Given that the max boat length for mooring is 60 ft, what do the larger charter cats, such as the Aletheia and Kings Ransom, do? Do they have to stay in slips? Boy, that would really cut down on the places you could overnight, wouldn't it?

anchor

Sometimes those of us on *gasp* boats smaller than 60 feet even use that funny hook on the front

And you can always call the charter company and tell them:

" We need more anchors , we have used all the ones you gave us on the boat already"

There are lot of really cool anchorages that don't have a single mooring ball, where you'll often find yourself to be only one of two or three other boats. Its pretty nice.

You will find that many crewed boats will anchor even if moorings are available because they don't want to incur the cost of the Mooring. This is especially true when they are between charters and have no way to pass the cost on.

Thanks for the info. Somehow our group of newbies got the idea that, between the grassbeds and the coral, anchoring in the BVI is generally iffy. Glad to hear that's not the case!

Actually that is usually the sandy and best spot to anchor

You mean some people actually use the "parking hook"? <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" />

Its always fun when one of the 58' barges on a mooring at Cooper has a couple of dinghies on long painters. We had an interesting conversation with one - hey, 60' LOA means boat + painters + dinghy. Their dinghies were close enough for me to fend with my foot. I spoke politely with their captain, but he argued that their dinghy outboard scraping my hull would be my problem. I suggested pulling his dinghies forward would save me the trouble of hailing his charter company on 16. He complied after saying some unfriendly words.

This is just one example of why we are tired of the mooring field scrum in the BVIs.

Cheers, RickG

The liability of a moored dinghy colliding with another moored or anchored vessel brings many complicated admiralty laws into question. If you ever found your way to admiralty court each on of those vessels is its own hull with rights and burdens. If there ever was any actual damage. Most of us would get dinged for failure to maintain an anchor watch. Assuming an adequate anchor watch the boat dragging anchor is always at fault. Two boats swinging together share the liability. I do not think the no boats over X would play when two boats swing together securely anchored. In the case of the outboard the 12 foot anchored vessel would be the party anyway and your anchor watch should have taken efforts to keep your vessel clear. Same with the dinghy. Each covers their own shared responsibility damage. The jerk may have been legally correct.