The Charter Connection Blog

Bucks Harbor is a pretty, well protected cove. It has an active sailing club with a popular kids program. Bucks Harbor Marine have several moorings (the $30 charge includes the use of a welcome shower), as well as fuel and friendly staff.

The weather was again calm and we enjoyed the shear beauty of Maine as we motored down Eggemoggin Reach and past Swan Island. As we rounded Great Gott Island, the hills of Mount Desert came into view and we headed up to Southwest Harbor, home of Hinckley Yachts.

Even with the slowdown of the boat building industry, there were plenty of spectacular yachts in every harbor we visited. We anchored in Valley Cove, a short distance up Somes Sound, for lunch. This Sound is the closest thing to a Fjord that we have on the East Coast and is worth the detour.

After looking at more beautiful yachts in Northeast Harbor, we headed out to sea, and motored up the eastern side of the island to Bar Harbor for the night.

This touristy town has it’s own charm. There are plenty of interesting stores that stay busy even late in the evening, and a wide variety of restaurants, bars and nightlife.

The next day we explored the town but by mid afternoon were ready to head to a quieter anchorage for the night. Bold Island, just off the Deer Island Thoroughfare was perfect, and the grandchildren particularly enjoyed the beautiful shell beaches on the small islands that surround this lovely spot.

We know the coast of Maine well and can help you explore this beautiful cruising ground. Call us at 800 621 7855, email us, or contact us through the Ed Hamilton & Co site and tell us about your plans.

See also ‘Day 1 and 2′ and ‘Day 5 and 6′.

Whether you’re bareboating the Caribbean for the first time, or you’re an experienced Caribbean sailor looking to explore somewhere new, a great way to get your feet wet is to sail in a flotilla. When it comes to flotillas, there are few operators who do a better job than the company who pioneered the concept - Sunsail.

Sunsail is a well known and very popular bareboat company, but few people realize that Sunsail started some 35 years ago as a small organization with a few boats offering flotilla sailing vacations in the Greek Islands. When many potential or active bareboaters hear the word “flotilla,” they immediately think of a rather uninspiring and regimented game of follow the leader. With a Sunsail flotilla, nothing could be further from the truth.

The concept behind Sunsail’s flotillas is actually more based in the social aspect than it is in providing a stepping stone, but they can be used either way. Their flotilla format can be as loose or as scheduled as you like. While Sunsail publishes an itinerary for their flotillas, (which is subject to change depending on weather, events not to be missed, or even consensus of the flotilla party), the schedule is more of a guideline. You sail on your own boat, with up to 12 other boats and a lead Sunsail boat with a skipper, flotilla hostess, and engineer. There is a port to meet up in at the end of the sailing day, and the course you take to get there is up to you - if you want to follow the lead boat, you can; if you want to take your own tack and simply meet the group that evening at anchor, that’s fine too.

Some experienced sailors also use flotillas to become comfortable with a new area. If you’ve sailed your own boat in the Northeast for years, for example, but have never sailed the Caribbean, a flotilla is a great confidence builder. Not familiar with Med-mooring? The flotilla skipper can show you the ropes and help make your vacation seamless. Worried about finding a good restaurant or speaking the local language? The flotilla hostess can help ease you into the locale.

While a flotilla can readily be used to become familiar with a new sailing area, don’t overlook the social benefit. At the end of each sailing day, you have the opportunity to get together and relive the day’s great sail with other like-minded sailors. In the summer months, in particular, a flotilla is a great way for families with children to find ready-made playmates.

Sunsail offers 26 different flotilla routes in the British Virgin Islands, Grenadines, Croatia, Greece and Turkey, so there’s plenty of variety for all tastes. In most cases, any of Sunsail’s available bareboats can be added to the flotilla, and the flotilla fee covers not only the knowledge and service of your lead crew, but also fuel, yacht insurance, welcome punch party and breakfast pack. There’s no better time to try the flotilla concept, as Sunsail is offering 25% off Caribbean flotillas this spring and summer, when you confirm by May 30th.

If you would like to know more, call us at 800 621 7855, email us, or contact us through the Ed Hamilton & Co site and tell us about your plans. Not only have we booked many flotilla vacations, we have even run them in Tortola, so are very familiar with all aspects of flotilla chartering.

One of our guests chartering a bareboat with a skipper brought up an interesting point in her post charter comments. The skipper, who she met 5 minutes before their charter, was unsuitable and another had to be found, delaying her departure. The problem had nothing to do with the ability of the captain, who would have worked well in a different situation.

We always stress in our literature and when booking a charter, that in the case of a skippered bareboat, the skipper you get is generally allocated by the bareboat company just before the charter and even if allocated earlier (as was true in this case), the company always has the right to switch crews before the charter. There is virtually no ‘matching of skippers to guests’ and with most bareboat companies, guests know nothing about the skipper they will actually be spending the week with.

This particular situation would have been caught and resolved if the client was booking a captain only crewed boat. These are private boats, run by a permanent skipper, who maintains and operates the yacht. Just like the private fully crewed yachts, we know a lot about these skippers and can make recommendations as to which one would best fit your group. Because this is an individual boat rather than one picked from a fleet, we can accurately describe its condition and the equipment it carries.

So there are some advantages to a private captain only charter, but this type of charter is not the best choice for everyone. In the following situations, taking a skippered bareboat might be the better alternative.

1: While many private ‘captain only’ boats are comparably priced to the larger skippered bareboat charters (and can offer better value), it is certainly possible to charter a smaller bareboat from a company and add a skipper for less money (We would be happy to make a price comparison for your particular situation and show you your total cost in both cases).

2: There are plenty of people that feel they can get along with any skipper and are willing to take their chances. We would stress that most bareboat charter companies are careful about who they hire. Candidates are obviously qualified, but the companies also look for people who are congenial. The bottom line though is that personalities vary and even two nice people don’t always get along! Personality clashes are far less likely when we know who the skipper will be and have had a chance to match him or her with the group.

3: If you are a semi experienced bareboater and just need  a skipper for a few days to gain confidence and brush up on your skills, taking a skippered bareboat makes a lot of sense and is a quick way to get qualified for the next time you charter. If you want a relaxing vacation with a chance to take the helm and learn a bit about sailing, take a private crewed boat, but if the eventual aim is to bareboat, go the skippered bareboat route. Not only will you get the instruction, you will be gaining experience on the type of boat you will be chartering and will become familiar with the check out procedure and operations of the company, so next time things will be much more familiar.

We book every type of charter - bareboat, skippered bareboat, crewed yachts in a bareboat company’s fleet, captain only private crewed yachts, head boats (ie book a cabin on a fully crewed boat) and fully crewed private yacht charters. All have their different advantages, but because we have been booking all these different types of charters for many years, we are in an excellent position to describe them from an independent viewpoint and suggest how suitable each would be for your group.

For any charter involving a skipper, it is important to remember that the crew is generally going to have an enormous influence on the success of the charter. Unless the whole object is to get qualified to bareboat in the future, someone considering a skippered bareboat should also look closely at a fully crewed private boat. You avoid paying for the overhead of the bareboat company, plus meals, wine, bar and even the chef are included!

To get started, call us at 800 621 7855, email us, or contact us through the Ed Hamilton & Co site, and tell us about your plans.

At the end of Lynne’s excellent article on how to access the internet, rent cellphones and connect iPods, we asked for a vote on how important these items are to charter guests. The results are interesting.

Responses are still coming in, but the surprise so far is how many people feel they don’t need an internet connection (currently 44%). True, many cruising grounds have plenty of internet cafes, but we find a wi-fi connection on a boat pretty useful (but then we’re not normally on vacation!).

iPods are of course incredibly popular and make a lot of sense, but we were surprised by how many people said it was a feature they actively looked for when choosing a boat (currently 68%). This is a pretty strong message to the remaining crewed boats that still do not offer iPod docks, particularly as they are so easy to install.

Take a look at the full results, plus the comments many readers have added. You can also see the results from other surveys we have featured in previous newsletters, and by clicking on the titles, you can add your own vote for any past survey that interests you. For more great articles on both bareboat and crewed yacht charters, check out this month’s newsletter.

The photograph shows how easy it is to view Ed Hamilton & Co ’s website on your iPhone, even in The Caribbean!

We introduced Dream Yacht Charters nearly a year ago as a new addition to the bareboat charter companies in The Caribbean. At the time, Dream Yacht, a company that started in the Seychelles and quickly grew to several Mediterranean locations, only operated bases in Martinique and Guadeloupe.

In November, Dream Yacht opened operations in the British Virgin Islands. They have taken over the Sunsail base at Hodges Creek Marina, (also sometimes called Maya Cove). Sunsail left this marina when they moved their operations to Wickham’s Cay II, next to The Moorings, in Road Town. Dream Yacht has now also opened a base on the Dutch side of St. Martin.

Many cat sailors noticed that Dream Yacht provides an interesting new option in performance catamarans, as they primarily use Catanas in their multihull fleet. What many sailors on this side of the pond aren’t aware of, is the performance that can be expected from their monohull line of Harmony yachts.

Harmony are built by Groupe Poncin, the same builder responsible for Catana catamarans. A Harmony 52 and Harmony 47, both chartered from Dream Yacht Charters, won their respective classes at the St. Martin Heineken Regatta, beating 19 other competitors to win all three races in the series. The performance Catanas are so well known for, carries over!

For more information on Dream Yacht Charters, or any other bareboat companies, call us at 800 621 7855, email us, or contact us through the Ed Hamilton & Co site, and tell us about your plans. We would be happy to tell you how each company compares and make some suggestions for your group.

February’s newsletter caused a flurry of additional votes to our January Survey, in which we asked how the economy is affecting your charter plans. With a fairly large number of earlier votes, the picture didn’t change that much, but these new votes have helped to confirm the earlier results. The current figures show only 24% of prospective charterers say they would not charter this year because of the economy. We expected this figure to be higher. 26% would use the great deals available to get a better boat for their money and 50% would try to charter a less expensive boat.

Of those looking to cut expenses, 8% would go smaller, 13% would charter for fewer days and 58% would do both. Only 21% said they would look for the cheapest price regardless of condition, which is generally not a good idea.

This survey is encouraging and has caused quite a bit of interest in various publications and organizations. If you haven’t already, do take a look at the original article and vote in the survey. You can also view the results and read some of the comments, both for this survey and past ones on different topics. Other surveys include ‘Is A/C a necessity on bareboat sail boats‘, ‘Vote for your favorite British Virgin Island beach bar‘, ‘Should the tip be included in crewed yacht charters‘ etc.. All our surveys are still open for voting.

A Yacht Charter Vacation is a wonderful way to blow away those Recession Blues, at a cost that’s probably lower than you think. Call us at 800 621 7855, email us, or contact us through the Ed Hamilton & Co site, and tell us about your plans.

It’s great to hear from old friends. ‘Lady Anne II’ was a popular yacht in The Caribbean, before Patrick and Pascale started living their circumnavigation dream. They spent the summer of 2008 in The Society Islands in the Pacific (Tahiti, Raiatea, Bora Bora) and are presently in Australia for the next six months. They then plan to sail to Thailand for the December 2009 to April 2010 charter season. This is a great chance for adventurous guests to charter a reliable catamaran with a known, well traveled and interesting, French crew, among some beautiful islands, far from the normal beaten track. If the winter works out as planned, they hope to stay in Thailand for the 2010/11 season also. They are in no hurry to rush back!

‘Lady Anne II’ was originally part of The Moorings crewed Caribbean yacht charter fleet with Patrick and Pascale as crew. In 1998 they purchased her and ran crewed sailing charters in the US and British Virgin Islands, but the plan was always to sail her around the world. Their slide show from The San Blas Islands to Tahiti is well worth a look.
Patrick owned an alarm security company and was previously a private investigator. He is a talented musician (blues and jazz) and has a keyboard on the boat, which he can play for guests if they wish.

Pascale has a passion for cooking and particularly enjoys Creole and Mediterranean cuisine accentuated with fresh herbs and oils. She is a “people person”, loves to dance and enjoys a good conversation.

The three guest cabins all have separate air conditioning controls and ensuite heads.  The two aft cabins have slightly larger queen size berths.  She has plenty of deck space and easy access to the water using the aft steps.

Sounds interesting? Call us at 800 621 7855, email us, or contact us through the Ed Hamilton & Co site, and tell us about your plans.

Virgin Traders, the popular crewed and bareboat charter company, is offering free flights from San Juan or Antigua when 6 or 8 guests charter one of their boats in Tortola. As we mentioned in a previous post, they have an arrangement with the charter airline, Del Airways. The charter has to be booked this month (January), for a charter in April and represents a saving of roughly $333 a person. Virgin Traders offers a full range of motoryachts from bareboat power boats to midrange luxury motor yacht charters.

If you think you might be able to take advantage of this great special, call us today at 800 621 7855, email us, or contact us through the Ed Hamilton & Co site, and tell us about your plans.