Charter Stories

Ondeck’s Blueprint for fun in the BVI

By Michelle Slade / March 27, 2026

We caught the team racing this week on the Beneteau 36.7 Blueprint huddled around a tabletop at the ever-popular Island Roots café at Nanny Cay just minutes before day 1 of racing in the53rd BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival. “We’re having a little team huddle at the moment,” skipper…

Cool shirts and a Fun Family Vibe = The Brew Family

By Michelle Slade / March 26, 2026

With already two podium awards under their belt at their first BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival, the Brews from Jacksonville, Florida are having a blast on Stingray, a Dufour 44 that they have chartered for the week. The Brews – Rich, Kim and their daughter Colleen have always wanted…

Bareboat Racing in the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival – Familiar faces return for the best week ever, part III

By Michelle Slade / March 12, 2026

Chartering two boats this year, including a Sunsail 41 for his racing crew, Ben Sampson’s been a visitor to the BVI for 30 years and for the past ten years he has raced BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival. He returns with his group of characters who call themselves Team…

Bareboat Racing in the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival – Familiar faces return for the best week ever, part II

By Michelle Slade / March 11, 2026

Team Miami, a name that stuck for a group of guys who got to know each other sailing in Miami, is back for its eighth BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival event chartering a Dufour 41. Brian McCarthy, who lives in North Carolina, is typically the registered skipper and notes…

Bareboat Racing in the BVI Spring Regatta & Sailing Festival – Familiar faces return for the best week ever, part I

By Michelle Slade / March 10, 2026

Kelly Wharton and her sailing friends know just where to go when the weather in Vancouver, BC, Canada gets just too cold to bear and warm racing beckons; they head for the Caribbean. Wharton’s chartered various boats in the BVI on some ten different occasions over the years, both for…

Switching Gears: Jumping off a J109 onto a Chartered Moorings 45 Club

By Michelle Slade / February 4, 2026

Brooke Mastrorio, from Newport, RI, has spent time on boats literally since she was in the womb; when her mom was pregnant with Brooke she sailed in a Sunfish until the boom wouldn’t clear her belly anymore. Her family had a Bristol 27 when she was a kid and while…

Life is Good, a Dutch Perspective

By Michelle Slade / April 6, 2025

In my experience, the Dutch never fail to be able to show a sense of humour even when the chips are down, so it was no surprise that after their galley caught fire during racing on day 1 of the BVI Spring Regatta, the team on Glad 2 B Here,…

No Chickens on THIS Boat! Poulet Peeps Takes a First

By bvisr / April 3, 2025

Ben Sampson, from Pittsburgh, PA, has been visiting the BVI for thirty years. Learning to sail at age 16 at a YMCA sailing camp in Pennsylvania ultimately led him to Monique and Julian Putley, long-time Tortola residents who became the reason Sampson makes the annual pilgrimage to the BVI to cruise or race. “We took…

Whether casual or competitive racing, the charter options are numerous!

By Michelle Slade / November 6, 2024

Registration is open for BVI Spring Regatta 2025 (BVISR), and competitors from around the world are already signing up to compete in one of the Caribbean’s top-rated regattas. While some sailors compete on their own boats, a sizeable number of the annual BVISR fleet compete on charter boats, and there are a plenty of charter…

Pay to Play Perfect Option for Sailors Looking for Sailing Fun

By Michelle Slade / April 6, 2024

Germaine Williams was supposed to go sailing one day when he was about 12 years old but it was too windy, so he didn’t go on that particular day. It was some ten years later when he was in his early 20s that a challenge to achieve something he’d always…