Mooring balls were initially installed to help protect the environment in the BVI. The US Virgin islands installed them in the National Parks for the same reason. However, maintaining and insuring mooring balls comes at a cost and many of the moorings in the BVI have not been maintained properly. If boats cannot trust moorings then this will have a negative impact on both the environment and local establishments. One of our goals at BoatyBall was to help promote maintained and insured moorings.

BoatyBall is simply a service to help simplify the payment process for moorings. BoaytBall does not own the moorings. The app was designed to support both first come first serve moorings as well as reservation only moorings. The resorts, mooring ball owners, and many boaters wanted to start with the reservation feature. We never expected this feature to have the demand that it has had. We have had over 2100 reservations in the last three months. I understand that there are many boaters that will never use the app or the reservations feature but no one is forcing anyone to use the app. There are plenty of unmaintained an uninsured moorings in the BVI that will never be in the app. There are also plenty of suitable anchorage sites for those who choose to anchor.

Finally, like many of you we feel there needs to be additional moorings installed in the BVI. Up until now there has not been a good way of tracking usage and demand. BoatyBall makes it easy for mooring ball owners to track the usage and we believe this data will justify the need for additional moorings to be installed in the BVI. We appreciate the support and feedback that we have received from this group.