We have chartered through Sunsail and The Moorings for the last 15 years in the BVI. We are looking to charter this June and would like to support a local company. Recommendations?

Voyage, TMM, Conch, BVI Yacht Charters

Horizon should be on your list.

We’ve been really happy with CYOA out of St Thomas. Very personalized and thorough service. Super easy, 10 minutes from STT. Provisioning at the huge Plaza Extra store was easy. Mooring is several of the St John bays for a couple of nights was wonderful and no one collected for the mooring balls! Can’t imagine repeating the effort of flying into Beef Island or taking a ferry over to Tortola from STT. Getting on the boat as quickly as possible seems far more appealing. We’re 2 adults and 2 14 year old girls on a 45’ monohull. They have lots of cats too.

TMM... we have chartered with them for years. Great folks and very professional. Love them so much that we decided to place a yacht in charter with them.

BVIYC...

We have used Conch many times and they have never let us down. Cindy and the team are always very helpful. The boats are a little older but well maintained.

Virgin Islands Yacht Charters located in the east end of St. Thomas. Fly in to STT, take a taxi to your boat. Avoid the ferry cluster. Easy sail to Sopers Hole or JVD to clear in. Nice selection of new(2016-2018) FP Helia 44's and some mono's. Great people to work with on your next charter!

I ran into Cindy, Brian and Peter when I was on island a few weeks ago. They are enthusiastic about continuing to expand the fleet. I look forward to chartering with them again soon!

Another recommendation for TMM.

I'll also throw Captains Compass (thecaptainscompass.com) out there, but if you are used to the Moorings/Sunsail experience, that may not be for you. CC is more of a low cost alternative, but we sailed with Captain Brent once and absolutely felt it was a great value.

I second captains compass

Thistle, your STJ mooring fee comment was a joke? STJ has an honor system, floating pay stations. I’ll attach a pic later. TMM is an outstanding operation!

The Moorings and Sunsail may not be locally owned but the folks that work there are local and can use the support.

On St John the mooring fees are $26. A not well known bonus is if you have a lifetime senior pass to US nature parks the mooring fee is $13. You need to record your park pass number on the voucher. Beerman is correct there are floating pay stations.

Have had nothing but a great positive experience with The Moorings every time.

Have the floating pay stations been replaced since Irma? They were all still missing as of a month ago. The only pay station we found on St John was the pay box ashore at Salt Pond Bay.

Actually they have not been collecting them this season. Some of the pay stations where destoryed and they are currently waving them as they where when Thistle was here.

BVI YC

Can anyone tell me about Dream Yacht Charters? I have not seen anything (good or bad) about them.
Thank you!!

After decades and multiple charters of good experiences with Moorings, we switched to DYC in June 2017 and saved a bundle on a Lagoon 52 for a crew of 7 adults and 4 kids. No pool or onsite restaurant at Hodges Creek, but the staff was great. Email Jenny at amazinglife64@yahoo.com. Very responsive and helpful.

If you're looking for a crewed charter, I highly recommend The Breanker. We've booked our 5th trip with these incredible hosts, Kristian and Marianne. This is an owner operated cat with 27 years of BVI charter experience. Top notch sailors, wonderful cooks, and great people! http://www.breanker.com/

Are you looking for Crewed or bareboat charter?

It will be bareboat charter.

Just a question about clearing back into USVI since Cruz Bay Customs is still closed... Do you have to go into CA to clear into USVI and then double back to VIYCs?

Just curious... why are you considering an alternative? Are you looking for a more cost effective charter? Or a small company feel? Or does it matter?

What type of vessel are you thinking of chartering? Mono or cat? What age of vessel, latest and greatest or a little older cared for vessel? Are you looking for a vesssl equipped with a generator, air and water maker?

IMHO The answers to these questions help decide in whom you should choose as charter company.

Yes, or you can call to make an appointment to meet with C&I in Redhook for a fee. This has been discussed in other recent threads.

Dream Yachtcharter

We used them two times and we'll be back this year. Staff was great and our Lagoon 400 was in good shape. No issues. Verry responsive and helpful

Sailed with Dream charters a couple of years ago. They were fine, and I would use them again. Hodges Creek does have a swimming pool, or at least it did 2 years ago.

You have 24 hours to clear in. You can take a taxi to CA, clear in and go where ever you want to go, hotel, resort, airport. Just did it in Feb, was easy

Actually your boat is supposed to be in a port of entry.
If they decided to check your boat for contraband and found out it wasn’t in port they would fine you big time.

I used to be able to say only positive things about the Moorings until they CANCELLED our all inclusive charter on a 62 foot cat 48 hours before sail date. They held our 23000$ hostage until we signed releases we would not sue for breach of contract. Horrible customer service, unwilling to abide by signed contract to find suitable replacement yacht...I could rant on but I have posted before regarding the experience. On the other hand TMM and Sunsail (I know...same owner as Moorings) have been wonderful. I have bareboated 12 times and will NEVER count on the Moorings to supply me with a yacht again. They definitely lost a loyal customer who has introduced others to bareboating vacations...probably another dozen charters by my past guests were booked out of Tortola but not by The Moorings.

Thank you all for your help! We are chartering a 44 foot Catamaran from Dream Yacht Charters from June 30th through July 9th. This will be our 11th bareboat charter, and we cannot wait to get back to our favorite place on earth..the British Virgin Islands!!

You stated in your original post that you wanted to support a local company. Dream Yacht Charters is a good company but hardly a local company. Out of curiosity why didn’t you go with one of the local suggestions given to you in this thread?

I received quite a few private messages as well as the ones that are listed here, with some recommending DYC. I checked out the companies that were suggested (Voyage, TMM, Conch, and BVI Yacht Charters), and they were all wonderful. I did not mean to offend anyone, appreciate all of the recommendations, and look forward to returning to the islands.

I've never used Dream in the BVI -- but after traveling around the globe to the Maldives for a charter, I was informed 45 minutes before my scheduled start, that the boat I had chartered had both engines broken down and that a replacement over 6 years older with non-working A/C would be provided.

It was an awful experience. I hope the folks in the BVI operate differently.

Many (25+) experiences with Sunsail, Moorings, and one good experience with Navigare in Dec 2017 despite the post-storm challenges.