My wife and I have been Lake Superior boaters for many years. Sailing friends of ours raved about the great times they had in the BVI’s, so we thought we would give it a try. Our original intention was to rent a monohull and just drive it around on the engine with the sails down as we had heard that the distances from place to place were quite short. After some internet research, we decided to charter a Leopard 372 power cat from Moorings for our group of four thereby completely eliminating anything to do with sails. A week before we were to leave, we were advised that there was some problem with the 37’ cat and were given a Moorings 474 power cat as a substitute. There are actually quite a few of these Robertson and Caine boats in the BVI’s although most of them are the sailing version from what we saw at different anchorages. Our first impression of the boat at the Moorings base was WOW! This thing is HUGE, 47’ long, but 25’ WIDE and pretty high off the water as well. The footprint of this boat rivals that of a small home on land and handling it was bound to be interesting.


We ended up spending two nights at the Moorings base aboard the boat while waiting for a misplaced guitar and never actually got a familiarization ride before our departure. I asked the girl doing our orientation if she had read the resume I had sent to our charter rep. She said she hadn’t. A “Friendly captain” was offered to us for an hour, but for one reason or another, he never appeared. So on our departure day, I sparked up the two diesels, hit the shifters and held my breath as we slipped away from the dock. This proved to be interesting as I told my crew to absolutely NOT attempt to fend this heavy boat off of any other boat or dock simply due to the weight of the boat (~18 tons). Leaving the Moorings base, we had to make an abrupt 90 degree turn to leave the wharf and avoid a set of mooring balls in the rather narrow channel (maybe 100’ wide?). This was accomplished by putting the starboard engine into reverse to spin the boat around. As I hadn’t ever driven a twin before, I knew what to do, but this was a heck of a place to try it for the first time with million dollar boats all around!
One of the things that we weren’t’ briefed on was rigging the dinghy on the davits. Moorings keeps the dinghy hidden under the cat so that the base dock looks more appealing, but we had to figure out how to secure it on the davits on our own. We never realized that the dink would swing from side to side in the seas (maybe 4’ or so) that we encountered leaving Road Town harbour, so learned very quickly that it had to be secured diagonally as well as vertically with the ropes provided. It’s also a great idea to REMOVE the drain plug from the dinghy while cruising in case any water were to splash inside…..


On the advice of mono sailing friends, we attempted our first mooring ball pickup at Marina Cay from the starboard side of the boat.

Bad idea on a power cat with 6’ freeboard!

Doing this, the helmsman can’t see the ball and we missed it on our first attempt in the windy anchorage.
We learned very quickly that the ball should be picked up from the center of the boat and also the importance of teamwork and hand signals to the considerably distant helmsman. We sorted this out very quickly and were as proficient as anyone else we saw after assigning specific tasks to each crew member. A short length of line tied to the boathook can save all sorts of grief should the boathook be dropped while trying to pick up the pennant. (We saw a few dropped boathooks during our cruise).


We spent two nights at a slip in Leverick bay. “Dave” helped us secure the boat during our “high wind” docking there while firing off orders to the helm (“Port engine reverse; both engines forward” etc). He mentioned later “You listened; things go well when you listen to instructions!” We also got to meet Gareth and Jenna McDonald, crew of the “Eyesie” a sailing cat of very similar size to our powerboat. Gareth was a great resource for me, showing me how to use the GPS, tricks on piloting the boat and so on. He has made 40 ferry trips from South Africa in a variety of boats so really knows his stuff. We rented a car to drive to the Baths. Nobody has mentioned in the posts I’ve read, the unique smell that you find in this area. I noticed it right away and suppose it has to do with some unique vegetation in that region of the islands. After a brief splash in the ocean, we were deluged with a thunderstorm and sat it out in the beach bar with some rum punches and beers. As a result of the storm, pretty much everyone left the area and we were able to traipse through the caves and pools with nobody else around. A single photo doesn’t do this place justice. I have described it as a random pile of LARGE rocks that create a network of interesting caves and pools.


Our run from Leverick to Anegada was very pleasant with a modest (2’) following sea and clear skies. The 474 has a lovely flybridge with plenty of room for the whole crew. I was able to plunk a waypoint into the GPS and set the autopilot to go the mouth of the channel. Our cat drew only 4’ of water, so we knew we’d be able to navigate the channel into Anegada without too much difficulty. As insurance, we followed behind a mono which we knew would be drawing more water than us! Two buoys were missing; the center red and the last green at the opening of the mooring field. Anegada was our first teamwork mooring and it went off perfectly. Shortly afterwards, we were met by “Barry” from “Whispering Pines” and were offered a swig of his Pusser’s rum. We booked our lobster supper with him on the spot! The next day, we rented a jeep from Dean’s jeep rentals to take a tour of the island. (“Air conditioned”; don’t ask) To get the jeep, the four of us rode to Dean’s on benches in the back of his pickup truck like a small band of freedom fighters. All that was missing were the machine guns! We made it as far as “Flash of Beauty” for beers and some snorkelling. Trust me, the primitive roads on Anegada are not the place to be driving your new Corvette! One fellow we met at the beach suggested that the coral mounds we saw there were encasing various parts of ancient shipwrecks from unfortunate boats that never saw the island in the dark. Possibly due to the time of year, we saw very few others during our afternoon on the beach and pretty much had the place to ourselves.


Our longest run (20 to 25 miles or so) was from Anegada to Cain Garden Bay. This was really neat because of the sunny weather and the confidence that ensued from running the boat for several hours. On the 474, you ride far above the water without a care for wind direction or sail trim. The autopilot worked just great allowing all of us to relax and enjoy the scenery and my Venture’s music (“The Changing Tides” from their “Surfing” album recorded in 1962!) Our intention was to attend Bomba’s “Full Moon party” that evening, but the weather had other plans for us. We ended up mooring in a tremendous downpour and had supper on board the boat. The cat had three separate air conditioners and a generator capable of running all of them at once. Being from Canada, we really appreciated this feature which made the hot, humid conditions bearable at anchor.


We spent two nights at Great harbour on Jost Van Dyke and were able to check out the Bubbly pool. On all of our passages, we found that the boat ran nicely at 1600-1800rpm’s giving a speed of around 8 to 9 knots. Moorings governs the engines to a maximum of 2400rpm and I found that the boat was touchier to steer and created considerably more propeller noise at this setting. I’d guess that top speed would be about 13 knots with these governed power plants.


We spent our final evening at the Bight on Norman Island and made it over to the Willie T for drinks. From the photo albums we were shown, we could see that this place could be pretty wild at times.


We expected to be greeted by a pilot when we returned the boat to the Moorings base, but it didn’t turn out that way. Rather, we picked the pilot up by easing the cat up to one of the piers at the base where he then climbed aboard. By this time, it was easy to do by selectively manipulating the gear shifters.
Debriefing was interesting. Moorings has a full page checklist that I wish we could have seen before we docked. We had to personally remove the bedding from the staterooms (?) and were startled to see that there were large fines for returning the boat with full holding tanks or a plugged toilet ($150.00!). We also had to return the rather tattered and folded chart that had been provided for our cruise. All told, the 474 was a great boat, but really a waste for just two couples. I’m certain that 6 or even 8 people could have shared the boat with room to spare. (We discovered two “crew compartments” shortly before returning the boat. These were two rather Spartan spaces for two crew members to bunk in and shower away from the main accommodations.)


So would we do this again? Definitely, although we couldn’t afford to do this trip every year. It WAS pretty cool to be able to drive this beast and check out some beautiful spots in the BVI’s. For those reading this report, consider a power cat if you have limited sailing experience. We spent most of our time moored and never missed the sails!