The Charter Connection Blog

The latest Charter Connection Newsletter asked readers to vote if they felt Air Conditioning was a necessity when choosing a Bareboat. The advantages of A/C are obvious, but the article pointed out some of the disadvantages which might not be so evident, particularly as most Bareboat Charter Companies charge for A/C in some form or another. The results are also interesting. Currently only 28% say ‘Yes’, 43% say ‘No’ and 28% are not worried, so an amazing 70% don’t feel it is a requirement. The comments are also informative and cover a wide range of views. If you are surprised that so many people feel this way, read the article! You can also add your vote to this survey, and any previous ones.

TMM was the first Bareboat Company to add A/C to a significant number of their boats. Sunsail and Moorings offer it on their larger cats and monohulls, but the trend is to not install it in the midsize and smaller monohulls due to the reliability of the smaller generators. Horizon, BVI Yacht Charters, Voyage, Footloose, Conch and The Catamaran Company all have boats with A/C, as do most of the bareboat power boats.

The Bareboat Charter Companies would be only too happy to do without the maintenance headaches a generator and A/C cause. Our suggestion would be to have it available on the premier boats, but add a charge for those that wish to use it, in fairness to those who don’t.

We would love to hear your feedback. There’s now no need to register to add a comment. Just click on the ‘comments’ link below!

The Catamaran Company has joined ranks with Sunsail and The Moorings in offering discounts instead of free days this summer in the British Virgin Islands. When sailing from June 7 - October 31, charters of 7 - 13 days are 10% off and 14 days or more get 20% off.

Footloose Charters, on the other hand, has broken ranks with its bigger sisters and has actually gone back to offering free days on summer bareboat charters from Tortola. From June 1 - October 31, you can add 1 free day when you book a charter of 6 - 8 days, 2 free days to 9 - 12 day charters, and 3 free days to charters of 13 days or more. It’s a bit confusing in its presentation, but in short it’s 7 days for the price of 6, 11 for 9, and 16 for 13.

Horizon Yacht Charters is offering 10 days for the price of 7 from July 10 - October 31 on their lovely Bavaria yachts. Horizon’s Virgin Islands yacht charter fleet also includes Jeanneau’s, Beneteau’s and Lagoon cats, including the new Lagoon 420.

TMM is also firmly in the free day camp, offering 10 for 7 from August 1 - October 28.

Along the lines of Sunsail’s traditional “Reef Weeks” which you may have seen before, Voyage Charters are now offering “Red Hot” and “White Hot” sail weeks at 20% and 25% off respectively for specific weeks March through November on their fleet of Voyage catamarans.

We’re well into the season, and we have already had many guests starting their charter at the new Moorings, Sunsail and Footloose, marina in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. These three major bareboat charter companies moved in together last Fall, so we were particularly interested to hear how everything was running. This was an enormous undertaking, made harder by the merger of the companies’ booking offices. Sunsail moved from Annapolis to Florida so many of the booking staff are new. There have, quite naturally, been problems and growing pains, but in many ways, we feel there could have been far more. I visited the base in November and was concerned by the shear size, knowing how many hundreds of people would shortly be descending on these docks.

We would like to hear what you think about the advantages of having these large companies in one location, particularly if you have started a charter at the new facility. Someday we will do a larger article in the newsletter, but in the meantime, we’d love to hear your comments.

Welcome to The Charter Connection. This Blog will address every aspect of Bareboat Charters and Crewed Yacht charters. It will include news of the various Bareboat Charter Companies such as The Moorings, Sunsail, Footloose, TMM and Horizon. If you don’t have sufficient sailing experience, we will discuss Private Yacht Charters with a crew, including a honeymoon yacht charter, crewed sailing charters or luxury motor yacht charters. We will also compare the many possible yacht charter destinations all over the world - Tortola, in the popular British Virgin Islands, The beautiful Tobago Cays in The Grenadines, the many cruising grounds in The Mediterranean, The Pacific Islands and many more.

Use the links in this post as a source of information on everything to do with yacht charter!