You can get fairly 'cheap' rates for bareboats in the Caribbean during the summer, however this might be offset somewhat by the relatively high plane fares at the moment, because it is school holidays.
Have a look at Barefoot Yachts and Sunsail in St Vincent, and perhaps companies in the BVIs?
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They certainly had spare boats at the end of the flotilla I just came off (you can use their flotilla boats for bareboat too). Appears there were some last minute cancellations, so a Beneteau 331 was available if anyone in the group could have stayed on for an extra week or two.
Yes James, I am aware of this fact...... you also stand a good chance of being run down by a runaway bus on the Tamar Bridge, or being struck by lightning.
One just has to do a risk assessment on the whole equation and determine one's chances.....
Hurricane season has been very quiet out here so far - in fact we have very untypical summer weather at the moment, in that it is sunny and blowing a good F 5-6 outside - more like the winter trades - long may it last!
Basically the cooler it is (both sea and air temperatures) the less chance there is of hurricanes forming.
I was bricking myself when Ivan was approaching - he was heading straight for us on a sort of NW course, but then defied all forecast theory and stayed south, and headed due west instead to clobber Grenada instead of us with 150 knots of breeze...... Ouch!
Simply because the centre of Ivan passed about 40 miles south of us, this meant that the maximum winds we had here were about F8's for a while, which were easily copable with. F20's are not so easy to cope with.....
Trades are still blowing happily outside this evening, about a F 5 gusting 6 - lovely sailing weather (if you dont have to beat against them!) - long may they continue!