Charter Cruise in the BVIs: Notice of Cruise

Click here for link to Notice of Cruise.

The notice of cruise can also be found in the event info on the cruising calendar.

Sixteen years ago, our Commodore at the time, Pete Emens, decided that the Cruising fleet

needed to get off their duff and get their boats in the water early. He established the Early Bird

Cruise, a sail across the Bay to St. Michaels for a weekend at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime

Museum docks in late April or early May. This cruise has occurred every year since Pete

established it. Unfortunately for the past 4 or more years we’ve had mostly cold, rainy days and very little nice spring weather. Last year, under rainy skies, a few cruisers, mostly as a lark, said that we should have the cruise in the Caribbean instead of St. Michaels. The idea took hold and the more we talked about it the better it sounded.

We have now come to full fruition and are committed to a cruise in the British Virgin Islands

(BVI’s) and, so far, a group of Cruisers have chartered three 45-foot sailing catamarans from The Moorings, one of the worlds largest chartering companies and the largest charter company in the BVI’s. These catamarans can each accommodate 4 couples and so far, we have 11 couples fully signed up and one more couple who are seriously considering signing.

This cruise is not just for the Cruising Fleet. Big Boat Racers and one design sailors may

also be interested and are encouraged to join. To date we have two Flying Scott couples:

Stoney and Cyrena Simons and Bob and Faith Ottenhoff as part of the crew of two of the

currently chartered boats. However, there is a complication. The Moorings requires that

the charterer of the boat (leader) has demonstrated experience sailing a vessel no smaller

than 10’ smaller than the boat being chartered. The good news is that once you serve as

crew on a Moorings Charter, Moorings says that you can then use that as sufficient

demonstrated experience assuming that your boat rotates all jobs so that everyone gets

experience in all tasks like mooring and docking and that you have had significant time

behind the wheel. You should keep a good log of your activity. So, One Design sailors and

other cruisers: If you have no big boat experience, team up with someone who does.