I chartered with Island Yacht Charters this summer and in doing my
research, found very few
reviews of IYC that weren't on their Web site. I thought it might be useful to somebody if there was a recent review, so here is one.
To start with, I've chartered 3 times now and also taken a 3 day class in a J120. That's the extent of my bigger
boat experience. Spent a summer sailing a 29 ft and dabbled in dinghies, and that's it, so I'm no sailing expert. Read this review knowing that.
I wanted to get experience with different types of boats and Island Yacht Charters out of Red Hook charters Island Packets. We chartered over Memorial Day and because they are closed on Memorial Day, I picked up the
boat, an IP440, the day after. My wife and I and my two teen sons had the boat for 9 days. The norm is 10 days (or 7), but they were closed the first day I was there. They chartered the boat for the same per day
price as their standard 10 day
charter. IYC was prompt and clear in their
communications up front and had the boat ready when we got there. There is a pretty good grocery store literally across the street, where we provisioned. Red Hook is USVI and the prices at the grocery store were very reasonable. IYC provided us a cart to walk across the street with. The grocery store will deliver to the boat if you choose, but we didn't.
The pre
charter briefing was extremely thorough. It took well over an hour. There was about 15 minutes spent on looking at
charts and the rest of the time was spent on the boat going through systems. I considered it time well spent, but I can imagine some people might be anxious to get going. Like i mentioned, the boat was ready when we got there, so after
provisioning and the briefing, we were off.
The boat was an older (2004, I think) IP440 but you couldn't tell it by looking at it. It was very clean and everything appeared in ship shape. Interestingly, it did not have a chart plotter or a
GPS. I personally don't think that is particularly essential in the VIs and I think most of their other boats have them. It was equipped with
solar panels which were greatly appreciated. The
batteries were always charged and I never ran the
engine except to move the boat which has not always been my experience. Everything on the boat was functional except the
knot meter so that's 2 out of 3 charters with a nonfunctional
knot meter. This time, though, a text to Skip brought a response giving the most likely problem and how to fix it. I dove the boat, cleaned off the knot meter rotor, and Wa La, the next day I had an operating knot meter. The rest of the bottom was clean, by the way.
In general, I consider IYC to be an example of what charter outfits should be. There is some obvious pride of
ownership going on there that is reflected in the quality of the boat and the overall experience. I would have no issue recommending them for charters. They allow the charterer access to boats that are not your typical charter boat. The boat I had was clean and well maintained,
service was excellent, my wife enjoyed herself, and there's not much more than that I needed.
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