Oceanis
2004 393 Beneteau

Chartered Jan 7th to 17th, 2013.

As soon as I found out Brent had a monohull, I emailed him and set the dates. For the price, it’s hard to beat a charter with Captain’s Compass!

We arrived in Roadtown a day early and Brent took our luggage aboard so that we didn’t have to lug it around the island while we were touring with our rental car. He also loaned us a cooler for the day, and we loaded up on ice, drinks and munchies right there at the new store.

The Boat:

The boat was great. She sailed awesome on the jib alone in high winds; I had her doing 7 knots on a beam reach back to Nanny Cay on the last day!

The forward berth was great with the head forward, port side berth, and drawers under for storage as well as a starboard seat and lots of hull storage on either side - also a starboard hanging locker.

Ventilation in the boat was the best I’ve ever seen. We kept the forward head hatch open and it basically put wind through the whole boat (We had high winds up to 40 most of the week). The forward berth had TWO opening hatches, and the salon had two hatches up towards the forward berth. The rear cabins had two hatches that opened under the dodger, so they could be left open in all kinds of weather! Even with lighter winds, the boat still got plenty of air – and there were fans in each of the cabins.

Everything ran great. We had some issues with the table – one of the kids was sleeping in the salon, and the screws were stripped out of the base – by the third time we tried to put it back to a table, the base came right out! We just left it down and ate outside or al fresco. It wasn’t at all loose when we started, so I am sure it was not used this way for awhile.

The fridge kept cold, the two burner stove & oven worked great (no broiler). The chart plotter, depth sounder etc., worked great.

She sailed well, the sails had just been replaced, and all lines with the exception of the starboard jib sheet were new (slightly frayed at the stay).

She has roller furling jib & main, dodger & bimini. The cockpit table is small, but the cockpit was big enough or 6 people (4 adults 2 teenagers) to be comfortable in while sailing.

We had rough weather the first few days, so we didn’t get much sailing in (newbies with us), but for six people it was great – lots of room to prepare meals, no problems above decks.

The dinghy was aluminum with a 5hp Tohatsu which ran great until our dinghy flipped overnight at Cooper. She’s a light dinghy! With just me (a 140lb lady) in it, I had to lean way forward to get it to go anywhere – I needed an extra long handle – I musta looked like wonderwoman in the dinghy, going through the anchorage leaning way forward with my arm straight out in front of me holding the rope! ~laughs~. No problem with two or more in it though, especially if one of them is Jim – he’s a big boy! By myself, and just sitting, I was nose up in the air and spinning in circles!

Brent had no problem meeting us at Scrub to replace the dinghy motor and clean out the waterlogged fuel for us. We got new fuel at Marina Cay.

I had three issues:

One was not with the boat, but with Brent – and remember, I love chartering from this guy! We could not use the auto pilot, and the chart plotter at the helm was off limits (don’t know if it was disconnected or not, never checked). There was a small plotter at the helm. I had no problem with either, but don’t advertise it if you’re not going to let us use it. I understand his ideology - it’s hard to keep the prices the way they are if he has to keep fixing things that are not required for sailing in the BVI – really, so you need autopilot on your 1 hour sail to the next location? But conversely, Jim & I were on the boat alone the last 4 days and at Leverick Bay, and I was sick, so having the auto helm to get back to where we needed to be to return the boat would have been a bonus – and not something I expected to not be available.

The 2nd issue had to do with the winches – there was only one forward of the cockpit on the starboard side, and one on each side halfway down the cockpit for the jib sheets - which made bringing in the jib a pain in the behind with only two of us onboard in high winds – you had to tack in order to bring it in on from starboard side so that you could use the jib sheet winch to crank in the halyard on the port side. The jib halyard was also not long enough to wrap around the winch to start bringing it in.

The 3rd issue was locking out the outhaul, Cunningham, etc. There were tie wraps on them so that you wouldn’t open the locks. I know, I know KISS. For the price, I won’t complain, but how am I supposed to become better at sail trim if I can’t trim the sails?!

Anyhow, would still rent from Brent again, he gives great service, clean boats, he’s talking about wind generators for all of the boats so that we don’t have to rely on engine running and batteries for refrigeration (that would be a bonus!).

For the price, I think this was by far my best charter yet. New sails, new batteries, new bottom paint, great layout for 6 of us, and dealing with Brent is always a pleasure!

As pointed out elsehwere, this should say furling line, not halyard... <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" />