Dear Race Captains and Sailors,

We’re writing with an update on the Bermuda Government Mariner’s Travel Authorization (MTA) Process.

As of Tuesday, June 14, at 1700 EDT, the Bermuda Government has confirmed that they have received approximately 1500 MTA applications that have selected the Newport to Bermuda Race as the purpose of their visit to Bermuda.

Of these applications, the majority (some 1200) have already been processed into Provisional (Green) MTA documents (or in some cases a Full Green MTA in the last 24 hours) and ~300 have an outstanding issue (usually inaccurate dates) that is being worked on by the Bermuda Government Travel Authorization team.  

The Bermuda Government TA team have confirmed that they expect to clear the backlog of ~300 MTA applications by midday on Wednesday June 15th. If you have submitted your MTA application and not received your provisional green MTA by 1200 EDT on Wednesday June 15th, please contact Bermuda’s COVID Hotline at +1 (441) 444-2498 or Toll Free at +1 (833) 570-2594 or via email at TAapprovals@gov.bm.

It should be noted that there are ~1725 competitors listed on Sailgate at this point. Given the Bermuda Government’s update that they have received ~1500 applications to date, there are some 200 competitors that have either not filed their MTA application at all – or they have not selected the Newport to Bermuda Race as the purpose of their visit to Bermuda.  

If you have not yet submitted your MTA application – please do so immediately. This is essential to ensure that you are able to complete registration and pre-clear Bermuda Immigration in Newport. 

If you believe that you may have not filled in the form correctly (i.e. not selecting Newport to Bermuda Race as the purpose of visit) – please contact the Bermuda Government COVID hotline as above with your application receipt number to resolve any errors.  

As a reminder for all sailors, you are eligible to pre-clear Bermuda Immigration at Sail Newport once you have either your:
– Provisional (Green) MTA and your negative COVID test result OR 
– Green MTA (which will have required a negative COVID test result in any case)

Warm regards,

Somers Kempe, Chairman
2022 Bermuda Race Organizing Committee
chairman@bermudarace.com