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AMAICANS should be proud that the international organisers of the 2002 Americas’ Sail event chose this island to host the Class A and B tall ships at Montego Bay and Port Antonio. They should, however, be appalled at the rank incompetence of the local organisers, the Jamaica Tourist Board, and their North American public relations firms, in handling foreign media coverage of what could otherwise have been a hemispheric showpiece for Jamaica.

I am one of the handful of foreign journalists who accepted a JTB invitation to spend a few days covering the romantic spectacle of Class A tall ships racing from Curacao to Discovery Bay and smaller Class B ships from Port Antonio to Ocho Rios, with a final rendezvous in Montego Bay. My Canadian newspaper, the Winnipeg Free Press, was the only foreign daily to attend – the other US and Canadian writers work for small magazines and periodicals, or are freelance writers hoping to sell an article when they return home.

My plan was to file both “live” news/sports coverage of the tall ships race, with e-mailed photos, for immediate publication in my newspaper and same-day distribution to every daily newspaper in Canada via our national wire service, Canadian Press. I would also spend a few days on the north coast gathering information for a package of travel features on Jamaica for publication at the start of the Canadian tourist season in the fall.

Not now. The JTB and its North American agents have simply demolished that plan. In a decade of writing occasional travel features on destinations around the globe, I have never experienced a more ill-conceived and poorly-implemented media tour. Despite being a seasoned newspaper reporter and editor for more than 25 years, words fail me. But the phrase “mind-boggling in its stupidity and incompetence” comes to mind.

The disaster began a week before the US/Canada press tour was to begin. The original plan was to gather in MoBay for the Class A Tall Ship Parade of Sails arrival before continuing to Port Antonio for the start of the Class B race. Inexplicably, this was changed at the 11th hour to fly everyone to Kingston – where the ships would not be – and then cross-island to Port Antonio.

Why anyone in authority would adopt a plan that would see the entire foreign press corps miss the magnificent Parade of Sails is anyone’s guess.

Certainly, no one among the local organisers or the JTB’s PR personnel at Peter Martin Associates in the US and DBA Communications in Toronto could explain it. In any case, because of my newspaper’s intention to file coverage to Canada immediately — a plan which one would think would be embraced by the Jamaican organisers — I refused this itinerary change and got off the plane at MoBay.

Result? As the Observer reported, I was the only foreign journalist to join local media on the press boat which paced the three tall ships from Rose Hall Beach Club to MoBay harbour — the only one with video of the big ships actually sailing, and the only one with photographs. And the only reason I made it there at all was not by the efforts of the JTB or its minions, but through the good offices of friend and uncle of my “significant other”, David (Junior) Robb and his wife, Sally, of Clarks Town, Trelawny, who housed and fed me for two days and got me to the boat on time.

At that point, the itinerary was to meet the Canadian and American writers at the Holiday Inn Sunspree. Wrong. No messages, no rendezvous, nada. No personnel from the JTB or the guide from Peter Martin Associates. Missed the carnival party at the pier (no directions, no transport).

I learned the next day that the small press group had been scattered at four different hotels. How did I learn this? By running into the only other foreign journalist staying at my hotel, who overheard me asking the front desk (once again) if they had perhaps spied a JTB or PMA rep in the place, or if they had any messages for me (no). Only through her did I manage to meet the bus arriving to take us for an onboard viewing of the ships and attend the VIP party at the Ritz Carlton.

But this ray of hope for, at least, a smooth conclusion to the trip proved fleeting. Monday: three events on the itinerary, three screw-ups. The PMA rep guiding the group (nice guy, but…) had no inkling that while some of the group were going rafting on the Martha Brae, others were taking the Chukka Blue Adventure Tours jeep excursion. And despite being asked to ensure the necessary arrangements, he had done nothing by the Monday morning when the tours were to leave. The poor Chukka Blue guide had safaried to two hotels looking for his press clients, and finally left when no one showed up. He eventually picked up his two passengers at the Ritz Carlton, where they had been dropped by the river-bound troupe.

Next, the press conference at the pier — virtually compulsory attendance for all media, according to the MoBay event chairman, David Lindo. That, of course, saw the Class B trophy presentation, as well as gladhanding and backslapping all round among the politicians and Americas’ Sail organisers. Or so I’m told. I missed it, and so did Canada. No bus arrived as promised, and a call to the JTB office in MoBay was fruitless — they could do nothing.

The same story unfolded with the Monday night’s sparsely-attended “street party” in honour of the tall ship crews. The press group was bused to the Hip Strip at 7:00 pm and — surprise — no one was there. They left in, I am told, a distinctly surly mood, missing the bands, the dancers and the fireworks entirely. The PMA rep didn’t even go — he stayed at the Ritz Carlton. As for me, I took a taxi there on my own dime and saw it all whilewandering the blocked-off street in yet another vain attempt to locate my colleagues.

MY plan now (and as far as our daily newspapers go, the plan for all of Canada) is to write not a jot about Americas’ Sail. I will write a piece about the amazing three-year odyssey of the Ukrainian ship, Batkivshchyna, and its irrepressible captain, Dmytro Biriukovich, simply because Winnipeg has a large Ukrainian community. Jamaica may get a mention as one of its many ports-of-call, but that’s all.

Having visited Jamaica several times in the past few years on JTB-sponsored press trips, and with close personal ties to the island, it pains me to say that my newspaper is extremely unlikely to return until the Jamaica Tourist Board hires truly professional representation in Canada and the US and cleans up its own act as well. And I will recommend to all member newspapers of the Canadian Press wire service to do the same.

Lest any Jamaican suspect that this position is the product of individual misfortune and isolated griping, let me assure all of two things. First, I neither request nor expect special treatment of any sort on such press trips. And second, while the other foreign journalists on this particular tour can speak for themselves if they so choose, most reported the same litany of “now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t” itineraries, late or non-existent transportation, missed opportunities and a general organisational chaos with Americas’ Sail.

In short, I suspect the tourism “mileage” gained by Jamaica from hosting Americas’ Sail will be paltry indeed. And a long-time foreign friend of Jamaica might be forgiven for wondering if the reported US$250,000 invested in the event was well spent.

John Sullivan is associate editor at the Winnipeg Free Press in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.