Dear Family and Friends:

These past few months have been stressful in a way we have not shared. And the fear we had has now come to fruition. To bring the boat home to the US means we will need to pay a tax to the US that equals one third of the initial cost of the boat at this point. That 30% could even go higher if the EU responds to the new tariffs and the US decides to retaliate further. Our boat, having been built in the EU, is caught up in the dragnet.

We are exhausted from weather, constant travel and just wanted to get home. But that seems impossible today.

We have only two alternate options it seems. Hire a maritime attorney to re-flag the boat, not as a US vessel, but in a different country, such as the Marshall Islands. We would also have to form a new company or transfer our LLC which owns the boat to a foreign country too. We don't know how long that might take and we have hurricane season coming up June 1. We think that would allow us to enter the US without importing. We would need to apply for a cruising permit with limited time in the US. We then would have to set up shipping of the boat elsewhere, perhaps back to Sweden, with it's own deadlines and complications. We would also have to find an insurance company outside of the US.

Our second option is to sail south to Grenada, although we do not have a spot secured on land at a marina at this point. There is a risk of hurricanes there. The boat would be on the hard for the summer season and we could return to it November 1. If this tariff mess has been figured out by then, we could sail to the US. That gives us time to consider shipping it to Europe or time to do option one above.

Sailing to Canada is like sailing the distance across the ocean so not a viable alternative.

No good options for us after all this hard work at getting home.

At this point I probably will not post further until we get better news.