The historic town of St. George’s has long tossed around the idea of turning their waterfront location into a port for mega-yachts.

The idea was floated in the 1994 Town Heritage Plan, but since then there’s been mostly talk, and no noticeable action.

If officials want to strike while the iron is hot, they may have to move now.

According to magazine ShowBoats International, there were less than 700 boats bigger than 80 feet in 1993. Today there are 7,000.

Island destinations all over the Caribbean are in a mad sprint to build mega-marinas to accommodate a surge in the big boats.

St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, Grenada and St. Maarten all have, or are building, facilities to birth the big ships and cash in on their big spending passengers.

Marina manager Tom Patterson, who is in Antigua, said: “It’s been great for the economy, so I say ‘Long may the mega-yacht live!’ These people are the wealthiest tourists in the world.”

Premier Ewart Brown, who is also Tourism Minister, thinks St. George’s is the perfect port for these high end tourists.

He said in a interview: “Absolutely. It’s a natural fit.”

The Premier has encouraged St. George’s to move in that direction, especially because, smaller cruise ships which currently visit St. George’s are being phased out to make way for large Panamax ships.

Government is building a new dock in the West End to accommodate Panamax ships, but St. George’s can’t accept the larger liners because they won’t fit through Town Cut. Expanding the channel would be too costly to the environment.

With a newly constructed mega-yacht port, St. George’s could still capitalise on wharf fees when the smaller cruise ships are gone. It’s also a way to keep the narrow streets of the town busy when the cruise ships are away.

The Premier said: “That has been my suggestion to them. How quickly they want to move on that is to a great extent left up to them. That’s just a suggestion.

“I think there are some people in St. George’s who see that as a viable alternative to keeping their fingers crossed over cruise ships.”

Former Premier and St. George’s MP Jennifer Smith also believes mega-yachts could help build a solid tourism future for the east end.

She called the idea excellent.

Meantime Mayor of St. George’s Mariea Caisey offered a more tepid response when asked about a mega-marina in her town.

She wrote in an e-mail: “This has been one of the future plans for the Town, as laid out in our Town Heritage Plan, which was adopted in 1994.

“We will also continue to maintain our docks for visiting cruise ships that can enter through the Town Cut.”

With ships like the Rising Sun, 452-feet and five storeys high, a new environmental study may be necessary.

However, mega-yachts would be no bigger than the small cruise ships which are already motoring into St. George’s.

In Puerto Rico, big yachts are docking all the time and the environmentalists don’t seem to mind.

Deirdre Shurland, of the Caribbean Alliance for Sustainable Tourism, said: “Anything of any mega-size is obviously a concern in the industry, but it doesn’t seem that anyone has raised any red flags.”

Similarly, no one in Bermuda seems to be putting the breaks on the idea of mega-yachts and a mega-marina for St. George’s, but no one seems to be jumping on the accelerator either.