We just chartered a FP in May. This was our 17th charter in the BVI but our first on a FP. There were 10 of us and we’re also in the Senior Citizen category. The boat was comfortable and spacious, but we were not fans of the actual sailing performance. For example,
• The boat did not point at all – way worse than any other cat we’ve chartered.
• The air conditioners were on 7 different units and all seven breakers were located down in the engine compartment. They had to be switched on/off one at a time and that meant either crawling into the engine compartment every time you wanted to turn on/off the generator or laying on your belly and reach blindly backwards.
• For our boat the weight of the sail overpowered the electric winch so the sails had to be hauled up largely by hand. Conversely, they then had to be hauled down by hand because they wouldn’t drop on their own. The last 3 feet of sail was particularly difficult and required 2 people up at the mast trying to tug them down.
• The winches could only be run 10 seconds at a time followed by a 5 second rest or they would trip. And the breakers for those were down in the port engine compartment.
• As the dock manager at our charter company said “The French build boats for piddling around the Med. If you want a real sail boat, get one built in South Africa.”
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