Your kids will love this vacation. Every year our kids ask to go to the BVIs.

My husband, the sailor, and I have done the BVIs at least 8 times. The first time was on our honeymoon and the last time was before Covid when our two boys were in high school. The first time we took our boys they were 9 & 11 and we were on the monohull on the same size as your boat. My husband is the only one in our family who has sailing experience. We don’t own a boat so we are not as experience as you guys and we were just fine. We always charter with the Moorings and they did not require a skipper to evaluate us. We have charted both mono & cats up to 50ft. I think it is pretty ridiculous if they make you do a 2nd day with the skipper esp since you own a boat.

The difficulty with the larger boat is when you need to dock to get water. When you return to base, you can have them jump aboard to motor the boat into a slip if needed.

Here are my recommendations…

1) Gets the kids involved. Have them get familiarized with knots and have them be the ones who are responsible for the bumpers. Also they can be your eyes while sailing. There are fishing lines/nets to watch our for. Also they can be on the lookout for turtles and dolphins. One of them can be the mooring ball guide.. hand signals established on guiding you to the ball and when to slow down. Another one can be responsible with communications… with the motor running it can be noisy. Have the communications guide, repeat instructions from your wife and moorings guide. Make the sailing a team effort with everyone having a job.

We had the kids be on swim team so they are strong swimmers before the trip. We are in So Cal and have junior guards. If there is something like this Miami, sign them up so they are comfortable swimming in the ocean and know how to get out of rip currents. Obviously this won’t be occurring on your trip but definately helps to be strong ocean swimmers while snorkeling.

2) If you can, I would do a sleep aboard the night before sailing and do your provisioning the night before sailing. Also the sleep aboard, gets you familiar with the workings of the boat before you leave. If there are any mechanical problems, they can be resolved before you sail. With provisioning, have all the heavy items like water and drinks delivered to the boat so you don’t have to hassle with lugging back to the boat.

3) AC - You will be so glad to have especially at night.

4) Baths. There are mooring ball at the Baths. If you plan to do this, you will probably dingy everyone to the shore. It will be a long swim for the littlest one. Or if you rent a car, that is one way to visit. If you want to do a one way trip to through the boulders, there is a hiking trail (might be long for the littlest) to the far end of the rocks then you explore your way back to the beach. You can avoid the hike and explore in the boulders to the end and come back the same way.

4) Anegada. For all our times going, we never did Anegada until our last trip. Since you have 10 days, you will have the time. It is a long sail and very shallow once you get to the mooring ball field. I highly recommend doing the conch island tour with Kelly.

5) Problems. Our experience with problems and stress usually have never been due to sailing but due to boat problems. Something with the boat is not working. We had to switch boats once. Twice, while motoring we got tangled in fishing line. 2nd time the boys were big enough that they were the ones with the knife cutting away the line. With every trip, we have run into some type of problem which were stressful but after every trip, we want to go back and do it again.

Hope your family loves the BVI as much as we do. LMK if you have any other questions.