Grabbed a ball there for one night toward the end of our trip. Only four boats on moorings. Two anchored.

Majority of the mooring balls were in unusable shape. Painters badly frayed, destroyed or missing.
After cruising around, we finally found one with a working painter.
Even the one we found, we had to dive on to untangle the painter from around the ball.

Oceans 7 was not too busy. Saw one dingy go over for happy hour and one maybe for dinner.
Someone from Oceans 7 came around in the morning to collect the $40.
Not to friendly so did not get a chance to chat about who is responsible for maintenance on all the damaged mooring balls.

Saw at least one ball with a note attached -- "Needs Maintenance, DO NOT USE."

Know that Oceans 7 is yet another Romney Enterprise and their main interest is shipping cruise shippers to their bar after picking them up at the dock ( they have exclusive rights to go right up to the ship..thanks to the deal made by their late Dad)They also own the remains of the Jolly Roger/Fish N Lime and many other BVI properties...

So, I'm a chartering newb - we just returned from our first charter in the BVI.

When we were at Great Harbor, the ball we were on had a missing painter. I wound up tying to the eye at the end of the mooring chain (that the painter itself would normally attach to). It was a little more difficult than simply grabbing a painter, but otherwise we had no problems.

Was that a bad thing for me to do?

I would not tie to a ball without a painter - especially in Great Harbor. So many bad balls there I would not risk it even with an intact painter. There might be other issues with the ball you can’t readily see. In some fields the painters are removed if there are other issues with the tackle.

If it's just for a couple hours, you should be fine. But, if it's overnight and especially if its rough a line chafing through could be a concern.

Now, if the ball itself is poorly maintained it doesn't matter what you tie to, you're in trouble.

Painters are often removed from balls that are unserviceable below the water. I would want a very careful look at the ground tackle with dive gear before tying off. On a related note I still see boats using one dock line run from each bow cleat through the painter eye. Stop doing this! It wrecks the painter eye and is not safe.

Why not Anchor if there are many suspect moorings??

Oh I remember --*** please send more anchors !!! we used the Two we started with already !

We go thru several anchors every trip...

Northeast shoreline at Great Harbour has a shelf suitable for anchoring. Gets a little crowed with more than three boats.
Mooring field along the southern shore is 45+ feet deep. Not so good for anchoring.