Boatyball have successfully identified an issue/problem for many sailors in the BVI, i.e. the fact that if you want to be guaranteed a mooring ball then you may have to adjust your end-of-day timings to be sure of getting one. Some sailors don’t want to adjust their timings…therefore problem.

Problem = opportunity & market

Problem + solution = profit

However, as I see it, they have not yet identified a genuine solution!

1.) As has been proven so far, there will always be an element that don’t follow the rules. So booking a ball doesn’t mean you get one. Come dusk…you may well be buggered if you don’t know how to use that sharp heavy thing attached to the chain at the pointy end.
a. Boat already on your ball won’t move…what next? Are you going to fight them?! So far it sounds like the ‘mooring managers’ are useless. On this thread alone (and we have seen it ourselves with other firms) it has been reported that Horizon Yacht Charter Captains will happily remain on national park moorings overnight…which is illegal and carries a fine. If that doesn’t stop them doing it…then what do Boatyball expect to do about them using their balls?
b. Boat on ball has gone ashore (maybe tactically timed) what next? Cut them loose?!

2.) Mooring balls have ALWAYS been first come first serve. Moorings with Boatyball are STILL first come first serve…the clock just begins at midnight the night before rather than mid-afternoon on the day. And that is assuming your reservation leads to you getting a ball…and some other Captain hasn’t snagged your ball / done a deal with the dockmaster / refuses to move.

3.) In the case of Anegada, some balls don’t have the depth for larger monohulls. Our experience is you choose a ball depending on what you can get to. When you get close to zero you hit reverse! What if you have reserved and pain for a ball you then find is too shallow for you?

4.) You arrive with a reservation into a nearly empty mooring field…the ball next to the one you have reserved and paid for is occupied by a 62 ft cat. Which clearly is too big for the mooring and may jeopardise the safety of your vessel in the night. What next? This thread alone has a report of such a vessel being on a Boatyball mooring. Does this mean they are not vetting which vessels are allowed to use them?

5.) You arrive with a reservation into a nearly empty mooring field…the ball next to the one you have reserved and paid for is occupied by a boat filled with fun-loving young hooligans playing loud music at all hours. You have no issue with them having their fun, but might otherwise have chosen a different ball…but, its already booked and paid for, so you’re stuck.

If the biggest aggro or hassle you encounter when sailing in the BVI is worrying about getting a ball at the end of the day, then you’re having a pretty good day. If however as a result of Boatyball your day begins at Midnight to reserve a ball and ends with a fight with some idiot captain who won’t vacate the ball you reserved then…suddenly you’re having a bad day.

This is the BVI, not London. We don’t need Uber, we don’t need a bigger runway, we don’t need more resorts, we don’t need more cruise-ships and we don’t need Boatyball.

And yes…this view stands in the way of capitalism and ‘progress’…but hell, that’s why we come to the BVI in the first place! To get away from all these things in our own frantic, hectic, over-developed, over-commercialised, over-cookied, non-stop lives!

...just our opinion!