Charter recommendations in the BVIs - Jan 2020

[wonkywinch]

Flights all booked, we're off for a week in the BVIs in early January. Been looking at the usual suspects (Sunsail/LateSail/Nautilus) etc and found some local companies with snazzy websites.

Does anyone have personal experience/recommendations of charterers in the BVI's please?

Tried a forum search but only found posts dating to post Irma questions.

 

[RichardS]

Flights all booked, we're off for a week in the BVIs in early January. Been looking at the usual suspects (Sunsail/LateSail/Nautilus) etc and found some local companies with snazzy websites.

Does anyone have personal experience/recommendations of charterers in the BVI's please?

Tried a forum search but only found posts dating to post Irma questions.

We had a great experience the first time with The Moorings, 18-odd years. The second time, a couple of years later was not quite so good because the Base Manager had changed and the new one not as customer orientated. However, we did charter with them several times after that, although not the BVIs, and did buy our boat from them, so I do rate them highly overall.

Richard

 

[wonkywinch]

Thanks Richard. The Moorings looked good but all they had left was a <3 year old 38.2 and an older 42.3.

I looked at the other charters and ended up booking a 2019 Sun Odyssey 419 through BVI charters at 20% less than the moorings offer and got a new boat into the deal.

Apart from Moorings, all other firms seem to source through the Sedna System so the choices were visible since the pictures (most obscuring boat name) were clear it was the same boat.

The companies I looked at were:

https://www.moorings.co.uk/destinations/caribbean/british-virgin-islands-yacht-charters (£3,736 for 42.3)

https://www.sunsail.co.uk/destinations/caribbean/bvi (£3,141 but then shows as sold out)

https://www.nautilusyachting.com/british-virgin-islands-yacht-charter.html (£3,804 for actual boat chartered)

https://www.latesail.com/en-uk/bareboat-yacht-charter-caribbean/bvi/ (£3,550 for actual boat chartered)

http://www.bviyachtcharters.com/ (£3,354 - boat booked here)

Sunsail & Moorings are the same company since I spoke to Moorings on the phone then had an online chat with Sunsail and the same person picked up the conversation.

I've put the charter fee in brackets for each company for the same Sedna boat I've chartered from BVI Charters for comparison.

More information for people looking to do similar, here are some useful links:

https://www.bvitourism.com/activities/sailing-boating

Proteus Yacht Charter have a great series of pilot guides on You Tube to help plan your holiday:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRHdllkK-6ZB77U23yYmfLw

The Imray A233 chart also comes with a useful 8 page pilotage booklet written by D M Street Jr.

If you have a Garmin GPS, you can download free maps from http://map.openseamap.org/

I've got a little handheld which is great for pre loading with harbour entry co-ordinates as a back up to any equipment already on the boat in case the eyeballs are blurry in the hot sunshine!

Off to Gib again next month for a brush up as I've not been out on the water much this year due to illness.

 

[KellysEye]

Does anyone have personal experience/recommendations of charterers in the BVI's please?

We chartered there many times . Go to www.latesail.com they are the world's largest charter company with 700 charter companies. It may be worth asking for a discount my bet it is still a buyer's market, too many yachts

 

[wonkywinch]

Does anyone have personal experience/recommendations of charterers in the BVI's please?

We chartered there many times . Go to www.latesail.com they are the world's largest charter company with 700 charter companies. It may be worth asking for a discount my bet it is still a buyer's market, too many yachts

I found a lot of boats already booked for Jan in the BVIs. Many of them are very new (post Irma) and tourism heavily encouraged to help them back on their feet, I understand much is rebuilt.

I did speak to Latesail as looked through their offerings many times. BVI yacht charters had exactly the same boat but £200 cheaper and offering a few other bits like free cab to/from the airport. When speaking to Latesail I asked "is that the best you can do" and they said yes. After I booked it and Latesail came back to me, they said they would have price matched and were also going to take the issue up with BVI Yacht Charters since they shouldn't have undercut them (which sounds like price fixing to me). I had thought the boat might be owned by BVI YC and picked up on Sedna by Latesail. The BVI price in dollars so there may have been a little swing in the exchange rate I got on my cc that made it cheaper. Nevertheless, I would have preferred if Latesail had given me their best price straight away and I would have gone with them.

Won't put me off trying them again for sailing next year, got Croatia and another Greek trip in mind.

 

[eddystone]

I've just booked with Sunsail for December with RYA 15% discount. Moorings pretty similar not surprising give sister companies. BVI/Nautilus about same price for boat but Sun Odyssey 349 instead of Sunsail 38 (Sun Odyssey 379?) and many things included in Sunsail price were extras (Nat Park Tax, Cruising tax, collision waiver cost. etc)

 

[Paddy Fields]

Does anyone have personal experience/recommendations of charterers in the BVI's please?

We chartered there many times . Go to www.latesail.com they are the world's largest charter company with 700 charter companies. It may be worth asking for a discount my bet it is still a buyer's market, too many yachts

Every time I’ve found a boat on latesale, I’ve found the same boat on yachtic for 10% less (Croatia so far, haven’t tried bvi yet). Yachtic let you know the boat name, and charter company as well - I guess they must be confident of their prices. They also do BVI, but not many of the other Caribbean destinations.

 

[wonkywinch]

Every time I’ve found a boat on latesale, I’ve found the same boat on yachtic for 10% less (Greece & Croatia so far, haven’t tried bvi yet). Yachtic let you know the boat name, and charter company as well - I guess they must be confident of their prices. They also do BVI, but not many of the other Caribbean destinations.

Interesting translations on their website .. "The yacht should not cause problems even not expirienced helmsmans"

 

[Paddy Fields]

Interesting translations on their website .. "The yacht should not cause problems even not expirienced helmsmans"

Yeah, it’s a polish site, which might explain why they are strong in Croatia.
Latesails is atoll bonded, but I’m not paying a 10% premium for atoll bonding.
I guess all of these sites are using the same data from a b2b site like Sedna?