Chartering in the BVI from Tortola

[Saildoggie]

Hey, Welcome, a newbie too!!!

We have 7 charters with The Moorings, all excellent, 6 in BVI and 1 in Abacos.
They have now merged with Sunsail and still have the value line Footloose.

Also chartered with Horizon, very good experience, great people and loved the Bavaria 44 mono.

Chartered with BareCat, very small Company and very personal service, all cats. Honey Cat was sooo nice!!

We chartertered a Privelege 435 with TMM, great boat but had some serious ongoing maintenence issues and 4 big service calls, the owner has since taken the boat over and doing skippered charteres, great boat indeed.
They have Sea dancer, a really nic mono that fits your needs.

Most recently chartered a Voyage 440 premiere plus with genset, AC and all the goodies, WOW is all I can say about Voyage, no comparison at al, blows them all away for sure, re-booked next June on a sistership, cats are all I will charter now, as I race on big monos all year, this is family time, fast sailing and big comfort.
We ran the genset and AC all of 2 hours on a 8 day charter and used all of 19 gallons of fuel the whole trip.

You can jump on this forum www.traveltalkonline.cpm for BVI specific info that is beyond what you have here.

We have a multi boat flotilla forming again for late June '09, join us for lots of fun!!

[nautical62]

I own a boat with the Moorings, so have obviously always used them, but if I were chartering, I'd consider the price savings of using an older boat out of Footloose.

A useful cruising guide is "The Cruising Guide to the Virgin Islands" by Nancy and Simon Scott.

A few photos from my past two charters:Virgin Islands - a set on Flickr

On provisioning - I much prefer to provision myself. In addition to a small grocery store right at the Sunsail/moorings/footloose, there is a good grocery store in town (John's I think) that offers a free taxi ride. Usually I get in late the night before, but the next day can get the chart briefing, boat briefing, personal stuff and provisioning done and be out of there by early afternoon.

[Vasco]

Originally Posted by nautical62

On provisioning - I much prefer to provision myself. In addition to a small grocery store right at the Sunsail/moorings/footloose, there is a good grocery store in town (John's I think) that offers a free taxi ride. Usually I get in late the night before, but the next day can get the chart briefing, boat briefing, personal stuff and provisioning done and be out of there by early afternoon.

You can do your provisioning online now with Bobbys. Bobby's Market Place, British Virgin Islands - Supermarket, Villa and Yacht Provisioning Specialists
You usually get into Tortola in the afternoon or late in the evening. Many companies will let you sleep aboard that night and not charge. Some charge a small fee. This way you don't have to pay for a whole day boat's charter which run from noon to noon. Sleep aboard first night, provision in the morning and sail off in the afternoon. I prefer the second tier companies because they are a lot more flexible this way.

[Fotoman]

Used Conch Charters last time and was very pleased. Nice folks, good prices and the boat was in good shape.

[JustHank]

In February we chartered a Lagoon 420 hybrid through Catamaran Company () and had a good experience. Nanny Cay is a nice little marina, and the folks were pretty nice. In May we chartered an FP Mahe 36 through TMM Yacht Charters (http://www.sailtmm.com, and had an even better experience. TMM's staff was excellent, the boat was in great shape and well-equipped, and Tim Johnson (reservations on the net) and Corinne (at the Tortola Road Reef base) were really friendly and professional.