told us that our catamaran Profligate, which is on the list of impounded boats, was all good and didn't have any problems with AGACE. So when the AGACE agents came to our marina yesterday, Dona de Mallorca asked them about the boat's status. The pleasant AGACE agent looked into the files and said, "There are no problems with your boat."

"Great," said de Mallorca, "she's free to go?"

"No," replied the AGACE agent, "she's still impounded." He refused to say why or when she'll be released. It's our understanding that there are 47 other fully compliant boats in our marina in the same preposterous situation.

This is not good, Mexico. Not good at all.

Last night a boat owner with a boat impounded in a Baja marina called our office and asked what we thought of her and her husband leaving in the middle of the night on their boat and trying to flee back to freedom in the United States. She said that the impoundment of their boat had destroyed their cruising dream. They just wanted to get back to the States and sell their boat. She said there was another boat impounded in the same marina whose owner was also done with cruising before he started because of the ruthless actions of AGACE.

Our advice was to hang tight. Some impounded boats have been released, and it appears that many more will be soon. If someone gets caught trying to escape back to the United States — and we're told that some have already been successful — you could find yourself in big trouble in a country where you don't speak the language and the law is slow and murky. And if they did flee, they should probably be very hesitant to ever return to Mexico by boat — although it's unlikely either of these owners will ever want to do that again.

As infuriating as this horrible episode has been, we'd also encourage these owners not to give up their cruising dreams just yet. The impounding of boats in Mexico has been the biggest national nautical brain fart that we can recall — and we've been publishing Latitude for 36 years. The self-destructive stupidity of the process is simply unprecedented.

It's worth noting that three of the owner/mangers of the largest marinas in Mexico, two of whose marinas have been hit by AGACE, and one whose marina has not, said they believe it's extremely unlikely there will be any similar raids until AGACE's policies and procedures have been completely revamped. They all cite the same reason: the terrible damage to Mexico's international reputation, particularly in the nautical tourism sector.

Just so everyone's clear, we have no problem whatsoever with Mexico making sure that all boats have the necessary papers, that nobody is cheating on taxes, and that none of the boats are stolen. But currently there are severe impediments. One is that the laws are very unclear. For example, we asked the manager of one of the biggest port-of-entry marinas in Mexico whether zarpes from the US are required. He said he didn't know that part of Mexican law. If he didn't, how is a first-time visitor to Mexico supposed to know? And we bet 99% of people — including port captains — don't know the law either. According to Neil Shroyer of Marina de La Paz, who tends to be an expert on such things, you either need a zarpe from the US — or a notarized letter stating, under penalty of perjury, that you came from the US. Not that we've ever been asked for either in all the years we've come to Mexico.

As much as we support Mexico's goals of collecting taxes owed and apprehending stolen boats, the fact remains that these goals could have been quickly and easily achieved without the need for armed marines, the threats to marine businesses, boats being impounded, boat owners feeling compelled to flee the country, and tens of millions of dollars worth of negative publicity being rained down on Mexico. All it would have taken is for AGACE to announce that they were going to be at such and such a marina on such and such a day to make sure all boats were compliant by producing documents A through H, and that either the owner or his authorized representative needed to be on site to facilitate the process. And that when found to be in compliance, each boat would be given a sticker. It could have been so easy instead of so draconian.

One thing that's become clear from our conversations with marina managers and owners, is that AGACE procedures and policies were different depending on where the AGACE agents came from and what marinas they were visiting. The marinas in Ensenada were visited by agents from Tijuana; the marinas at Los Cabos and San Carlos were visited by agents from Mexico City; the marinas in the Vallarta area were visited by agents from Zupopan/Guadalajara. In some places, agents never even bothered looking at or going on boats, they just wanted to check the paperwork. In other places, if you weren't on your boat when they visited to show them around, your boat was as good as impounded.

It doesn't help that Mexican law is so vague and so few people know or understand it. For example, a small but vocal group out of the Vallarta YC have made the claim that each boat owner is responsible for making sure that the office of the marina he's in has a copy of all his paperwork. Leaving aside the question of how a boat owner can possibly be held responsible for the doings of the marina office, the manager of one of the biggest and glossiest marinas in Mexico emphatically insisted that his marina is under no legal obligation to have anyone's documents. Mind you, he's had very little problem with AGACE.

There has also been the question of whether not having a TIP is like a fix-it ticket in the United States. The owner of one marina says you have up to 10 days to get one after being found without one, and there is no fine. The manager of another marina says he can't find that in law. But as a practical matter, the manager of yet a third marina said that boats that didn't have TIPs in his marina were able to get them within 10 days, and they didn't even end up on the impound list!

Mexican also has a nagging problem with requiring things that are impossible to do. For example, in the early days of getting a TIP online, the software program prompted the TIP applicant to identify what kind of boat they had. But the program only listed the names of a few powerboats. So applicants were left to either select the name of a boat they didn't own, or not get a TIP. Such problems are rife throughout the Mexican bureaucracy. Here's another example: We recently bought a car in Arizona and legally imported it into Mexico. The final two steps in the process are going to Tepic to get a document transferred from Nogales so we could pick up the license plates in Mezcales. Mexican law says we have seven days from the time we crossed the border to the time we put the plates on the car. Well, it's been about three weeks now, and Nogales still hasn't gotten the papers to Tepic — about 200 miles from where we are — so we can take them to Mezcales to get the plates. Whose fault is it that we are illegal and have to go around with 200 pesos notes in our pockets in case we're stopped for 'driving while gringo'?

Want more? Tax laws were dramatically changed in Mexico as of the first of the year, so the Mexican IRS has been holding meetings all over the country to explain them. Those who have been to the meetings say people left with more questions than they had before the meeting. The one thing they did come away with is that everybody who has any kind of business, or rents any rooms in their residence, has to have a Mexican IRS identity number and keep records of all debits and credits. The identity number can only be obtained on the Mexican IRS website. Alas, the website doesn't work.

The truth is that Mexico is going to have to get its laws and bureaucracy together before it can emerge from the Third World. And until it gets those acts together, it is in its own best interest to refrain from coming down so hard on so many innocent people — particularly we nautical tourists, who are typically among the country's best ambassadors. Mexico needs to release all compliant boats immediately, and then start the long road back to making amends with foreign boat owners and investors.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
01-20-2014, 02:43 PM
Making A Hard Bimini Out Of An Impoundment

January 20, 2014 – La Cruz Ship Yard, La Cruz, Nayarit, Mexico

The Wanderer and Dona de Mallorca are heeding the advice 'if you've got lemons, make lemonade.' In our case, Latitude 38's 63-ft catamaran Profligate remains impounded by AGACE, so we're using the going-on-six-weeks-now impoundment to have a hard bimini made for the cockpit. Peter Vargas and his Sea Tek crew at the La Cruz Ship Yard, who did a huge refit on Profligate last summer, are doing the work.

Even we were shocked at how big the bimini — which won't even cover the settee seats on each side of the cockpit — is going to be. According to our measuring tape, it's 12 feet by 16 feet! A picture describes the project better than 1,000 words could. As you can see, Dona de Mallorca is lying on the mold for the bimini, while Vargas and some of his crew hold up one of the honeycomb sheets that will be used to make the top.

With de Mallorca overseeing, the hard-working guys at La Cruz Ship Yard are creating some much-needed shade for Profligate's cockpit.
Photo Latitude / Richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

The big bet is which will happened first: Will Vargas and crew finish and install the bimini, or will AGACE release Profligate from impoundment and let her leave the dock? Vargas says he can finish the job in two weeks. As for AGACE, we just don't know. Late last week one of the AGACE auditors told Dona de Mallorca that there were no problems with Profligate's paperwork, yet inexplicably she was still impounded. They gave no indication when she might be released. To the best of our knowledge more than 300 foreign-owned boats, most of them in compliance with Mexican law, remain impounded.

To clarify something that's often misunderstood, after doing the impoundments, AGACE tried to force marinas to be depositarias for the impounded boats. Some agreed, in some cases under great pressure. If your boat is in a marina that agreed to be a depositaria, your boat can leave the dock if the marina gives permission. They are sort of like your bail bondsman. If, on the other hand, your marina refused to cave in to AGACE, then that agency is the depositaria for your boat. And to our knowledge, they haven't told anyone they can leave the dock. It's our understanding that a number of impounded boats have been going out for daysails and whale watching, but since Latitude has been the biggest messenger of the disaster that's been afflicting the nautical tourism in Mexico, no way are we going to risk leaving the dock. But it makes us wonder if our boat isn't a pawn in some game between AGACE and marinas that refused to buckle.

Despite the fact that you just want to weep over what AGACE has been, and is, doing to Mexico's reputation and Mexico's nautical tourism industry, it's still sooooooo much fun down here. The sailing on Banderas Bay is pure pleasure sailing, there are whales everywhere, the air and ocean temps are great, the skies are blue, the SUPing is world class, the surf is supposed to be up tomorrow, the other cruisers and locals are terrific, medical care is good and inexpensive, and the cost of living can be ridiculously low. Plus, no matter what your uninformed neighbors in the States might tell you, everybody feels as safe or safer down here than they do in big cities in the States.

The nice thing about Mexico is life is so much more relaxed down here and there is so much more laughter. In fact, there was a lot of levity in the La Cruz Ship Yard the other day when Dona de Mallorca was checking on the materials for the new bimini. De Mallorca has always been a bit of a mystery to the workers, because Mexico is a very class-based society, and to a large extent there are laborers and there are manager/owners. Managers and owners do not do physical labor. They just don't. De Mallorca doesn't fit this mold, because the boat yard guys know her as one of the hardest working, dirtiest-getting boat captains ever. They are mystified, for example, by the fact that she's the one who changes the oil in Profligate's engines and transmissions, does the watermaker maintenance, and lots of other nasty stuff. (The Wanderer's responsibilities are limited to sailing systems.)

Well, you can imagine the workers' shock when they learned that de Mallorca is a famous Hollywood actress. That's right, as she was walking around the boat yard, the workers were showing her more than their normal deference, and were shyly mumbling words like "actress," "cinema," "movie star" and such. It finally dawned on Mallorca, who is most certainly not a Hollywood actress, that somehow a hoax posting we'd put on our Facebook page about a month ago had made it's way to the Ship Yard. What follows is the posting:

"Dona de Mallorca has always wanted to be a rock 'n' roll star, but the vagaries of life have always conspired against her. Now, in a curious twist of fate, she's been tapped to become an actress in a major movie production. She was 'discovered' at LAX by director Brian de Palma, who was searching for a woman to portray Leona 'Only Little People Pay Taxes' Helmsley in the biography of the notably imperious and sometimes abrasive hotelier. 'It made no difference to me that Ms. de Mallorca has had no prior acting experience,' de Palma told Entertainment Weekly. 'If you've seen the way she gives orders, you'd know she's a natural for the role.' The accompanying photo was taken in Leona's old apartment at the Park Lane Hotel on Central Park West (or South or East or something) during recent filming. Seeking to get into her character, de Mallorca asked one of the bell hops if Ms. Helmsley was still around. 'No,' the bell hop replied, 'Leona's in hell.' Ms. de Mallorca's co-star in the film, which is to be released by Weinstein United on April 1, is Mick Jagger, who plays Harry, Leona's genteel and much-loved, older husband. 'Initially I wanted Keith Richards for the role,' de Mallorca told TMZ, 'but I realized it would be a little too much of a stretch for him. And Mick's not that bad.'"

Ms. de Mallorca does her best Leona Helmsly impression, with Central Park in the distance
Photo Latitude / Richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

By the way, as soon as we learned a lot of people were going for the hoax, we retracted it as follows:

"I want to apologize to everyone, as I thought the April 1 release date was a big enough hint that the post was a hoax. It's a real photo though, taken during the Wanderer's 60th birthday trip to New York City. And it is true that Leona once lived on the floor above. Just so nobody gets the wrong idea, the Wanderer and de Mallorca normally don't like to pay more than $49/night for a room. Just ask the guys at the Comfort Inn on Rosecrans in San Diego across from the donut shop where we are longtime regulars. For if you go to work early and don't come home until late, why waste money on a nice room? But once again, our apologies."

All this is a very, very long way of saying that except for just one thing, life in Mexico remains pretty grand.

- latitude / richard

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AGACE Puts Yet Another Bullet In Mexico's Foot

January 20, 2014 – Mexico

This just in. The owners of one boat impounded in Ensenada tells us that Mexican IRS (AGACE) has accepted at least one boat owner's application to have their boat released. The AGACE agent told them it will take two weeks to get the official release letter.

Last Friday the boat owners were told that the agency's office was ready to receive applications for boat owners to have their boats released, and that the documents required for release were: The Temporary Import marina, a copy of the boat's insurance policy, the boat's document, owners' passports, and a letter from the marina the boat is located in, quoting the case number and requesting release. The letter has to be in Spanish.

Mind you, this boat hasn't been able to leave the Ensenada marina since early December. And they are being asked to wait two more weeks, when the owners only came to Mexico for a few days and wanted to leave five weeks ago. Given the speed with which the Mexican bureaucracy moves, it would not surprise us if the release letter didn't arrive for a month or more.

It's unclear if the Guadalajara and Mexico City offices of AGACE are ready to receive applications for release.

What is clear is that AGACE continues to handle this mess in just about the worst possible way they can.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
01-22-2014, 05:03 PM
The Latest Update on Impounded Boats

January 22, 2014 – Mexico

We realize that many of you are sick and tired of reading about this issue, but it is critically important to many North Americans whose boats are in Mexico. So we'll share this detailed update as a preview of what will appear in the February edition of Latitude 38.

As of January 22, over 300 foreign-owned boats, most of them from the United States, remained impounded in eight Mexican marinas after more than 45 days. It's one of the most incomprehensible, self-destructive government actions we can recall for two reasons:

1) The overwhelming number of impounded boats have been found to be in compliance with Mexican law — yet are still being held. And, 2) making life miserable for and/or scaring the bejesus out of owners of foreign boats is diametrically opposed to Mexico's natural and stated best interests. After all, nautical tourists stay for months if not years, spend lots of money, and become Mexico's best word-of-mouth goodwill ambassadors.

The Mexican government's unfortunate actions have been described as "ridiculous" by Jorge Gamboa, Director of Mexico Tourism in Los Angeles, who vowed to fight to the end on behalf of boat owners. Enrique Fernandez, harbormaster at Puerto Los Cabos Marina wrote, "It was a stupid idea by AGACE that created this stupid chaos." Mild-mannered Neil Shroyer of Marina de La Paz, whose marina was not raided, said the appointing of uninformed people to positions of authority is "what's keeping Mexico a Third World country." "We're all scared," said Geronimo Cevallos, harbormaster at El Cid Marina in Mazatlan and another on Isla Mujeres, speaking for all harbormasters. Neither of his marinas has been raided.

The near-tragic series of events started in late November, when AGACE, a newly created sub-agency of Hacienda, the Mexican IRS, conducted audit/raids on eight marinas in various parts of Mexico: Opequimar, Nuevo Vallarta and Riviera Nayarit in the Vallarta area, Marina Coral and CruisePort Marina in Ensenada, Marina Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Los Cabos in the Los Cabos area, Marina San Carlos in San Carlos, as well as a facility in Acapulco, and a sister facility to Marina Cabo San Lucas in Cancun. These represent about one-quarter of the marinas in Mexico.

A little more than 1,600 boats were inspected by auditors from AGACE, who inexplicably were accompanied by teams of marines armed with machine guns. Some teams even brought prison buses. Boat owners who were on the scenes said they thought they were about to observe a major narco bust. In a number of marinas the inspections continued through the night until dawn. Creepy.

That 338 of the boats inspected — 21% of the total — supposedly had to be impounded should have been a wake-up call to AGACE that the problem was with their methods rather than the boat owners. But they blindly charged ahead, oblivious to the damage they were doing to the nautical tourism industry and Mexico's already shaky reputation.

According to AGACE, there were two goals of the raids. The first was to search for stolen boats, and was thus being done for the "safety" of nautical tourists. There is nothing wrong with checking for stolen boats, which could have quickly and easily been done using a Coast Guard database. But no, the bureaucratic ways of AGACE meant the process for each boat would have to involve: 1) The US Embassy; 2) The US Consulate, and 3) The US Coast Guard. AGACE said the process shouldn't take much more than a month, during which time the boats were impounded.

AGACE's second stated reason was to make sure that all foreign boats complied with Mexican tax law, which required that they all have a $70 TIP (Temporary Import Permit.) As Mexico is awash in unregistered cars, stolen cars, cars with fraudulent papers and plates, our belief is that the appointed AGACE official behind the raids thought he was going to catch countless "tax cheats" and thus become a national hero.

As noble as AGACE's goals might have been, their execution was a disaster. In the first place, the auditors — who were either from Tijuana, Mexico City or Guadalajara — didn't know the first thing about boats. For example, they carried simple diagrams to show them the difference from the bow and the stern and other parts of the boats. They didn't know the difference between the brand names of boats and the names of marine components, such as Garmin and Volvo.

The raids were carried out differently depending on where they were conducted. For example, when agents raided Puerto Los Cabos and Marina San Carlos, they didn't even go on boats. Yet in places like Ensenada, if agents couldn't find the HIN (hull identification number), the boat was put in impound. And at Riviera Nayarit, inspectors told some boat owners they didn't need to see HIN numbers at all. Gross inconsistency has long been a hallmark of law enforcement in Mexico.

At Marina Riviera Nayarit, where Latitude keeps Profligate, a major factor in a boat ending up impounded seemed to be whether or not the owner was aboard when the agents made their unannounced visits. In the case of Profligate, we've been using the exact same paperwork — and TIP — for 17 years, and had used professional ship's agents to check in and out of Mexico three times in the previous two months — with no difficulty. Yet now our boat was impounded. We're convinced that had we been aboard when the AGACE came around, our boat would not have been impounded. How could she have been, for as AGACE would later verify, everything was in order.

Having examined the AGACE's paperwork for Marina Riviera Nayarit, we noticed that agents wrote "not visible" in many of the boxes that needing checking on their inspection sheets. Unless the agents came aboard, how were they going to verify the boat's TIP, boat document, engine serial numbers, HIN number, and insurance policy? Much of Mexican law is based on the 'guilty until proven innocent' concept of Napoleonic law. So if you weren't aboard to show the inspectors some document, they couldn't verify that you had it, and thus your boat was impounded for having been assumed to not to be compliance with Mexican law.

It got even more ridiculous. After being surprised to learned their multimillion boat had been impounded in Ensenada, one couple's lawyer was told it was because their boat didn't have a HIN number on the transom. Yet the boat clearly did have a HIN number. Ironically, before agents had left the boat, they had assured the captain and crew that everything was fine.

In the case of Profligate, even now, 45+ days after our boat was impounded, we have absolutely no idea why. Like the hundreds of other owners of impounded boats, AGACE hasn't ever made contact with us! Last week Dona de Mallorca had a chance to speak with a pleasant AGACE agent in person.

"Is all the paperwork and everything else with Profligate in order?" she asked.

"Yes, it is," said the agent after looking through the files.

"Great, then she's no longer impounded?"

"No, the boat is still impounded," the agent said pleasantly. He added that he didn't know how much longer Profligate would remain impounded.

To summarize, AGACE impounded boats even though there was nothing wrong with boats or their paperwork. Then, five weeks later, after verifying everything was in order, still wouldn't released the boats. It's unbelievable but true. And it's true for most of the 338 boats that were impounded.

It is correct that a small minority of boats didn't have a TIP or their TIP had expired. There was then some back and forth about whether not having a TIP was like a fix-it ticket in the States. Marina Owner's Association lawyer Maria Elena Carrillo argued that it was a 'fix-it' situation without any fine. She said she knew, because she helped write the law when she worked for Hacienda. In any event, AGACE did allow boats in some marinas to retroactively get TIPs, and didn't even put them on their impound list.

There has been confusion about what 'impoundment' means. AGACE uses the term 'precautionary embargo,' an embargo being defined as when a vessel is not allowed to enter or leave a port.

After 'impounding' all the boats, AGACE put great pressure on the marinas with impounded boats to become depositarias, which meant they would become financially responsible if the boat owner fled the country with the boat or otherwise made the boat unavailable for future judicial proceedings. It was sort of like AGACE wanted the marinas — and later the port captains — to be the bail bondsmen for the boats. Some marinas agreed, some agreed only under the threat of their business being shut down, and about half the marinas flat out refused.

In the case of marinas that agreed to be depositarias, the marina operators could decide if boats could leave the dock and go for daysails — although they usually wouldn't be allowed to leave the port captain's jurisdiction, and surely not the country. Profligate, however, was in Marina Riviera Nayarit, one of the marinas that steadfastly refused to become a depositaria. As a result, AGACE itself was the default depositaria. Since violating an embargo is a federal offense, and AGACE didn't contact us, let alone give us permission to leave the dock, Profligate hasn't left the dock.

To clarify things further, there are two kinds of embargoes in Mexico. The lesser one is where the owners are still allowed to go on their boats, and if the depositarias agree, take them out. The greater one is where boats are circled in yellow tape and sometimes chained to the dock, nobody is allowed to go aboard, and the boat is not permitted to leave the dock. To our knowledge, none of the boats in this episode have been subject to the greater embargo.

Unfortunately, Mexico has a long history of seizing foreign-owned assets, be it real estate, airplanes, motorhomes, boats and the like, and often without cause. There are two letters in this month's Letters from boat owners who had it happen to them. But until November, it hadn't happened on a large scale since 1996.

After the fiasco of 1996, when the boats were released after 140 days, the Fox administration, after much work with Tere Grossman, President of the Mexican Marina Owner's Association, came up with the TIPs. This was an important step forward, as previously boats had always been attached to the owner's tourist visa. Under Mexican law, the boat couldn't stay in Mexico for more than six months without being taken back to the States, and even worse, the owner of the boat couldn't return to the States for even a day without taking his/her boat along. This part of the law had been widely ignored, but the TIPs finally made it legal.

(Despite the recent episode, Mexico has consistently been making cruising easier for foreign boat owners, which is why the recent action is so baffling.)

There are two schools of thought about the recent inspection/raid/impoundings. One of them is that it's part of the PRI political party of new President Pena Nieto returning to their bad old ways, which was 70 years of massive corruption, if not rigged elections, before they were voted out in 2000. "The impoundings are a money grab," say some.

More optimistic people, ourselves included, think the whole mess is a result of bureaucratic incompetence, and one hand of Mexican government not knowing what the other hand is doing. For while Pena Nieto comes from an admittedly once — and perhaps still — corrupt political party, he's actually been doing a lot of seemingly good things.

For example, he got rid of teacher union president Elba Esther Gordillo, a king-maker of politicians who had embezzled $120 million from the union to start a real estate empire in the United States. Control of the school system was also taken back from the union by the government.

Pena Nieto has taken on some of the biggest monopolies in Mexico, many of which were either created or greatly assisted by the Russian-style privatization process under President Salinas between 1988 and 1994. Among the biggest beneficiaries of Mexican monopolies was Carlos Slim — Nieto's godfather! Slim became the world's richest man through a ridiculous privatization deal of Mexico's phone system, and by charging among the highest telecommunication prices in a country with one of the poorest populations. To put it in context, minimum wage in Mexico, after a 4% raise last year, is about $5.10 day! A family of four with a monthly income of $800 is considered to be 'middle class.'

Nieto has also been instrumental in breaking the 75-year monopoly of the notoriously corrupt state-owned Pemex oil company. According to a Bloomberg Sustain report, the reforms are going to result in, "North America being flooded with oil." Pena Nieto has also taken on the powerful television, cement, and brewery monopolies. Further, he's called corruption "the albatross around Mexico's neck."

Perhaps most important, Nieto has also been attacking Mexico's extremely low taxation rates, and even lower levels of compliance. Mexico's mostly ridiculously low tax rates generally favor the rich over the poor. Not paying taxes in Mexico is common.

As of January 1, many tax laws had changed, with a new 16% tax on junk food, sugary drinks, pet food and many other things. In addition, there are no longer any pequeno businesses which just paid 3% of their gross. Now all businesses, even front-room taco stands, are supposed to have computers to record all expenses and income, and then report them every few weeks to Hacienda. How this is supposed to happen in a country where a large percentage of the population doesn't have electricity is unclear.

All this sounds great, and conceptually we're all in favor. But it won't be easy to accomplish. And many wonder if all the new money collected won't be kept by corrupt PRI members.

One big problem is the Mexican bureaucracy, which can move very slowly, such as AGACE, and which can't see or understand the big picture, such as AGACE. Blindly following laws it doesn't completely understand has been a disaster for Mexico. Furthermore, Mexico has a long history of passing laws that people and the bureaucracy can't possibly comply with. Just one small example: When boat owners attempted to get TIPs online in November, the program asked them to identify what brand boat they had. Alas, it only listed a few names, all of which were powerboats. The program later asked for follow-up documents to be sent to an email address. The email address then shut down. Everybody in Mexico has countless similar stories.

Let's get practical. Because AGACE's action has been so destructive to the nautical tourism industry and to Mexico's reputation, it's our expectation that most of the impounded boats will be released before long. Indeed, a few owners — in full compliance — have already been told they can apply for release, a procedure expected to take two weeks. Talk about adding insult to injury!

If your boat is already in Mexico, do you have to worry that she might be inspected and impounded? While there can be no guarantees, both Tere Grossman, Neil Shroyer and other marina owners tell us given the horrible publicity to date, it's very, very unlikely.

If your boat is in California, should you risk coming south? As with boats already in Mexico, the terrible publicity generated by previous raids makes it highly unlikely AGACE will strike again, at least until it radically changes its policies and procedures. After all, one of the reasons cited for canceling of the Cabo Race was "events in Mexico" and potential participants in March's Puerto Vallarta Race and MEXORC have been seeking reassurances. If you do head to Ensenada, we highly recommend that you check with Fito at Coral Marina or Jonathan at Cruiseport Marina on the current situation and learn exactly what officials are asking for now. As everyone has seen, it can change from day to day and without warning.

Having your boat seized after complying with Mexico law is no fun at all, so we understand those who say they are leaving Mexico as soon as their boat is free, and never, ever coming back.

We're taking a longer view, in part because we do lots of sailing anyway, we've already been most everywhere in Mexico, and thus have primarily been inconvenienced. Our view is that all this has been a colossal mistake on the part of one sub-agency, and once they save face, they won't repeat it.

As we said in the beginning, Mexico is a fabulous place to cruise for so many reasons. Check out Changes in Latitudes in the January edition of Latitude 38 and you'll see that the folks aboard Starship liked it better than any country in the South Pacific. And after a circumnavigation, the Milskis on Sea Level said Mexico had as good cruising as anywhere they'd been.

Absent a complete additional screw up by AGACE, we anticipate that there will be a 21st Baja Ha-Ha in the fall, that Profligate will be back in Mexico next winter — and best of all, this whole disastrous incident will lead to Mexico doing a much better job of making nautical tourists feel welcome and secure than before. Sort a revisiting of what happened in 1996.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
01-24-2014, 12:10 PM
Richard Spindler
about an hour ago ·
IS THE END NEAR IN MEXICO?
Fito Espinoza, Harbormaster Marina Coral in Ensenada, one of the marinas most affected by AGACE's impounding of more than 338 foreign owned boats, reports that there will be a meeting tonight in San Diego of SAT (Mexican IRS) officials and the mangers of at least seven Mexican marinas. The meeting will take place at 7 pm tonight at the pagoda of Sunroad Marina following the San Diego Boat Show. All interested parties are invited to attend. It's expected that there will be some kind of announcement regarding the impounding of boats in Mexico.
We sure hope there will be an announcement, as AGACE's 'auditing' policies have been a disaster for nautical tourism and Mexico, and it's been very unpleasant experience for all those whose boats have been impounded — particularly the vast majority who followed all the rules in the first place, but whose boats are still impounded.
If all goes well, SAT will make some kind of face-saving statement, and then along with the marina managers will announce that for the first time pertinent regulations for foreign boat owners will be made clear in English as well as Spanish, both in the form of posters at appropriate locations in Southern California, Mexican ports of entry, and also in booklets — which we at Latitude would be more than happy to publish and distribute for free.
Among the issues that need to be covered at requirements for clearing into Mexico, checking out of Mexico, clearing out and checking in at different domestic port captain districts, the need and requirement for Temporary Import Permits, the need and requirements for captain's licenses, the need and requirements for sanitation certificates, the need and requirements for exit zarpes from the United States, and everything else that port captains, Customs or SAT wants to require of foreign boat owners.
The truth of the matter is that the relationship between foreign boat owners and Mexico should be a marriage made in heaven, as both have what the other needs and wants. It could be so sweet and easy. The other truth is that except in the most extreme cases, foreign boat owners want nothing more than to comply with whatever Mexican officialdom wants. We do not have stolen boats and we are not "tax cheats". Up until November at least, it had all been simple, easy and inexpensive.
We've been getting a lot of emails from boat owners and captains asking if it's now safe for foreign boat owners to take their boats to Mexico. As our boat is one of the over 300 boats that remains impounded, it would be a little bit awkward for us to say, "Sure, no worries, come on down," even though we think that's probably true. So we'll just say that there haven't been any 'raids' since late December, and several well-placed marina owners tells us it is extremely unlikely there will be, given all the terrible publicity the first ones generated.
If we were a concerned boat owner in the States wanting to sail south, we'd take our cues from what is said — and what is not said — at tonight's meeting and expected announcement from San Diego. Personally, we at Latitude are optimistic.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
01-27-2014, 05:35 PM
Mexico Puts Lipstick on a Pig

January 27, 2014 – San Diego Boat Show

Alas, the pig still looks like a pig.

Before continuing, we want to remind everyone that Latitude loves Mexico and the people of Mexico, and far more than anyone else for the last 30 years has championed Mexico as one of the top three cruising grounds in the world. Furthermore, Latitude believes that once Mexico learns from the current auditing debacle, it will resume being among the top cruising grounds in the world.

Mexico
No matter if your boat has been impounded or not, life in Mexico has otherwise been excellent. The people are friendly beyond belief, much of the countryside is stunning, and the cost of living is low. Plus it's warm and the surf, as has been the case all along the west coast, has been killer. In this photo a sailor/surfer drops in on what will be a 100+ yard steaming ride at the Stinky's break at Punta Mita. He's not wearing a wetsuit because the water is about 80 degrees and the air temp is about 85.
Photo Latitude / richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

That said, the Mexican government missed what would have been an excellent opportunity to allay the growing fears of foreign boat owners in Mexico and foreign boat owners who are/were planning on taking their boats to Mexico. The opportunity was last weekend's San Diego Boat Show at Sunroad Marina, where Mexican officials and harbormasters from six Mexican marinas were supposedly going to make an announcement regarding the continued impoundment of approximately 300 foreign owned boats in Mexico.

According to Ralph Lewis of Laelia, who has now abandoned plans to cruise Mexico prior to sailing to the South Pacific, the proposed announcement was botched from the get go: "I showed up at Sunroad Marina at little before 7 pm, the announced time for the announcement about the situation in Mexico. I got there just in time to hear the closing remarks of some gringo in a suit who was reassuring people that the problems foreign boat owners in Mexico were having would be resolved and that we should all be careful to have the correct paperwork. I saw nothing in the handout that gave me a warm feeling that it would be OK for me to take my boat to Mexico. Among other things, it mentioned a second HIN (hull identification number) boats needed to have on the inside of the boat to match the HIN on the outside of the boat. I have been crawling all my 1978 Pearson 365 for the last two years getting her ready to go cruising, and have yet to see a second HIN. If it exists, it's in a really inconspicuous location. [Editor's note: Boats prior to 1986 didn't have a second HIN number on the inside of the boat, something that Mexican auditors, who know nothing about boats, know nothing about.]

"I am signed up for the Pacific Puddle Jump," Lewis continues, "but was hoping to cruise the Sea of Cortez on the way to Puerto Vallarta and the Pacific Puddle Jump party. I have decided to skip Mexico — as have my boat neighbors who are also doing the Puddle Jump. I understand there are others here in San Diego who are now also planning to skip Mexico, and was wondering if Latitude could have a Pacific Puddle Jump Party in San Diego in addition to the one in Puerto Vallarta." [Editor's note: We are going to poll everyone signed up to do the Puddle Jump, and if there is much interest at all, we will indeed have a Puddle Jump presentation by Andy 'Mr Puddle Jump' Turpin in San Diego.]

Also disappointed in the presentation was Jerald King of Sunroad Marina.

"The meeting was a fiasco. I got to the Sunroad pavilion at 6:55 pm, five minutes before the announced start of the presentation, just in time to hear some American tell the crowd to contact the Coast Guard if they wanted to get their HIN number changed. Then, "Thanks for being here." That was three minutes before the meeting was supposed to have started. When I asked a Sunroad Marina official why they decided to start early, he said, "There were so many people here at 6:25 pm that we decided to start early." I have no idea what was said, but I don't believe anybody was trying to hide anything by starting early, as there were so many people there. When I entered the pavilion, the closest I could get was three rows back. But I think the early start was typical of the whole situation in Mexico, as the officials involved are just improvising as they go along. They just don't seem to realize how many people are concerned or affected, and they sure don't realize how upsetting it has been to most of us."

We think King hit the nail on the head with his last two sentences.

Capt. Pat Raines of Pt. Loma Publishing tells Latitude that the music had started playing and the wine started flowing, so there was indeed no formal announcement as had been hoped for. But she managed to speak with several individuals, including Mexico's Federal Chief of Tourism Lic. Alejandro Santander Habif. Despite apologizing for what was described as an "inconvenience" to foreign boat owners — Rains reports Santander said that "all branches of the Mexican government are very aware and likewise very upset [with the abrupt manner with which AGACE conducted the audits]" — he did not have much in the way of good or comforting news. Consider the following things he is reported to have said:

1) He expected that the currently embargoed boats will be "liberated" in the next month. Well that's just wonderful. Close to 300 boats, almost all of them in full compliance with Mexican law, which have been held in embargo through no fault of the owners since late November, may have to wait yet another 30 days to freely move their boats about. Another bullet into Mexico's already nearly shot off foot, as owners of embargoed boats don’t want apologies, they want action.

2) The audit was performed by SAT (the Mexican IRS) in order to establish a database of foreign boats in Mexico, and to find stolen boats in Mexico, and thus SAT is likely to do this annually. Annual boat audits? There's a thought unlikely to instill confidence in the minds of foreign boat owners thinking about coming to Mexico. But, Santander told Rains, such audits would not be done as "aggressively" or "abruptly" as were the ones in November. Until it's defined how such audits might be conducted in the future, and how the rights of foreign boat owners are to be respected, foreign boat owners are likely to stay away in droves.

3) That only "a very small number" of boats being held in 'precautionary embargo' "might turn out to be in serious violation of U.S. and Mexican law, and not just missing a HIN number or have an expired TIP (Temporary Import Permit.)

[By making such a statement, Santander seemed to be implying that there is something wrong with the paperwork of most of the boats that have been held in embargo for nearly two months now, which is one of the two Big Myths of this entire debacle. For what AGACE is finding is that virtually all embargoed boats are indeed in full compliance with U.S. and Mexican law. Yet they inexplicably still haven't "liberated" them. For example, we're told that 48 of the 53 'embargoed' boats at the Riviera Nayarit Marina in La Cruz have no problems with their paperwork. Similar numbers are believed to be true for the other marinas.]

[The second Big Myth is no matter how many times certain people may want to loudly make claims to the contrary, embargoed boats in marinas that have refused to become depositarias — which is about half of the eight marinas where boats were inspected — CANNOT legally leave the dock. Our source is a member of the AGACE team, who we met a week ago Thursday at 3 p.m. at the Cruz'in Restaurant at Riviera Nayarit Marina. "Yes," the AGACE agent told Dona de Mallorca, "there is nothing wrong with Profligate's paperwork. Unfortunately, your boat [like all the rest of the embargoed boats in the marina] is not yet released from embargo. So I'm sorry, until that happens — hopefully in a few days — she may not leave the dock." This is not to say that boats have not been breaking this law or that anybody in Mexican government has been enforcing this law, but it is a violation of federal law. And given Mexico’s tendency to suddenly enforce laws that were never enforced before, we’re not taking any chances. The thing that we think everybody would agree with — although some seem like they don't want to mention it — is that embargoed boat owners absolutely cannot take their boat from one port captain's district to another port captain's district. For example, that means a boat in La Cruz cannot make a seven-mile trip to Nuevo Vallarta. That requires clearing out with one port captain and checking in with another port captain. As port captains have lists of embargoed boats, such a boat would not be given permission to leave or check in.]

[The third myth is that apologists for AGACE's actions keep claiming that the boats aren't really 'impounded,' but are merely in 'precautionary embargo.' We think this is a major fallacious quibble over definitions and languages. As far as we're concerned — and we think most boat owners would agree — if you can't legally leave the dock with your boat without the permission of someone else, it makes no difference if you can live on her, she's 'impounded.' Besides, if the boats aren't 'impounded,' why would Mexican officials talk of them eventually being "liberated?" Boats that are free don't required 'liberation,' do they?]

Here's the announcement that Mexico President Pena Nieto should have had Tourism and SAT officials make at the boat show in San Diego — an announcement that needs to be made as soon as possible to prevent future damage to west coast marine businesses:

"Dear foreign boat owners. In an attempt to make sure everyone complies with Mexico's tax laws, and to make sure Mexico doesn't become a haven for stolen boats, a division of Mexico's IRS conducted an auditing process at eight of Mexico's 30-plus marinas in late November. Due to poor planning, a poor understanding of what was involved, inadequately trained auditors who were accompanied by marines with machine guns, and a total lack of communication with our valued nautical tourists, the audits proved to be unnecessarily frightening. Even worse, they resulted in 338 boats being held against their owners' wills for more than two months — despite the fact that almost all of these boats complied with all Mexican law. In retrospect, we could have accomplished exactly what we needed to accomplish in a much shorter time by using the same process that we use with foreign owned vehicles and aircraft. We realize that this has been a tremendous inconvenience to our esteemed nautical visitors, and in many cases, not only destroyed plans that had been many years in the making, but caused many to suffer considerable unnecessary expense. Recognizing these facts, and knowing that several important regattas to Mexico are scheduled to start in the next couple of months, I have ordered all embargoed boats to immediately be liberated, except for those very few with obvious paperwork problems. Furthermore, in the next few days we will be releasing a free booklet, in English, making clear all the requirements for bringing a foreign-owned boat to Mexico, as well as all the pertinent procedures that need to be followed. We realize that our not having done this before has caused many unnecessary problems. Once again, our apologies to those hundreds of foreign boat owners, and to the marine businesses in the United States and Mexico who have suffered as a result. You have my promise that Mexico will learn from its mistakes."

So what's it like cruising in Mexico now? It's a bit surreal. For on the one hand, you have 300 foreign boat owners who aren't very happy, as their boats remain impounded after two months. Yet on the other hand, hundreds of others are happily cruising Mexico as they always have, worried to varying degrees that their boats also might soon be audited by people who have no idea what they are doing and may be impounded. The least worried are people who anchor out, as so far AGACE has only audited boats in marinas, although the marinas do seem quite full. Fortunately, most insiders don't expect any more audits until the program has been drastically revamped.

By the way, a few people have claimed that Latitude's coverage of the situation in Mexico has merely been "whining" on our part because there is something wrong with Profligate's paperwork and we are doing everything we can to get her free. Here's three reasons why that is rubbish: 1) An AGACE official has already confirmed that Profligate's paperwork is in order. If anyone has any doubts, we challenge them to take our 'Kiss Our HIN' challenge, details of which can be found in the February issue of Latitude. 2) Profligate wouldn't be leaving the dock for the next three months anyway, because the Wanderer will be in the Caribbean sailing aboard 'ti Profligate, La Gamelle, and Ppalu. More than anyone we can think of, the embargo has been mostly a mere inconvenience to us. And, 3) It would hardly be ethical for the publishers of the most popular sailing magazine on the west coast to ignore the fate of the owners of 337 others whose boats have been impounded, despite most of them having the correct paperwork.

We’re confident that this fiasco is going to end before too long. But it's a terrible shame that it ever had to happen, and that it's been allowed to fester for so long.

- latitude / richard

Top Canadian Mechanic Said to Have Fled Mexico

January 27, 2014 – Mazatlan

Bob Buchanan, the Canadian owner of Total Yacht Works in Mazatlan, is reported to have fled Mexico. If you know anything about the circumstances, we'd like to hear from you.

Mechanic
Buchanan was last seen in late December...
Photo Latitude / richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

Buchanan, who started Total Yacht Works 14 years ago, and became the biggest distributor of Yanmar diesels between the United States and South America, enjoyed a stellar reputation in the cruising community as being among the best, if not the best, diesel mechanic in Mexico. Boat owners would think nothing of traveling hundreds of miles to have him work on their engines. Indeed, the presence of Total Yacht Works at the Fonatur marina and boat yard in Mazatlan is one of the reasons it's been the most successful of the 11 Fonatur marinas.

We last saw Buchanan in late December, after not seeing him for about 10 years. He was very busy, with customers lined up to see him. The rest of the Fonatur yard was dead. He was going to collaborate with us on an article to be titled "How to Destroy Your Boat's Diesel," the thesis being that most marine diesels die after a mere 4,000 hours because of abuse rather than too much use. At the time, we were making arrangements to have Buchanan do a major service on both Profligate's diesels later in the spring.

There has been speculation that Buchanan's disappearance is related to the fact that he and his Mexican business partner parted ways just a few months ago. If you know anything about the situation, please email us.
- latitude / richard

jfoster
01-29-2014, 03:25 PM
'Mexico's New York Times' Blasts Mexico's IRS

January 28, 2014 – Mexico City, Mexico
Reforma
(Click on the photo to enlarge it.)
"Mexican IRS makes a shipwreck of nautical tourism." Photo Latitude / richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

We're not sure why it took so long, but in the January 27 issue, Reforma, the much respected 'New York Times of Mexico,' took SAT/AGACE, the Mexican IRS, to task over the impounding of 338 foreign-owned boats, almost all of which remain impounded after two months.

The headline in the Mexico City newspaper roughly translates to "Mexican IRS makes a shipwreck of nautical tourism." Similar articles appeared in El Norte, the most influential newspaper in Monterrey, the business capital of Mexico, and a number of other important state and local newspapers in Mexico. They additionally reported that SAT officials were scaring foreign boat owners over a $50 permit. It actually wasn't over not having a permit, as almost all boats did, but they sure were scaring boat owners, no matter if they had a permit or not.

"This is probably the knockout blow [to the SAT program]," said one marina official. After all, everybody in Mexico knows that tourism and foreign investment are lifebloods of the Mexican economy.

SAT reportedly wrote back to Reforma to say they had now released 88 of the 338 boats, more than 40 of them at Riviera Nayarit Marina in La Cruz. This was yet another bullet in their foot, as the marina reported that no such number of boats had been released. Furthermore, they reported that AGACE officials in Guadalajara had just called them to say they would call again on Wednesday to confirm they would be coming down to the marina on Thursday to release all the impounded boats. We're pretty confident that's going to happen, but we'll believe it when we see it.

We have no news when boats at other marinas in Mexico might be released, but after all the critical front page stories in Mexico, we think it's a matter of days rather than weeks. Then will come the uphill battle of regaining the confidence of foreign boat owners and investors. Mexico needs to engage in a serious outreach program.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
01-30-2014, 09:30 PM
BREAKING NEWS ON BOATS IMPOUNDED IN MEXICO.

January 30, 2014 – Riviera Nayarit Marina

AGACE has begun releasing boats from impoundment.

AGACE agents not 10 feet from me are signing final documents that will make Riviera Nayarit Marina a Depositaria, which will immediately release the 53 boats that have been impounded here since late November. Apparently the Depositaria designation is merely a legal way for AGACE to get out of the legal mess and PR disaster they created for Mexico. There is no word on the fate of boats impounded in other marinas, but this is a good sign. In other news, a front page story in Reforma, Mexico's New York Times, quotes a SCT — ports and port captains — official as saying there will be no more of the audits and embargoes of foreign boats. Alas, they have no control over AGACE. See tomorrow's 'Lectronic for details.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
01-31-2014, 11:47 AM
Richard Spindler
This Additional Weirdness Just In: The owners of an impounded boat in Ensenada say that a California Highway Patrol officer has been in touch with them, as he's been given the job, by Mexican officials, of determining whether on not their boat is stolen. The officer was satisfied that their boat wasn't stolen, so the owners hope that, after two months, their boat will soon be released. The California Highway Patrol investigating whether a federally documented boat is stolen . . . nothing will surprise us now. Where is Broderick Crawford when you need him?
Like · · Share · 31 minutes ago ·

jfoster
01-31-2014, 05:19 PM
Heading in the Right Direction

January 31, 2014 – Mexico

As reported in yesterday afternoon’s special ‘Lectronic Latitude, all 53 of the impounded boats at Riviera Nayarit Marina in La Cruz — including Latitude’s 63-ft catamaran Profligate — have been released. Most of the boats are owned by Americans or Canadians, although some were owned, perhaps through American corporations, by Mexican nationals.
San Carlos Marina
To best of our knowledge, a number of boats are still impounded at San Carlos Marina. Hopefully they will be liberated soon.
Photo Latitude / richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

It’s our understanding that all but a very few of the boats that had been impounded for two months had met every legal requirement to be in Mexico all along. Based on our conversations with a number of boat owners, the biggest things they were guilty of is not being on their boats when inspectors arrived unannounced, or having their boats inspected by auditors who didn’t know anything about boats or the law.

The owner of a Hans Christian 38 said that when auditors came by his boat, there were a bunch of locals working on her. They asked if the owner was aboard. Not knowing that man’s wife, a co-owner of the boat, was aboard, the boat workers said nobody was around. Unable to check for documents, the auditors put the boat on the impound list by default. She wasn’t allowed to leave the dock for two months. We’ve heard countless variations of this, where boats in full compliance with Mexican law were nonetheless prevented from leaving the dock since late November. In many cases these boat owners incurred unwanted marina costs.

“There’s no snow, so I guess it’s not the worse place to be stuck,” said one boat owner, putting the best spin on everything.

The release of the boats in La Cruz doesn’t necessarily mean the immediate or long term fiasco is over. For one thing, as far as we can calculate, there are still more than 250 mostly foreign-owned boat impounded in marinas in Ensenada, Los Cabos, Cancun and San Carlos. Yesterday's release of the boats in La Cruz is promising news, but doesn’t mean the other boats are released. We can only wait.

Equally as troubling are the statements in the Mexican press by Aristóteles Núñez, the head of Sistema de Administración Tributaria (SAT, the Mexican IRS). Noting that Guillermo Ruiz de Teresa, the Coordinador General of SCT, which is the agency in charge of ports and marinas, yesterday told the press that there wouldn’t be any similar audits or embargoes of foreign-owned boats in the future, Núñez said the head of SCT was wrong. Núñez said there would be more audits and perhaps embargoes. As he’s in charge of the agency that conducts audits and embargoes, it would seem that his opinion carries the most weight.

“It’s a ridiculous situation,” Herbey Rolando Chacón told Latitude in a telephone conversation this morning. “SAT is deaf. They don’t want to say they were wrong or sorry. They say they are going to keep doing the audits.” Rolando, a reporter for Reforma, the very influential ‘New York Times of Mexico’, says his interview with the publisher of Latitude 38 will appear in tomorrow’s Reforma.

We like to think that SAT is putting up a bold front, but that behind the scenes Mexican politicians and officials, aware of the tremendous damage done by the SAT, will stifle their ambitions in this area.

All this comes at a time when tourism and nautical tourism in Mexico seems to be booming. Airline seats and better accommodations in places like Puerto Vallarta seem difficult to come by, and an employee at Applegate, the biggest realtor in Vallarta, said they had more people looking for real estate than they could handle. While Marina Vallarta has lost some boats because they are redoing many of the docks, all the other marinas on Banderas Bay seem to be operating at record or close to record occupancy. The anchorage at La Cruz has lots of boats, and the anchorage at Punta Mita, which rarely saw more than eight boats a night in years past, has often been home to more than 20 boats a night.

Assuming that the remaining 250 boats are released quickly, the question becomes how is Mexico going to reassure frightened foreign boat owners, both those currently in Mexico and those who were planning on coming down next year. Latitude is planning on working with the Mexican Marina Owner’s Association, and hopefully Tourism, to create a booklet and posters describing what’s necessary to bring a boat into Mexico, to transit between ports, and to leave Mexico. Hopefully such a booklet can serve as a baseline, so when changes are made, the booklet can be updated.

What kind of changes, you may ask. Well, when the new navigation rules are published shortly, they will say that it’s mandatory to have a captain’s license to bring a boat into Mexico. While that’s what the new law will say, port captains will be sent a memo instructing them to ignore that part of the new law. We hope they get the memo.

That’s the latest in Mexico, where, other than the fiasco created by SAT, the cruising has been fantastic. Stay tuned.

This Additional Weirdness Just In: The owners of an impounded boat in Ensenada say that a California Highway Patrol officer has been in touch with them, as he's been given the job, by Mexican officials, of determining whether or not their boat is stolen. The officer was satisfied that their boat wasn't stolen, so the owners hope that, after two months, their boat will soon be released. The California Highway Patrol investigating whether a federally documented boat is stolen . . . nothing will surprise us now.



- latitude / richard

jfoster
02-03-2014, 05:06 PM
Thirty More Foreign Yachts "Liberated" in Mexico

February 3, 2014 – Ensenada, Mexico


The marina at Coral Hotel and Marina just a few miles north of downtown Ensenada.
Photo Latitude / Richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

Following the liberation of all 53 impounded boats at Marina Riviera Nayarit in La Cruz last Thursday, we've been told that approximately 30 out of 50 boats impounded at Marina Coral in Ensenada were released a day or so later. It's a four-day Flag Day holiday in Mexico, so the exact numbers of released boats was not available.

Among the released boats is one that fled Mexico for the States in the middle of the night a while back. "Liberating" a boat that already illegally fled your country . . . that pretty much sums up this fiasco.


Last Thursday an AGACE official at Marina Riviera Nayarit explained to a boat owner that it would be just a few more minutes before all the boats there would be liberated.
Photo Latitude / Richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

While more than 100 of the original 338 boats are still impounded after more than two months, the situation remains outrageous, but at least things have been picking up speed in the right direction. But the quicker Mexico can resolve this dreadful public relations blunder and begin the long road of restoring the faith with foreign boat owners, the better.

If your boat is impounded, please keep us informed, as we don't want you or your boat to be forgotten.


John and Gilly Foy of the Punta Mita- (formerly Alameda) based Catalina 42 Destiny joined us for Profligate's "Liberation Day" sail across Banderas Bay. It was a spectacularly mellow late afternoon and early evening white sails cruise.
Photo Latitude / Richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

- latitude / richard

jfoster
02-05-2014, 05:04 PM
More Impounded Boats "Liberated" in Mexico

February 5, 2014 – Ensenada, Mexico

Jonathan Cervantes, the very helpful harbormaster at Cruise Port Marina in Ensenada, reports that all but about "nine or 10" of the 42 mostly foreign-owned boats that were impounded at his marina since late November have now been "liberated." He is unclear why the remaining boats — which include one dinghy — have not been released. He suspects it may be because the owners of those boats hired lawyers and/or went to the AGACE offices in Tijuana on their own, and thus weren't part of the main group of boats AGACE apparently decided to process first. Cervantes believes the remaining boats — including the dinghy — are "fine and will be released soon."

"The AGACE inspectors didn't know anything about boats when they arrived unannounced in November," Cervantes told Latitude in a telephone interview yesterday. "For example, they were looking for one specific type of TIP (Temporary Import Permit) form. When they were confronted with older ones that were still valid, they initially assumed they were fake."

Auditors were also confused when they inspected a now-New Zealand-owned boat that had been bought in California and still had the US documentation number in the hull. The New Zealand registration number didn't match the documentation number carved in the hull. Totally confused, the auditors decided to impound the boat and clarify things later. When in doubt, impound, was the AGACE rule. Alas, AGACE would take more than two months to clear up their doubts.

We know that it's hard for most readers to appreciate how poorly conceived and executed this AGACE audit was, but here is just another example from Cervantes of how weird it got. Some boat owners who went to the AGACE offices in Tijuana to try to get their boats freed were instructed to return to the United States by land and get an official document declaring that their boat was not stolen. Right! What US government agency is going to write an official document like that, particularly one supposedly confirming a negative? Eventually, some AGACE auditors were sent to the United States to get a short course in boat documentation.

"In the future," says Cervantes, "I hope AGACE will be more careful about the nautical tourism industry." Don't we all?

We also spoke with Fito Espinosa, the equally helpful harbormaster at Marina Coral in Ensenada. He confirmed that 35 of the impounded boats in his marina were released late last week, as reported in 'Lectronic, leaving another 12 still impounded. Like Cervantes, Espinosa believes that the boats still impounded are those whose owners went to Tijuana to try to get their boats freed, and thus got out of the main liberation process. He believes they will be released before too long.

Curiously, the boats were released from Marina Coral without the marina signing on as a Depositaria for the boats. It's our understanding that all the other marinas where boat have been released had to sign a paper saying they were Depositarias.

Espinosa confirmed that AGACE officials were confused by the different types of TIPS, as the original ones were for 20 years, newer ones were for 10 years, and even newer ones came with stickers — stickers to be put "on the window closest to the rear view mirror." Because of the confusion, Espinosa recommends that those with old TIPS cough up another $70 or so to get a newer one. Espinosa acknowledges that you can't get an updated TIP online, and either have to do it at a Mexican consulate in the States or at a Banjercito in Mexico. (We at Latitude know boat owners who have successfully done both. We also know boats with the old 20-year TIPs that have been cleared by AGACE, although this is not a given, as AGACE methods and policies have been wildly inconsistent.)

IMPORTANT! No matter if you apply for a new TIP online or a replacement TIP at a consulate or a Banjercito, Espinosa says you need to understand that when the form asks for the "serial number" of your boat, the form is NOT asking for your boat's documentation number, but for her HIN (Hull identification number). What to do if you boat is pre-1974 and didn't have a HIN number, or is a foreign boat that never had a HIN number? Contact the Coast Guard documentation office to get a document which reflects this. As for owners of non-U.S. documented boats with no HIN number, we don't know what to tell you.

Like all of the harbormasters in Mexico that Latitude has talked to, Cervantes was very complimentary of Latitude's coverage. "Latitude's explanation of what has been going on has been very precise, and I've used it to support my arguments in discussions with Mexican officials." We think calling our coverage "precise" is a bit of a stretch given the lack of explanations and the differing policies and procedures enacted by AGACE, but we think Latitude's coverage has been more factual, detailed and nuanced than what has been available elsewhere. We've also been tickled to hear harbormasters quote things we've said after they appeared in Reforma, the 'New York Times' of Mexico.

At this point it's unclear how many boats remain impounded in Mexico, but the number has been dwindling quickly. In addition, we're told that officials in Mexico are trying to come up with a monetary figure of how much damage has been done to nautical tourism. When they do, we suspect there will be strict guidelines established before AGACE attempts any future 'audits', if any. As such, we are beginning to believe there indeed will be a 21st Baja Ha-Ha rally starting in late October, and thus we have provisionally accepted a request for a skipper who has done many Ha-Ha's to be the ceremonial first entry for 2014. She says that her boat will be crewed by an anatomically correct all female crew! Details to come soon. Assuming there will be a 2014 Ha-Ha, entries will be accepted starting May 1.

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we want to assure every owner of a boat that's still impounded in Mexico — such as Rahul Singh's Challenger 50 Sea Dream — that we have not forgotten you. Please keep us updated of your situation.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
02-12-2014, 08:35 PM
Richard Spindler
about an hour ago
So we guess there are no hard feelings. After Latitude has relentlessly been pounding the Mexican IRS for months for needlessly impounding 338 foreign-owned boats, we get an invite for an all-expenses paid trip to P.V. to cover the MEXORC — which should be great this year. Of course, it was Tourism, not Hacienda, who invited us, but we won't quibble. Tere Grossman of Marina San Carlos says she expects almost all of the boats there to be released in a day or two — including 16 that owners already fled with. Can boats that have already been taken be "liberated"? Grossman also reports that Hacienda is working on a new Temporary Import Permit to prevent another fiasco like the one that appears to be coming to an end.

jfoster
02-14-2014, 05:49 PM
More Impounded Boats to be Released

February 14, 2014 – South of the Border

Tere Grossman, owner of San Carlos Marina, reports that AGACE agents were back at San Carlos Marina on Tuesday, and that as a result she expected that most of the impounded boats in her marina would soon be "liberated." This would include 16 boats that had already been taken away by there owners. Can we get a ruling on the question if a government can truly "liberate" a boat that the owner has already fled with?


Marina San Carlos
Photo Latitude / Richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

So how many of the 338 mostly foreign boats impounded are still impounded? Nobody seems to know, but we're thinking about 100. And how many of the 338 boats were in any kind of violation of Mexican law. We don't know the answer to that question, but apparently not very many at all.

Grossman, who is president of the Mexican Marina Owner's Association, reports that Hacienda (the Mexican IRS) is working on changing Temporary Import Permits (TIPs) "to make them easier and to avoid future problems." We sure hope this is true because the last thing Mexico needs is another fiasco that flies in the face of two of their big natural interests: filling marinas and anchorages to capacity and luring all kinds of tourists south of the border.

Following November's seizing of 338 foreign-owned boats, and Latitude's admittedly endless hammering of this blunder, it's almost hilarious that on Wednesday we received a special invitation from the Tourism Board of Puerto Vallarta for an all expenses paid trip to Vallarta to cover the MEXORC in late March. So we assume they aren't holding a grudge against us for our editorials.

One indicator that the impounds have not done irreparable harm is the relatively strong entry roster for next month's San Diego-to-Puerto Vallarta Race:

Pyewacket / Roy Disney / Andrews 68 / Waikiki YC
Condor / Lindy Thomas / Andrews 70 / SDYC
Invisible Hand / Frank Slootman / R/P 63 / Encinal YC
Resolute / Tim Fuller / J/125 / SDYC
Hamachi / Fritz Lanzinger / J/125 / CYC Seattle
Peligroso / Lorenzo Berho / Kernan 70 / Club Nautico Izar
Orion / Charlie Ogletree / MOD70 Tri / StFYC
Mighty Merloe / HL Enloe / Orma 60 / Silvergate (TX)
Vincitore / Ricardo Brockma/ nn R/P 52 / Club de Yates de Acapulco
Meanie / Thomas Akin / R/P 52 / San Francisco YC
Bretwalda 3 / Bob Pethick / Rogers 46 / Cal YC
J World's Hula Girl / Wayne Zittel / Santa Cruz 50 / SDYC
Deception / Bill Helvestine / Santa Cruz 50 / StFYC
Horizon / Jack Taylor / Santa Cruz 50 / DPYC
Maverick / Chris Slagerman / Santa Cruz 70 / Cal YC
Grand Illusion / James McDowell / Santa Cruz 70 / Waikiki YC
Mirage / John DeLaura / Santa Cruz 70 / Shoreline YC
Holua / Brack Duker / Santa Cruz 70 / California YC
Velos / Kjeld Hestehave / Sloop / SDYC
Westward / Sam & Willie Bell / Sloop / LAYC
Bad Pak / Tom Holthus / STP65 / SDYC
Swazik / Sebastien de Halleux / Swan 45 / Golden Gate YC
Second Wind / Dean Fargo & John Chamberlain / Swan 651 CRA
Destroyer / Eduardo Saenz / TP 52 / Club de Yates de Acapulco
Distraxion / Jeffery Coyle / XP44 / NHYC
It's also worth noting that at least six of those boats will stick around to compete in MEXORC, which is Mexico's biggest 'serious' regatta. Look for coverage of both the PV Race and MEXORC here, and in the April edition of Latitude 38 magazine.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
02-17-2014, 07:16 PM
Finally, Solid Numbers on Impounded Boats

February 17, 2014 – Ensenada to Acapulco, Mexico

Tere Grossman, president of the Mexican Marina Owners Association, has provided us with a list, complements of the AGACE, of the boats that were 'Reviewed', 'Embargoed', and 'Liberated' in Mexico.

http://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/lectronicday.lasso?date=2014-02-17#Story2 shows the graphic which did not copy and paste into the forum.

The first actual list of embargoed boats that we've seen. Interestingly, this shows that 11 marinas were involved, rather than the 7 or 8 previously reported.
Photo Latitude / Richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

As you can see from the chart, 1,641 were reviewed, 337 were embargoed, and 146 have been liberated. That means 191 are still embargoed.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the boats still embargoed by size and type. And how many of them are owned by Mexicans in the names of U.S. corporations.

Grossman tells us that as yet, no boat owners have been fined.

It's our understanding that close to 20 of the boats that have been "liberated" had been already taken from their respective marinas by fearful owners. Does that mean they are now free to return to Mexico without fear of reprisal? Who knows?

What do you get if AGACE 'reviewed' your boat, 'embargoed' her, and after finding that everything was in order, 'liberated' her? You don't get a certificate from AGACE or anything, but if you were in La Cruz Marina, you got a document that showed yours was a 'liberated' boat. We presume this is true of boats that were liberated in other marinas, too.

The final section of the four-page document concerning Profligate and other boats at Marina Riviera Nayarit.
© 2014

Oddly enough, if AGACE approved of your boat on their first sweep, your boat isn't on any list of 'approved' boats. Does that mean your boat is subject to another 'review'? Who knows?

Are foreign boat owners now 'safe' to take their boats to Mexico without fear of another reckless round of 'reviews' by AGACE? We're pretty confident they are safe. But as we've already said twice before in this article, 'Who knows'?

- latitude / richard

jfoster
03-05-2014, 08:08 PM
Posted on Wednesday, 03.05.14
emailprintcomment
U.S. boat owners still struggling with fallout from Mexican tax investigation


Mexican tax authorities impounded more than 300 foreign-owned yachts last November, and some of them at marinas like this one in Ensenada in Baja California, Feb. 15, 2014, remain tied up by under the embargo, infuriating owners. (Tim Johnson/MCT) Tim Johnson / MCT

Fullsize previous | nextImage 1 of 2
BY TIM JOHNSON
MCCLATCHY FOREIGN STAFF
ENSENADA, Mexico -- At first, Thomas R. Spencer didn’t think much about it when he saw tax agents come into the Coral Marina more than three months ago, checking boat by boat.

“I had one gentleman come by the boat and ask to see some papers. I said, ‘What do you want to see?’ He said, ‘Where’s the serial number of the boat?’ I said I didn’t know, just look around,” Spencer recalled.

Little did Spencer know that he would be snared in an operation that has led to the broadest and most complicated seizure of foreign-owned sailboats and yachts in Mexico’s history, punching a hole in the hull of the nautical tourism industry and even frightening property owners. Marina owners now bail furiously to stay alive.

The impounding of 337 mostly foreign-owned sailboats and yachts at 11 marinas around Mexico on Nov. 26 has affected not only hundreds of American and Canadian boat owners but also marinas, crews, dry docks and, more broadly, Mexico’s reputation as a safe and reliable destination for boat lovers.

Nearly half the vessels have subsequently been freed. But at least 190 remain impounded, tied up in red tape and confusion in raids that initially seemed aimed at rooting out tax cheats and boat thieves.

Like many retired American sailors cruising Mexican waters, Spencer had difficulty communicating in Spanish with the federal tax agent the morning he came asking questions. But some things needed no explanation. Mexican marines posted at each wharf “had their big rifles out,” and tax agents seemed to mean business.

Spencer started to worry. He contacted the person who surveyed his cutter rig when he bought it back in 1999, asking where he could find the Hull Identification Number, equivalent to a VIN on an automobile.

“He said it’s probably on the starboard side of the hull,” Spencer recalled.

It was too late. Spencer’s 48-foot boat, Symphony, like 336 other mostly foreign-owned sailboats and yachts, was legally impounded, unable to leave harbor.

“There were four dinghies that they also impounded,” said Arnulfo Espinoza Rodriguez, the dock master at the Coral Marina. They were the exception. Most of the seized boats were large vessels, a few worth millions of dollars, but “the vast majority are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Many boat owners were not at the marina that day. Since the marina is on the Pacific coast of the Baja Peninsula, only 70 miles south of the U.S. border, owners often leave vessels docked here while living elsewhere.

“If you weren’t on a boat, there was an excellent chance you’d be impounded,” said Richard Spindler, publisher of Latitude 38, a monthly magazine for sailors published in Mill Valley, Calif.

The problem, Spindler said, is that agents had little knowledge of sailboats, unaware that those built before 1972 were not required to have hull identification numbers. Even after that date, vessels built in Europe or Asia often don’t have such a number.

Moreover, boat owners are not required to pay tax or duty if they have a 10-year Temporary Import Permit, which costs around $50.

Anger over the seizures led owners to fill the pages of Latitude 38 with letters of complaint, warning about travel to Mexico, even suggesting that buying real estate in Mexico could be risky amid arbitrary seizures. Many said they had complied with paperwork, provided serial numbers and offered proof that they’d paid for temporary import permits but still couldn’t get their vessels back.

“Nobody knew what was going on,” Spindler said. “I know of at least one boat that fled Ensenada. They sailed in the middle of the night.”

Marina owners grew incensed at the harm the seizures were doing to their industry, and the lengthy delays in releasing impounded boats.

“All of us in the Marina association agree that what the government did was very stupid and unnecessary, and that it has hurt Mexico very much,” Tere Grossman, owner of the marina in San Carlos on the Sea of Cortez, wrote this month in Latitude 38.

Grossman, who is also president of the Mexican Marina Owners Association, voiced exasperation with tax authorities in a telephone interview.

“These guys are driving me insane,” she said. “They made a big mistake and they don’t want to accept it.”

Mexico’s Tax Service Administration, equivalent to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, declined a request for an interview. But in a Feb. 17 statement, it said auditors already had freed 147 vessels and were doing paperwork to free more.

“With these actions, the government of the republic reiterates its commitment to promote legality and support tourism . . . for the benefit of Mexicans,” the statement said, adding that boats were being freed “as their legal status in the country is demonstrated.”

None of the boats impounded has proven to be stolen, Grossman said.

A little more than a decade ago, then-President Vicente Fox started what he called a “nautical stairway” program to encourage more marinas to open in Mexico and draw more foreign yachtsmen to the nation. The program gave a strong boost to nautical tourism.

While some of the seized vessels belong to wealthy “one percenters,” others are live-aboard sailboats that serve as retirement homes for adventurous wayfarers without deep pockets.

“They don’t know if they are going to lose their boats. Some of them sold everything, and all they have is their boat,” Grossman said.

Many declined to speak to a reporter, fearing it would not help matters.

“Given the sordid ordeal I have been through since the end of November last year, until the boat is safe and in my hands I will not breathe a sigh of relief nor will I speak to anybody about my experience,” one boat owner from Canada’s Alberta province said in an email.

Spencer, the owner of Symphony, had better news. The impounding of his vessel was ended in early February. He’s still not sure what to make of the experience.

“I’ve been in Mexico now since 2009. This is the first time I’ve had any problem,” he said.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/03/05/3973385/us-boat-owners-still-struggling.html#storylink=cpy

jfoster
03-07-2014, 05:52 PM
A $7,000 Fine for a Typo Made By a Mexican Bureaucrat?

March 7, 2014 – Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico

A representative of Hacienda, the Mexican IRS, has told 75-year-old American John Hards of the Nuevo Vallarta-based Pelican that he is to be fined 84,000 pesos — a little under $7,000 — for a typo in his Temporary Import Permit. Hacienda told Hards, who lives off Social Security, that he could get a 20% "discount" if he pays within 20 days. Hards was given a 55-page document, in Spanish, explaining the fine. That AGACE would spend so much time and effort on an easily explained typo that wasn't of Hard's doing defies understanding.

Hards had previously told Latitude that he ran afoul of AGACE, a subagency of Hacienda, in late November over a typo on his TIP. "I got my 10-year permit at Salina Cruz in 2009 when returning from a granddaughter's surfing trip south. As I was getting a 10-year permit in 2009, it obviously should have had a "valid until" date of 2019. Unfortunately, somebody at Banjercito, the military bank that collects fees for TIPs, mistakenly wrote in '2010' instead of '2019' in the "valid until" space. 2010 was the date my then-tourist visa expired, which has nothing to do with a TIP. After my boat was impounded in late November, a very nice lady at the new Banjercito office in Puerto Vallarta patiently explained that the "valid until" date has no meaning for a 10-Year TIP, and that since my current TIP was indeed good until 2019, I couldn't get a replacement."

Despite the hassle when his boat was first impounded, Hards wrote the following: "I have many friends who worry about me, and may get too fussy with perceived threats, but I am thankful every day for my retirement in Mexico." Given the fine, we're not sure how Hards feels now. He's spent the last couple of days looking for lawyers.

When Hards returned to his boat on Thursday, he was informed that he could no longer deal with AGACE/Hacienda, as the matter had been turned over to the courts. Except for attorney fees, it seems this is a good thing, because any halfway fair-minded judge is going to dismiss the fine.

That any part of the Mexican government could not accept its responsibility for the typo on Hards' TIP makes us want to bang our head against the wall. We've spent 30+ years being the biggest promoters of nautical tourism to Mexico, and then they pull something like this that is so unfair and so stupid. It's not uncommon for Mexico to reduce fines from an initial $100,000 U.S. to $25, but even if that happens, or if the court throws the judgment out, it's still outrageous. For what it's worth, the few boats at San Carlos Marina that didn't have any TIP were fined just $113.

The other day we received the following email from a member of the King Harbor YC: "I am scheduled to be in this year's Newport to Ensenada Race, but will probably withdraw. Even though my crew might call me a wimp, I absolutely cannot risk my boat being part of an AGACE hassle. It's not my crew's boat that would be embargoed."

So the situation in Mexico continues to be this: For the vast majority of owners of foreign-owned boats in Mexico, everything is hunky dory, and they are having a grand time. But for those unlucky few who still haven't had their boats released after three months — despite being perfectly legal — or for those who are getting screwed by Mexico's myopic sense of right and wrong, it's an ongoing nightmare.



- latitude / richard

jfoster
03-24-2014, 02:18 PM
Finally, Release of Boats from Ensenada

March 24, 2014 – Marina Coral, Ensenada

On Friday, March 21, the paperwork was completed to "liberate" the last of the 'embargoed' foreign boats at Marina Coral in Ensenada — nearly four months after they had been impounded. This included a total of 15 boats. Well, eleven boats and — we're not making this up — four dinghies.


Ensenada's Marina Coral is so close to the U.S. border that Southern California boats often come down for the weekend or to get a quick bottom job. The impounding fiasco has greatly reduced that traffic.
Photo Latitude / Richard
© 2014 Latitude 38 Publishing, LLC

Harbormaster Fito Espinosa told Latitude that all of the boats had been legal in the first place. "Three of the boats had the original 20-year Import Permits, which AGACE agents initially didn’t know anything about, which is why they put the boats in 'precautionary embargo'. Another boat, an aluminum 80-footer, was impounded because the AGACE agents couldn’t find the HIN number, even though the HIN number was right on the transom where it is supposed to be. It was problems like that."

So why did it take four months to "liberate" these perfectly legal boats? "Procedures," replied Espinosa, with obvious discouragement in his voice. The release of the boats is being accompanied by a 100+ page document by AGACE. Tere Grossman, president of the Mexican Marina Owners Association reports that all but one of the boats impounded in Acapulco have been released, too.

There is no question that the impoundings have adversely affected Marina Coral’s business. "Americans were too scared to bring their boats to Mexico," said Espinosa. Which is why he and representatives from eight other marinas in Mexico, plus representatives of Mexico’s Tourism Department, will be at the Newport Boat Show (April 3-6) and a slightly smaller contingent will be at the Strictly Sail Show (April 10-13) in Oakland. That’s all well and good, but the people who really need to make an appearance at the boat shows are members of Mexico’s IRS, to explain what this was all about, and if mariners have any reason to fear a repeat in the future.

At the time of this posting, we were unable to get a count of how many of the 338 foreign boats that were originally impounded are still being held and why. We believe the number is quite small.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
03-29-2014, 04:55 PM
Would Latitude Take Its Boat To Mexico Now?

March 26, 2014 – North & South of the Border

We recently received the following letter from David Cleveland of San Diego:

"Latitude 38’s coverage of the Mexican boat impoundings has been extensive, and obviously personal to publisher Richard Spindler, as (his boat) Profligate was an impounded boat. However, having talked to some who have been down to Mexico since this event, I find myself wondering if somehow this has been blown way out of proportion, as it appears there are still cruisers going to and coming from Mexican ports without a hint of what appears to have been a one-time event with Mexico ending up with egg on its face.

"During several sailing events here in San Diego since the first of the year, I have inquired of several sailors about their intention to sail the Newport to Ensenada Race that starts on April 25. What I have found is that there is a very real fear of heading into Mexican waters at this time, and skippers whose boats have made Newport to Ensenada an annual event are now begging off, primarily due to the events as they have been reported in the pages of your fine publication.


The long-established Newport to Ensenada Race is an annual tradition for many Southern California sailors. But this year, some may be afraid to enter Mexican waters.
© 2014 D Ramey Logan / Wikipedia

"The specific fears are having one's boat impounded or being boarded at sea during a race. What I, and I imagine most skippers, really want to know is whether it is safe to take our boats on this race. Though the publisher of Latitude sails in the Caribbean this time of year, would he be willing to enter his catamaran Profligate in this race? It would be a strong statement that indicates to all sailors that he believes that it is okay to sail into Mexican waters again.

"It would also be great to have something from Hacienda, the Mexican IRS, stating that they will not have an inspection for boats entered in the race, and for the Mexican Navy to state that they will not board any vessels during the race. Though the last two items might be politically unpalatable to the Mexican authorities, the entry of Profligate would indicate your belief that there is no anticipation of the issues of last year continuing. Please advise, as your readership values your opinion and your actions go a long way to support that opinion.

"P.S. I looked at the NOSA website on the morning of March 18, and there were only 147 entries signed up this year versus a total of 203 that participated last year. That's a decrease of 28%. In the Cruising classes there are currently 48 entries vs 69 total last year, a decrease of 30%. Granted, there are still five weeks until the race, and I do not have any stats on where NOSA entries were at the same time last year, but given the discount that NOSA was providing for early entries, I suspect there will definitely be a significant decline year to year. Given that the economic climate is slightly better in California this year than last, I find the numbers troubling — and almost certainly caused by the TIP issue in Mexico. Please consider promoting this in your April issue, and consider entering Profligate in the Newport to Ensenada Race. Don't wait for the San Diego to Ensenada 'Little Ensenada Race' in October to raise the 'All Clear'."

The following is the short response to that letter that will appear in the April 1 Latitude 38:

"The very abbreviated answer is yes, we would take our boat to Mexico now, primarily based on the fact that we're told it's safe by the president of the Mexican Marina Owners Association and all of the marina managers."

For those interested in a much longer, more nuanced, and too-long-to-publish-in-print answer, hopefully the following will give boat owners the information they need to make the decision for themselves:

In addition to publishing Latitude, the publisher also owns the Baja Ha-Ha Cruising Rally to Mexico, so we find ourselves in the same boat as you in the sense there is nothing we'd like more than to be able to guarantee boat owners that they have no need to worry about taking their boats to Mexico. Alas, the only ones who can give boat owners that confidence is the Mexican government, and unfortunately, they've done almost nothing in that respect.

We'll be the first to admit that it's been, and remains, a very confusing situation, because — according to Tere Grossman, President of the Mexican Marina Owners Association, although AGACE's original plan was to 'inspect' all boats in all the marinas in Mexico, they stopped after all the bad publicity following the poorly executed inspections at the first eight marinas. As a result, there are now sort of four 'classes' of foreign owned boats in Mexico:

1) Those boats that AGACE didn't inspect. 2) The boats that AGACE did approve from the get-go — even though they may not have even inspected them. 3) Boats that AGACE initially impounded, but has now approved. (These boats, including Profligate, are sort of special in the sense that there is now a document that states these boats have been approved. This makes them different from Class #2 boats, which were approved, but have no document to prove it. And, 4) Boats that are still impounded.

While there are a number of boats still impounded that have issues of one type or another that may well justify their being impounded, there are at least some boats that have been perfectly legal from day one that are still being held after four months. It's outrageous. Further, there is at least one boat that has been confiscated because of an obvious date typo made by a Mexican bureaucrat. The owner is told he needs to pay a $7,000 fine — but even that won't get him his boat back.

So, as we have repeatedly written, the majority of people with foreign-owned boats in Mexico are continuing to have a grand old time, many of them having never had any contact with AGACE. In addition to all anchored-out boats, this would also include all the boats from all the marinas in La Paz, all the boats in all the marinas in Mazatlan, all the boats in Nuevo Vallarta's Paradise Village Marina, and all the other marinas that AGACE didn't inspect. Also included in this group are all the boats that AGACE approved, whether they inspected them or not.

So has the situation been "blown way out of proportion?" We suppose it all depends on whether your perfectly legal boat is still impounded after four months, or whether you're facing a big fine because a Mexican official made an obvious typo on your Temporary Import Permit. People who have had their boats approved, even if they were no more legal than most of the 338 impounded boats, probably don't think it's been a big deal at all.

The thing we believe has been overblown is how personal this situation has been to us as the owners of Profligate, which was impounded for two months despite being perfectly legal. Yeah, it pissed us off not to be able to use our boat for two months, but unlike a lot of people who had their boats impounded, we've been sailing in Mexico for 30 years and have seen and done almost everything. It's not as though we were missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Plus, we were about to head to the Caribbean for three months of sailing anyway. Furthermore, after little more than a month, we were repeatedly assured that everything was fine with our boat, and it was just a matter of time — why the wait? — before AGACE would "liberate" her along with 95% of the other boats in the marina. So more than most people, we could sit and wait. But there are limits to our patience. If our boat was still impounded when we returned from the Caribbean in mid-May, we might just take off with her and kiss Mexico goodbye forever.

The thing that really does make the situation personal for us is that we've been the biggest promoters of nautical tourism in Mexico for more than 30 years, and this one brain-dead move by a sub-agency of Hacienda has undone and continues to undo so much of that effort. We love Mexico, we love the people of Mexico, we love the boat workers of Mexico, and we think that events like the Ensenada Race, the Baja Ha-Ha, and individual boats going to Mexico are important for both that country's economy and reputation. That one recently created sub-agency — through ignorance, poor planning, poor execution, and stubbornness — has undone so much of what we have worked so hard to develop is something we do take personally. That and the fact that somebody up high in the Mexican government power structure didn't put an end to this nonsense months ago.

You say this "appears to have been a one-time event." We hope so, yet it's not something we can guarantee. After all, about two months ago, the head of SCT, which controls the ports and port captains, was quoted on the front page of Reforma, the influential Mexico City newspaper, as saying there wouldn't be similar audits in the future. Yet on the front page of the next day's Reforma, one of the officials from AGACE was quoted as saying, "Oh yes, it will happen again, because we're creating a database of all boats in Mexico." Thanks for the clarity, folks.

So is it safe to sail one's boat to Mexico? First of all, it is in the sense that there is nothing to fear from the Mexican Navy. Those folks are your friends. You need help, call them. All of the problems have been the work of AGACE.

Profligate will not do the Newport to Ensenada Race because we're sailing in the Caribbean until the middle of May, and we're hoping to take the big cat up into the Sea for the early summer. But if Profligate were in the States, we would enter her in the Ensenada Race. Unfortunately, that's a little bit of an unfair answer, because as we mentioned, she's now officially been cleared by AGACE, and there is a document stating such.

Would we take some other boat we owned to Mexico? Yes, we probably would, providing we had all our ducks in a row — boat document, visas, passports, TIP (showing engine serial number[s] and HIN), insurance, and a letter from the owner if the boat was being operated by someone other than the owner. The 'probably' is that we might not if the boat were also our home and/or represented a very large part of our net worth. In that case, the risk/reward ratio might be too high.

What would our rationale be for thinking it was safe to sail to Mexico? First, belief that this indeed was a one-time deal — at least in the sense of how poorly it was planned and executed — and that the reason that some perfectly legal boats are still impounded is a combination of AGACE's not wanting to back down and lose face, and the fact that all bureaucracies take forever to get anything done. We would not be surprised if Mexico tried another means of creating a database of all boats in their country, but given the terrible publicity, we think they'll do a much better job — i.e. not assume everyone was guilty unless there was at least an inkling of proof. By the way, if they want a database, we've got no problem with it. Lord knows they sure need a database of the automobiles in Mexico, so many of which are stolen or have fraudulent documents.

That said, just because we'd do something doesn't mean anyone else should. As we've written, this is the single most stupid thing any country has done in the last 35 years of dealing with cruising boats — Australia comes in second — which makes one unsure of what AGACE and the Mexican government might do in the future. On the one hand you can argue, "They can't possibly do something as idiotic and counterproductive again." The compelling counterargument is, "What they did was so stupid and so self-destructive that there is no telling what other self-destructive things they might do in the future."

As we said before, it's the job of the Mexican government to make much-needed nautical tourists feel safe by very clearly stating the following: "We welcome all foreign boats to Mexico. To cruise our country you will need documents X, Y and Z, and to follow procedures #1 and #2." Just as they do if you temporarily or permanently import a motor vehicle to Mexico. It's not that hard, but we're still waiting for the Mexico government.

Get Hacienda write a letter saying they won't inspect/audit foreign boats? That's going to happen right after the United States IRS writes a letter promising a certain segment of the business world that they won't be audited.

For the record, the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race had a tremendous fleet of boats and MEXORC (this week) looks as if it's going to be a huge success, again raising the profile of sailing in Mexico. Also for the record, both the Puerto Vallarta and Cabo Tourism Boards have invited Latitude on all-expense paid trips to inspect their nautical facilities. So yeah, the Mexican government is totally schizo on this.

We know you were looking for a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer, but the best we can do is present the facts as best we understand them and let everyone decide for themselves. If we only get four entries in the 2014 Baja Ha-Ha because we refuse to guarantee that all boats going to Mexico won't have any problems, we'll be bummed. On the other hand, we'll sleep soundly at night, knowing we didn't make any false guarantees just to make a little money. We're pretty confident, however, that the Mexican government will clarify things before the start of the next cruising season, perhaps with the introduction of a much-rumored new TIP. For the sake of the Newport to Ensenada Race, we hope they clarify things before the start of that great event also, although time is running short.

- latitude / richard

jfoster
04-02-2014, 04:42 PM
Nearing the End of the Impounding Fiasco?

April 2, 2014 – Mexico

The fiasco of 338 foreign-owned boats being impounded — for up to four months — mostly for no good reason — appears to be nearing an end. Tere Grossman, President of the Mexican Marina Owners Association, reports that only 31 boats still have "problems," and 17 of those belong to Mexicans.

But there are two cases that illustrate that the insanity is not over for a few American boatowners.

In the first case, John Hards, a long time liveaboard resident of Puerto Vallarta and formerly a huge fan of Mexico, is making a run for the California border aboard his boat Pelican, type of boat unknown. The 75-year-old's problem is that a Mexican bureaucrat in Salina Cruz made a typo on his 10-Year Temporary Import Permit, which the folks at SAT (the Mexican IRS, formerly known as Hacienda) inexplicably interpreted as making the 10-year TIP not good for 10 years, but merely for the length of his visa. According to Hards, the Mexican government wants him to pay a $7,500 fine, and he still won't get his boat back.

Surviving, as he does, on Social Security, he can't afford the fine, so he and his cat are currently making a desperate run for the border aboard Pelican. It hasn't been easy, as his running lights aren't working, his engine has an oil leak, his boat is taking on water, and he needs fuel. It's Hards' understanding that the authorities have alerted all port officials to be on the lookout for him, so he's on the run from the Mexican government. That's being in a desperate situation. While we won't reveal his current location, he's made it most of the way, and we wish him the best of luck making the last few hundred miles. If anyone is willing to meet him offshore in order to give him the fuel he needs to make it the rest of the way against the northwesterlies, we'll put you in touch with someone who can put you in touch with him.

We alerted Grossman to the situation, and this was her response:

"Ms. Elena Carrillo, the Marina Association's lawyer, checked with the SAT, and their records show that Pelican's TIP is good until 2019, so his boat should have been released without a fine. I hope he makes it back to the States. One good thing is that Ms. Carrillo talked to the harbormaster at the marina, and the SAT had changed the depositaria status of the boat from the marina to the owner of the boat. If not, the marina would have had to pay SAT for the boat. But SAT has a problem, as they still have to close the file. As Pelican did have a valid SAT all along, they probably will close the file. But what a mess!

"There was a boat in Ensenada that was in a somewhat similar situation," Grossman continues. "The owner was very scared, so she took off with her boat. As the boat had a valid TIP all along, SAT just closed the file. The owners of 15 boats in our marina at San Carlos similarly took off, but since they all had valid TIPs, the SAT just closed the files on them, too."

A second case that's hanging in the air is that of the 42-ft fishing boat Lady D in La Cruz. We were alerted to it by the following letter:

"My name is Jason Cherun, and I (am) emailing Latitude on behalf of my father-in-law, Serge. He has had a home in Puerto Vallarta for over 10 years, as well as Lady D, a 42-foot fishing boat. In late November the boat was impounded along with the 337 other mostly foreign boats. Serge, had a temporary import permit for 10 years, from when he brought the boat to Mexico on a ship to Lazaro Cardenas in November of 2003. A customs broker there took care of all the formalities to get the boat into Mexican waters. When AGACE, a sub-agency of SAT, descended on the marina in late November of last year, Serge was in Toronto, so he wasn't there to show them his papers. So AGACE impounded his boat. When he got to Vallarta on December 9, he paid for a new TIP, but the SAT claimed that his boat had been in the country illegally. [Ed. note: Presumably his 10-year permit had run out by a few days.] SAT is now claiming that his boat was illegally in Mexico, and is fining him $110,000. His boat is currently stuck at Marina Riviera Nayarit in La Cruz. Serge is a retired successful businessman who trusts everyone. He had a captain on the payroll, as well as people at the marina who were supposed to be looking after his boat while he was there and while he was home in Toronto. He's even hired a lawyer to try to get the boat released, but he's spent $10,000 already with no results. Can Latitude help?"

We passed the letter on to Grossman, who responded to us as follows:

"I will send the information on Lady D to Ms. Carrillo, the Marina Association’s lawyer, to see if there is anything she can do. I'm sure she can work something out. About 10 of the boats in our San Carlos Marina had expired TIPs, so our marina personnel applied for new ones on their behalf immediately after the 'inspection'. They were all released after paying a small — about $130 U.S. — fine.

"Since this is the first time there have been audits like this since the TIPs were introduced in 1996," Grossman continues, "the SAT people didn't exactly know what they were doing. As you could see, the different SAT offices were applying the law differently. So if the SAT didn't know what they were doing, imagine how confused the lawyers have been. Ms. Carrillo used to work for SAT (when it was known as Hacienda), making it easier for foreign boats to come to Mexico. Indeed, she was the one who came up with the concept of TIPs, so foreign boat owners could leave their boats in Mexico for longer periods of time and/or when the owners left the country. When she left the government, she came to work for the marina association. She knows all the ins and outs of the law, and is very honest. She has been going to SAT almost every day to help untangle this mess."

In the April issue of Latitude, there is a letter from a reader who asked if we hadn't blown the whole issue of impounding of boats in Mexico out of proportion. Our response was that it all depended on whether your boat had been impounded and to a certain extent for how long. We're certain that John Hards and the owner of Lady D would say we haven't blown things out of proportion at all.

While we can't guarantee it, we like to think that we're seeing just about the end of the incredibly self-destructive action on the part of the Mexican government, and things will be much better by the start of the next cruising season.
- latitude / richard

jfoster
04-11-2014, 03:34 PM
Escape from Mexico by Sailboat

April 11, 2014 – Nuevo Vallarta to San Diego

Making a 'run for it' on a sailboat is rarely the best of ideas, but it has worked for John Hards, a former long-time resident of the Bay Area who has spent the last 11 years loving retirement aboard in Mexico. Up until a couple of months ago, that is.

Hards, who for years has extolled the pleasures of living aboard in Mexico, is one of those who got trapped in the insanity of the unthinking and seemingly uncaring Mexican bureaucracy. When his Beneteau Idylle 1150 Pelican was 'audited' by AGACE at Nuevo Vallarta, they noted that his 10-year Temporary Import Permit seemed to be out of date. Thus, they said, his boat was in Mexico illegally. They wanted a $7,500 U.S. fine, in addition to keeping his boat. Nice for a 75-year-old guy living on social security who has been one of Mexico's most vocal supporters.

The situation is that Hands' 10-year TIP actually doesn't expire until 2019. What happened is that some incompetent Mexican bureaucrat in Salina Cruz wrote in the expiration date of Hards' tourist visa for the expiration date of his 10-year TIP. Everyone makes mistakes, so you'd think SAT, the Mexican IRS, would see the obvious error and say, "Of course a 10-year permit is good for ten years, we're sorry about the mistake and will get it corrected for you." But no, they said "Too bad, your 10-year permit isn't good for ten years, it ran out when your tourist visa did. We want a bunch of money and your boat." Thus Mexico put another bullet in its already badly wounded foot.

By the way, Mexican Marina Association President Tere Grossman checked with Mexican authorities, who confirmed that Pelican's Temporary Import Permit was/is good through 2019!

In any event, Hards decided that he had no choice but to make a 1,000-mile run for the border on his sailboat. We can imagine the anxiety of a 75-year-old being on the lam from Mexican authorities on the open ocean. We're delighted to announce 'Pelican John' and his cat made it safely to San Diego on Tuesday night. He asked that the following message be passed along:

"A big thanks to MMZ, DDU, LSO and others. CWZ will be back on the 14300 airway in a month or so. The MMSN was indispensable for weather, and also for moral support when dodging the three official Mexican boats encountered coming north from Mag Bay. Thanks to Moondance and Windrose I, I had exactly $27.50 for U.S. Customs as they ran the checks on me at the Police Dock in San Diego. I have promptly picked up support in San Diego with transportation, food, email, parts, and marinas for this leg of the trip. We will at least fix the oil leak, replace the bilge pump, and restore the number one navigation computer."

A little more on John. He was born in Berkeley and had a long career working for the likes of IBM, Control Data and Amdahl on the West Coast. He retired to Mexico for the first time in 1981, then came back to California for six years of work, during which time he bought Pelican as it came out of The Moorings charter program in Loreto. He later brought the boat up to the Delta to outfit her to cruising, then returned to Mexico in 2003. He spent five years — and four hurricanes — in the Sea of Cortez, two years in the Huatulco area, and most recently three years in the Puerto Vallarta area.

By the way, Hards says that we've been wrong when we've said that there was a 'typo' on his TIP. "The tourist visa expiration date is the norm for the TIP expiration date on the new sticker-type TIPs as issued in most places!"

Excuse us for a minute while we bang our heads against the wall. Mexico, for your own sake will you please get your %@^! together!

There, we feel a little better. The takeaway is that if you have a boat in Mexico, or are taking your boat to Mexico, please double-check all your documents to make sure every single date and serial number is correct. If it's not, get a new copy of whatever document has the problem, because you will be held responsible for the mistakes and ignorance of Mexican officials. And make sure that everything is absolutely correct on the new document(s).

- latitude / richard