In the next few years will likely have to find a place to keep my boat when it comes out of charter service. Options if we stay in BVI? Advice appreciated.

I've kept boats at the Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbour and at Nanny Cay with no problems. Nanny Cay is a well-oiled operation but is not the least expensive place to store a boat. There are other yards in the BVI but your choice might be limited by your boat size (and draft).

Look at your flight options. It is very likely that St Thomas is a better choice. It's about getting to your boat. Independent Boatyard and Compass Point both on the eastern part of St Thomas give you easy access to St John and the BVI's. Cheaper provisioning and a short trip from the airport.
Jay

I think it goes way beyond getting to and provisioning the boat. A competent yard and available services is also critical. I have no idea as to the caiiber available on st thomas. I'm sure Jay does.

This is less of an issue for me obviously because I keep twenty boats running and have access to suppliers and contractors that wouldn't be readily available to the general public.

That being said we have a Budget Marine, Island Marine outfitters and a good Yanmar dealer on island. Volvo not so much. As for the yard I had my boat hauled at Independent last year for bottom work. It worked out ok. If I was going to haul for Hurricane season I would go to Puerto Rico or Spanish Town, Nanny Cay is full. That has little to do with where to keep the boat for ease of use. You don't have to haul the same place you dock.

St Thomas is just plain old more accessible. Better flights, more flights, less expensive flights. So if the goal is to have it in the water and ready to use then that's a no brainer. If you want it hauled while your gone then talk to Nanny Cay they have a program for that and I'm sure Evan will be along shortly to talk about it. He has done it both ways.

Jay

FYI I've been working on a survey to the TTOL members somewhat on this topic. I'll light a fire under it this weekend and get it out. Might help you a little bit with your planning.

Yes, we have kept our boat in Nanny Cay, VGHY, and Compass Pt. When we were at Compass Pt, my son lived aboard and paid the slip which is much more expensive then Nanny Cay or VGYH. No offense Jay, but we just do not like Independent Boatyard. Since Jay does his own work, no problem. We have had issues with outrageous quotes for repairs. We did not want to leave the boat in the water after Greg moved off island. We were not happy with the dry dock options or rules at Independent. To recap, VGYH is the least expensive, but difficult to get to and repair options or limited. We loved Nanny Cay for so many reasons. Restaurants, chandlery, provisions, pool, hotel if needed, and generally the people are very friendly. PM with any other questions

just curious, what is the general cost per year for these marinas for say a 35 foot mono?

I pay $16.50 a foot plus utilities at Independent.

Is that cost per year??

Per Month

Ok. That's what I thought. If it was that annually I was going to start boat shopping in the BVI.

Like Jay, I keep my boat at IBY. I do the majority of my own work too along with watching after a few boats in the marina for friends. No I do not like much of the BS at IBY. I use it because it is safest place to keep a boat in the water year round on St Thomas. I really like the people at Nanny Cay. Logistically it just doesn't work for me to keep a boat there. As mentioned, they seem to be full much of the time. Unless I'm having some sort of emergency, I do not intend to haul out at IBY ever again. Some of my friends have stopped using IBY for hurricane storage and moved to Virgin Gorda. They report substantial savings along with organized and friendly staff.

lol I got overly excited about that as well!!!! crap <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />

Compass Point Marina has a Budget marine supply store and machine and wood working shop.
The only thing is your draft has to be less then 6'
And your only five minutes from Red Hook. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/toast.gif" alt="" />

Looking primarily BVI or possibly Puerto Rico ( we fly out of there...). Would need to leave on the hard late spring to fall or have some yacht care service as can so far only get down for a few months. Great info so far!

I think you mean Independent not Compass Pt when describing Budget Marine and Bruce's metal shop. There are a lot of boats drawing more than 6' coming and going. You just have to know where the channel is. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Thumbsup.gif" alt="" />

Last year Kenny, the yard manager, dredged and put in all new channel markers, making entrance much easier. I would either run aground or touch the mud monthly. Getting fuel across the channel can be tricky as well and we only draw 5'6".

Did you take your sailboat up to that little fuel dock? I usually just have the mobile fuel truck top me off when they are filling the power boats near me.

I learned about the fuel truck about a year later, <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" /> very nice and convenient.

Why not keep it in charter with one of the smaller companies? We bought our first charter boat with Sunsail and moved it to BVIYC for another five years. We then sold her for twice the remaining mortgage, basically getting our initial deposit back after ten years. Essentially, we sailed for 10 years for free, and our boat was always well maintained.
We are now doing it all over again with TMM.

It was pretty nice leaving Independent Boat Yard 2 1/2 hours before our direct flight this morning. Being able to walk to Food Center and Budget Marine is great. Others hit the challenges of having work done and the higher marina cost. But, with three or four trips a year the ferry and fees stack up. But, for us the biggest advantage is having a partnership with Capt. Jay.

Cheers, RickG

Hi Rick.
Is your boat in charter? Is that what you mean by partnership?

No to be clear. Rick and I own a boat together for private use. The boat is not in charter. Rick and I have been friends for a long time. Prior to buying De Life. Both of us wanted more personal use of the boat than would typically been available on a boat placed in charter. I also didn't want to put a personal boat in charter that directly competed with our owners at CYOA.

Rick and Capt. Jay own De Life together as partners, not in charter

Yep, Jay and I have known each other in de islands before Jay moved down and I started sailing. Partners make owning a boat much more affordable. But, as in any relationship, it only works if every partner works at it. Jay's a great marine mechanic and his reputation speaks for itself. My contribution is more on the financial and legal management side. I also cleaned the bilges on Friday! We all have our skills.

Other folks here are members of larger partnerships with different structures. We originally planned on adding a third partner, but really don't have the need. One challenging partner can make things a lot less fun.

I seriously considered the charter ownership route and ran a lot of financial analysis on the options. Bottom line was that a refit former charter boat setup as a partnership had the best bottom line and most flexibility. Caveat that with trusted on-island partner. I'm quite pleased with the result.

Cheers, RickG

Rick, we are seriously considering moving to the islands in the next few years. Have to get the twins off to college and then we will be empty nesters. Since we will still need to work, I think I would prefer to live on land at first. But...if I'm down there would want a boat for use. Your arrangement sounds like a win, win. Some questions... Did you say your boat was a charter boat prior to you buying it? If so, did you find that it was less expensive to buy a used charter boat rather than another used boat? Do you feel that the wear and tear on a charter boat is more than on another used boat? Where do you and Jay keep the boat when not in use? What do you do with it during hurricane season? Where did you purchase her? Did you rename her or stay with the same name? Sorry so many questions but starting to plan for what everyone says is my dream but, like my parents did when they "gave it all up", I call it more of a plan!

I am also looking at the option of placing a boat in the VI in a partnership. We are looking at doing something a little different then most partnerships. We would like to purchase a high end monohull around 50 feet with all the bells and whistles. We are steering away from used charter boats and looking at lightly used private yachts. It's a huge buyers market at the moment. We prefer to put the boat in the USVI but because of cost the BVI was looking like the best option. May have to revisit that with the posts on the independent yard.
We also want to limit it to 4 to 5 partners. We have several boats in mind but need 2 more partners. We have found most people interested shy away at a 80k buy in but are fine with the recurring costs. After owning two charter boats I believe the ongoing costs would be much higher on a ex charter boat. The expense of upgrading a charter boat to the standard we want might even make it more expensive then a private boat. We also want a full sized owners cabin.
I think that over a 5 year period the cost would end up comparable to charter ownership but with the advantage of a high end boat. There would also be cost savings in being able to keep gear such as paddle boards and scuba tanks on the boat full time avoiding both the hassles and charges in renting.
The real issue is finding the right partners. If not a charter boat might be back in my future. Really miss the VI's.

caribbean girl, we bought a boat never in charter and it does make a huge difference on wear and tear. We bought a 2000 Beneteau in 2009 with only 850 hours on the Yanmar. A charter boat 9 years old will have in the neighborhood of 5-6,000 hours. Boats in charter are much less than private vessels. Newer charter boats have many bells and whistles, older charter boats are pretty bare. The surveyor thought our 9 year old sails were no more than 3 years old. We looked at many charter boats and private boats, generally there is no comparison.

Sail2wind, where do you keep your boat? Are you in a partnership?

We were in Compass Pt, VGYH, and Nanny Cay over the past 6 years. We are now located in St.Martin. Yes I have a partner. Together we use the boat 4-5 months a year. The best part of not chartering is we have all our dive equipment aboard, clothes, bathroom stuff, and a full bar. We can go down island for a month with carry on, unless we have a bunch of boat stuff.

There's a good discussion to be had round ex-charter vs. never chartered. If I had more time I'd ride a shorter response. I'm not an expert, but I can shed some light on my experience starting naive and ending up coming home yesterday after two weeks of de life on our boat.

The boats I really do prefer for long-term cruising, like sail2wind's Beneteau 40CC, tend to have larger cabins and more storage. There's a Whitby 42 for sale on St. Thomas that I've been watching that would make a nice full-time cruiser. But, you have to be honest with yourself on your usage. We're not full-time cruisers and having full-time cruising features is going to drive up the maintenance costs.

Our usage looks like lots of weekends for Jay & Deb, lots of two-week trips for me and Sweet Christine. Both of us will frequently have guests. That starts looking like a classic 2-head/3-cabin boat pretty quickly. We challenged our assumptions, talked about all the options, looked at a lot of boats, ran the numbers and bought a very specific former Moorings boat. The usage model also means that we need to keep her in the water.

Our Beneteau 40 Oceanis was in service for three years with Moorings and was purchased out of charter by a Norwegian family that cruised the boat for a year before selling it. They did a full survey and Moorings hit every issue, down to replacing rusted clamps on fresh water fittings and putting new sails on her. I'll hand it to the Moorings phase-out crew, they'll fix everything that you point out to them.

The Norwegian owners then added a solar arch and a wee dinghy (remember the dinghy). When we did the sea trial she was extremely clean. The owner had just replaced some components, after accepting our offer, because he felt there was deferred maintenance. The attitude of the owner makes a difference. We had De Life surveyed and we had all of the issues addressed and received credits for expenses at closing. We chose to replace a few things with new rather than repaired components. The work was done before closing on the sale at the yard at Nanny Cay and we were happy with the rigger and mechanic that did the work.

We liked this model boat of all that we looked at because it had reasonable roominess, good sailing characteristics and was a good value. The Cyclades models out of Moorings you see are a pretty big quality step down. The 393s you see offered have been hard used and take a good bit of refit work and the 3-cabin version has a crowded galley. We did see a nice 393 that had been well restored, but the price reflected that.

Charter boats get a lot more use than privately owned boats. They also depreciate much faster. I'm not an expert on buying boats, but surveyors with good reputations can be a big asset. A thorough survey lets you know exactly what you are in for, but that takes time and money. There's been a lot written about a proper survey, but our surveyor did a thorough job and we really didn't have any surprises. To understand if a former charter boat is the right choice you need to look at the specific boat and the time you have to dedicate to the process. If you're going to buy a boat out of the charter fleet and you're willing to camp out and supervise the phase-out process you may get a good boat for less than other options. If you're willing to wait until low season for phase out you might get a bit more attention.

caribbeangirl13, we renamed our boat in June. The ceremony was fun and the champagne flowed. We keep her at Independent Boat Yard. One of the big reasons we chose Independent is that it is sheltered and we can keep her in the slip if there is a named storm. We (Jay) need to rig storm lines, pull the sails and the canvas off the boat. The marina does close when there is a storm threat and you have to be in the slip by the time the close or you are out of luck. Independent can also take our 6'5" draft. We used Clive at BVI Yacht Sales as our buyers' broker. The boat was in Antigua when we put an offer on her, but check out sail and survey were done at Nanny Cay. Christine and I are working our plan too. My youngest is headed off to college or a gap year doing service work in August and my older daughter has a great job and is apartment hunting.

GeorgeC1, I'd love a full-size owners cabin. We might combine our two aft cabins at some point and make a large cabin with pantry/storage. But, that's not a walk around bed. After two weeks on the boat I'm pretty comfortable with what we have. But, I'm comfortable having fewer owners and less hassles. I like Capt. Jay's quote "You don't get any more fun tickets with a more expensive boat." But, you might have more fun on a hot day if the refrigerator keeps the beer cold and can run the a/c if it starts raining.

Since we bought De Life in May we've had to do some planned maintenance - haulout/bottom paint, replaced the wee dinghy with a used dinghy, ordered a new swim ladder and replacement propeller, gas grill. Unplanned? Starter, water pump, replaced a thru hull and a transmission rebuild. We have a maintenance to do list that we're working through. I need to update it with the items from our most recent cruise.

Cheers, RickG

We bought our boat through Clive as well, nice guy and very thorough.
Geoff Williams did our survey. We looked at a 39 in Pro Valors fleet, a 2005 that really need an entire redo on the interior, too many hours, and an ancient GPS.

Thanks everyone! Your input is really appreciated!