Grenada :: Bareboat Advice

[SillyCs]

Howdy folks. Hope you are all fairing well!

We are planning to visit Grenada and charter through Horizon. Originally this was just my wife and I but we recently picked up another great couple to travel with. So, 4 of us total.

When it was just my wife and I, we were going to take either a Beneteau 45 or a Jeanneau 519 (we want genset and AC at night). Now that we have another couple we are considering the Jeanneau 519 or a Lagoon 42. The Lagoon does not have a water maker but has almost the same size water tank">fresh water tank around 160gals. The Lagoon is 20% more than the 519 but now we are splitting between two couples rather than just us floating the charter fees. 20% more but splitting 2 ways is much less than us originally paying 100% of the lower cost.

A little backstory:
I love sailing monohulls... feeling the balance, feeling it cut through the water, and, at times, really pushing for aggressive performance. I just love it even typing it. We belong to a sailing club in Austin, TX where we regularly sail a Beneteau 35, but we are talking lake sailing on a much smaller boat than the 45 or 51. So it excites me to think of sailing a large mono out in the windwards would be so fun!

However, my wife and I plan on owning a cat someday in the next 3-5 years. And eventually full time liveaboard. We have younger kids so the cat is a requirement for our needs and our comfort with kids on board. I naturally enjoy the stability of the cat, and the space, and the redundancy, and they are fun to sail too! But a factor I feel is, if I am going to own a cat, even though I want the fun of the temporary large monohull sailing experience, should we just do the cat so I will get more experience with the cat?

So ok, I am now mindlessly typing when I am supposed to be in bed. I will stop here. Share your thoughts on any of the above.

Good night.

[Tillsbury]

I’d say since you regularly sail a monohull and are thinking of a cat, then you should probably take the cat to make sure you’re still happy with the decision I guess.

[Flagman101]

Whats your sailing plan? Going north tp the grenadines?
Cats don’t like going upwind.
Cats are soooo stable at anchor
What about the others experience in sailing?

[AiniA]

I think the cat makes sense wrt your future plans.

[chuckr]

I have no idea when you are planning on doing the charter but it is not going to be this year. Everything is shut down. I am currently in St Lucia and all the charter boats seem to have been put to sleep. Show up here in a boat and you get met by the CG who will escort you to a dock where you get met by police and health care workers who will escort you to a waiting to take you to quarantine for the next 2 weeks.
Some don't let you in. We are trying to get to Trinidad for hurricane season and while we are talking to Trinidad it is really uncertain when we will get out of here and south and we plan on doing it direct. Will we make it by June 1 -- no idea.


You got lots of time -- like a year to think about it.

[admiralslater]

We keep our Cat in Grenedaduring the hurricane season. I agree that you should charter a cat to give yourself a baseline of knowledge. See how you like the sailing as balanced against the comfort etc . When it comes time to purchase then you will know what ito look for . As for the the usual naysayers regarding sailing ability , they are probably correct as it relates to what is available to charter . But there are a lot of boats out there that sail well . Have fun your wife will love it . Sometimes Chris Rundlett from LTD sailing in Greneda has access to different boats for charter.

[Ded reckoner]

If you are chartering for any amount of time, you will have challenges with water. What's the production of the watermaker and how will it be powered? Without a watermaker, you will need water jugs/jerry cans, a dinghy with motor, water sources located on land, and a lot of time to ferry water supplies. Figure usage at about 10 gallons per person per day. It'll take discipline from a lot of people to do much better than that.

[chuckr]

Originally Posted by Ded reckoner

Figure usage at about 10 gallons per person per day. It'll take discipline from a lot of people to do much better than that.

10 gallons a day per person?? are you kidding. How much do you use at home? WOW that is a lot.

[admiralslater]

Before this thread goes off on a water usage tangent, you can by water in several places i the Grenadines ,Carriacou,Union and Bequia

[SillyCs]

Thank you for all the insight! Each are valuable.

We were planning on heading north to Carriacou and island hop.

Wife is learning to become a wonderful first mate. The other couple has zero experience, although we are all 40-50 year old, athletic and healthy and highly mobile and capable. I am a flight instructor and professional pilot so instructing in a way new crew can understand is second nature. Of the 4 other charter trips in monos and cat and multiple outings with our local sailing club pretty much every time I’m near single handing with some taught assists to the new crew. Ultimately working to a point where the new crew (who are eager to learn) are manning the helm, holding headings, basic sail trimming etc on their own.

I agree with you who recommend the cat based on where we are ultimately headed with owning a liveaboard cat. When we are met with headwinds we don’t mind single motor sailing that day. Shucks our last trip to the BVI was in a Lagoon 450 in October. It was our first experience of almost zero wind for the week!!! Sadly we Motored most of the trip. 5ish knots with a basic charter set of sails and trying to get around our itinerary by sail power was less important than the points of interest we were trying to make. So, powering up wind won’t bug us too much.

This particular L420 does not have a water maker. We are just two couples and have advised the importance of water conservation to all. Short showers and efficient dishwashing As keys to success. If we were any more than two couples then we would up the boat to one w a watermarker. The Jeanneau and the L420 both carry roughly 160 gals of water. We have done 6 day trips with two couples on a Jeanneau 44 and made it just fine without replenishing water - I don’t recall the size of the tank but can only assume it’s less than the larger J and L. We could top the spare cans or get water en route as a back up. Not too worried about this topic.

The fact that all is firmly locked down currently is the determinant as to go/no-go, and is the main concern. But that being said, the flexibility of the airlines and the charter companies will allow for changing dates... so nothing lost if we book and the gates are still closed. We were rolling the dice for an early June attempt. But again, if this fails, nothing lost, just a practice in patience and accepting none of us are in control. Not to open a whole side topic of debate - but it appears the trend is a slow Global return to some new evolving normal. My hope is there is some smart way to include reopening borders and economies in the coming weeks.

Again- thank you all for your input.

[Flagman101]

You can fill up on water in petite martinique. No problems
In union also but harder to dock. Bequia you can ask the water boat.
Keep in mind that prevalant wind direction is NNE
This makes going north a bit harder.
This to be factored in your planning.

[bstreep]

What others have said. We chartered a cat in Belize about 15 years ago, and hated it. It convinced us to buy a monohull, which we did. That being said we are doing a cat in French Polynesia next year. We did a mono there last year.

[Flagman101]

Care to elaborate on why you hated a cat?
If so why go for avcat again?

[Mystic38]

A 51 ft monohull will make the northbound trip far more pleasantly than the cat.. the cat may not even make that leg without a tack.. but will be perfect for anchoring.

either way set off pre dawn

[bstreep]

Originally Posted by Flagman101

Care to elaborate on why you hated a cat?
If so why go for avcat again?

Sure. Some of it was THE cat. An FP Belize 43. But much of it is cats in general. I grew up a dinghy racer. Sailing a big cat is like sailing a tennis court. It's not "fun". The cockpits are huge, but horribly hot when at anchor/moored. The so-inviting trampolines are not comfortable, in the least.



In particular for this boat: The anchor chain piles into a locker about 12" deep. You have to climb in and knock the pile over every 15-20 feet. The intakes for the A/C units are about 3" below the water line, and they therefore pick up weed. The weed doesn't make it to the strainer, it clogs in the thru hull. Which is underneath the aft bunk on each side. You have to tear apart the bunk to clean it, which generally happens between 3 and 4am. Because weight is such a concern, on this particular cat, everything was falling apart. It was 5 months old. When they built it, they undersized the generator. You couldn't run the A/Cs in the salon and cabins at the same time. The owner was a regular on here, and he recently sold the boat. He complained about what charterers did to the boat, but really they just weren't built for the charter trade. Again, this was about 15 years ago.



Why are we going back with a cat this time? Well, we went with a monohull back in October. It's very difficult to find a mono in FP with A/C and a generator. This particular boat, a Dufour 520 was grossly oversold to us by Dream Yacht. It was supposed to have 4 double cabins. The two doubles forward had bunks 33" wide at the hips. The boat was 7 months old, and horribly maintained. No freezer, no way to keep ice. We were told by the charter base "that's why we drink our beer warm". And "never buy a French boat, french boats are $*#&!" Worst condition charter boat we've had in the 16 charters we've done. We are all "older" now, and decided we are willing to forgo some of the "sailing" characteristics we like, and be more comfortable.



We spent $10K per couple on that 2-1/2 week vacation. The boat and DYC sucked. So, for another $1500 per couple, we are chartering a Lagoon 46 from Tahiti Yacht Charters. DYC offered us a huge discount to go back with them, and we declined. They refused to acknowledge our problems, and they required us to sign a statement saying we wouldn't post bad reviews. They do that on all "problem" charters, which is why you don't see many bad reviews.