Boaty Ball update from previous post

I am happy to report we have had a better experience with Boaty Ball over the past 2 days and have successfully secured a ball in Leverick Bay. Of course, we’ve had to have our trigger fingers ready at exactly 7:00am. We checked the status of the other balls in the field immediately after and they were all reserved in nanoseconds.

Still on the fence whether this is the right program for the BVI’s. The pros are having the ability of securing a ball in advance, obviously, and that the mooring balls are well maintained. The cons are: there are limited number of balls which creates a feeding frenzy for the available balls to reserve in advance. It may be better for Boaty Ball to invest in laying more balls in the locations they serve. Who knows.

Looking forward to testing our luck at some of the other hot spots.

Congrats! It does provide a bit of excitement in the mornings doesn’t it? 😃

It’s my understanding Boaty Ball doesn’t own the Balls, they just provide the service for the owners to allow us to reserve and pay by credit card. I assume the owners need to work with the government to have replacement balls or new balls put in place and we know how challenging that can be.

Until more balls are added, BEYC and Saba reopen, it will be challenging because the demand outweighs the supply of balls. This week is especially challenging due to the number of charters for the holidays.

We do like Boaty Ball because it provides us the time to enjoy our entire day and know we have a ball at night.

Yes, we can anchor (and do anchor) but prefer not to while on vacation because we’d rather sleep at night than be on anchor watch. Even with anchor alarms we prefer a good nights sleep.

We also like the comfort of knowing the balls are really maintained properly.

The convenience of paying with a credit card is nice too.

We see BB as an option. People can get a BB, FCFS or anchor.

Options are nice.

Agree with the benefits above, primarily being able to be sailing as long as desired before reaching destination for the night.

Sailor-ATL, another helpful hint to improving likelihood of getting a BB or a FCFS ball, is to try to get off sequence from the majority of the charters. If you begin a charter on Tuesday or Wednesday, you are out of sync with most who typically begin/end charter on the weekends... The mob is generally most clustered on their first night out and last night before returning to base. (Other benefits of this is base staff is less hurried/ less stressed).

We enjoyed having Boatyball as an option when we went in November. It was especially good for us as divers because you know you're going to be at the rendezvous point without having to arrive super early to get a FCFS ball and it allows us to get to our next destination late but with a reserved ball because usually we don't push off til around 2 pm after diving.

Can anybody show me evidence the the BB are maintained better than the FCFS balls?

The problem is you have to be off the boatyball by noon. That means if Rendezvous diving someone has to be on the boat to vacate the ball at noon. Typically you won’t get back to your boat until 1 to 2 PM.

A few months back BB said they maintained their moorings and then they took back that statement and said it was maintained by the owners of the moorings.
BB is just another car wreck to chartering. They will probably succeed due to the Sensitive people who are in denial👻

I understand that Wonky Dog has more robust mooring balls and related hardware.

Grab a good ball..then have a good ball...at The Wonky..