Spare parts in Trinco: 23.2. 2017
We sailed to Trinco since it is said to be a safe place to leave your boat for a trip overland to visit the old cultural sites inside Sri Lanka. And clearing it shall be easy and even a bit less expensive than Galle.

First is true, second not so clear. For clearance, our agent Mr Priyantha from Isle Shipping(Pvt)Ltd charges a total of 300 US$ (Harbour fee, his handling etc), don’t know how this compares to Galle.

But should you need a spare for broken gear while in Trinco, bad luck hits you double! We needed a new clutch for the watermaker. It starts sounding good. In Sri Lanka, you need not to pay import tax or duty for spares. But this results in the most ridiculous cost driving customs clearing procedure we have ever heard of.

Your spare, after arriving in Colombo airport, is detained by customs and needs to be delivered to Trincomalee (300 km from Colombo) under customs supervision. As per our agent, this requires a customs officer from Colombo to be driven by car to Trinco, with the spare part on his lap, where he delivers it to the captain, so to make sure the part goes really on a foreign boat and returns home. All at your cost, arranged by your agent.

In our case he quoted 50$ FedEx and customs, custom under supervision charges 115 US$, Transport charges US$ 250, Documentation charges (??) US$ 35 and agents handling charges US$ 50 neatly sums up to 500 US$, more than the parts cost plus transport from Trinidad to Sri Lanka! After our protests he reduced to total 435US$, still exceeding the parts value.
To top that: we anchor here in Trinco 100 m from the port customs office, but they are not involved?

This note is a warning and an inquiry if ever anyone else has come across this Sri Lanka speciality?
One more note to Sri Lanka: Be aware that your cooking gas bottle cannot be filled here anywhere. They have a strict exchange policy, return empty, get the full one, so no one needs filling or does it offer.

Josef Oehlinger,
SY Sanuk II

We entered Trincomalee outer harbour and were met by a marine commando unit. Entrance to the harbour is accessed usually by going to the pilot station located just outside the harbour entrance. After being closely escorted by the commando unit to the pilot station we were then able to contact the harbour authorities. We were escorted by a pilot boat to a container ship wharf where we were met by our previously arranged for an agent from GAC shipping.

We stayed tied to the container ship wharf until early morning when we were shifted to Mud Cove jetty and tied up to a barge. The Mud Cove jetty is part of the harbour authority properties and is located 4km from the main town. This is the most secure location as the property is well guarded and gated but it is not that convenient to town.

Trincomalee is truly a large natural harbour with great potential for anchorages but everything is closely controlled and moving the boat is not an option without advance permission from the harbour authorities.