The Charter Connection Blog

Speaking of summer destinations, Sunsail announced quite an incredible special offer for Tahiti today: Charters that are booked by March 31, 2008 and sail by July 31, 2008 are 30% off. Returning Sunsailors save 5% on top of this offer.

What makes this such a notable offer, aside from simply the rather large discount itself, is that July is the high season for Tahiti. April through July is a wonderful time to sail there, with the driest and windiest period peaking in July and August. If you’re familiar with Caribbean seasons, simply think of them as reversed.

For the very best deals, plan your charter to end before June 21st, as you’ll qualify for the discount as well as catch the rates before the increase to the July/August high season period.

The cruising ground itself is actually not Tahiti, but the Leeward Islands of Raiatea, Tahaa, Huahine and of course, Bora Bora. Sunsail operates a fleet of monohulls and catamarans from Marina Apooiti on the island of Raiatea. Please contact us for more information on the sailing in Tahiti and the yachts available there.

If my previous post on the Caribbean sailing seasons didn’t sufficiently allay your fears of tropical storm systems interrupting your sailing vacation; or if you can only get away from August to October when the statistical risk of storms in the Eastern Caribbean is higher, then you may want to consider sailing the Grenadines.

The Grenadines is a magical cruising destination, and when compared with the ever popular British Virgin Islands, a relatively undiscovered one. The beauty of considering it for spring and summer sailing is that it lies south of the route that tropical storms or hurricanes generally take. While it is known to have more aggressive sailing conditions than the Virgins, (which could be said of almost anywhere!), the summer affords far more benign conditions with its more gentle winds and lack of groundswell, making it the perfect time to sail this area for the first time.

Several bareboat yacht charter companies now operate from the heart of this cruising ground: TMM, Sunsail and Barefoot Yacht Charters operate from St. Vincent; The Moorings is located in Canouan; and The Catamaran Company has recently opened a base at Union Island. If you’d prefer to start further south, Horizon Yacht Charters operates from Grenada, and also offers complimentary one way charters to Grenada, embarking at Union Island.

If crewed yacht charters are more your style, there are usually more yachts to choose from in the Grenadines during the summer months.

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 Pacific Islands, the many cruising grounds in The Mediterranean, from The Bay of Naples to Bodrum, Turkey, and many more.

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