PLAN A BVI CHARTER
Crewed vs Bareboat in the BVI
What each one includes, what it leaves you to handle, and how to tell which fits your group.
A crewed charter buys you a week off. A bareboat buys you a boat. Most of the confusion about price comes from comparing one number against the other as if they cover the same things. They do not.
The short version
A bareboat rate is for the yacht. You provision it, cook on it, navigate it, and anchor it yourself, and the extras are quoted separately. A crewed rate is for the yacht, a captain and a chef, and almost everything you will eat and drink aboard for the week.
Neither is better. They suit different groups, and the honest question is not which is cheaper per week, but which one you will actually enjoy.
What each rate covers
Crewed, all-inclusive
- The yacht for the week
- A professional captain and a chef
- Every meal aboard, cooked to your preference sheet
- Drinks aboard, provisioned to the labels you name
- Fuel, water, ice and the watersports gear on board
- Crew gratuity, customarily 20% of your charter rate, scaled up or down for the level of service received
- Meals and drinks ashore
- Top-shelf or specialty labels the crew has to source at a premium
Bareboat
- The yacht for the week
- Your own skippering, watchkeeping and anchoring
- Your own provisioning, cooking and washing up
- Your own route planning and mooring decisions
- Provisioning, fuel and ice
- Security deposit or damage waiver
- Permits, park fees and local taxes
- A hired skipper, if you would rather not helm
Our bareboat side, Caribbean Bareboats, runs nineteen catamarans from 40 to 52 feet out of Village Cay Marina in Road Town, and quotes every required fee inside the price rather than at the dock. Our crewed fleet is 84 catamarans sleeping six to ten.
The costs people forget
On a crewed charter, the number that surprises people is the gratuity. Budget for it from the start and there are no other surprises, because the food and drink are already in the rate.
On a bareboat, the surprises are smaller but there are more of them: a week of provisioning for the whole group, fuel, ice runs, mooring balls most nights, and the deposit sitting on your card until the boat is back. None of it is hidden, but it is rarely in the headline rate.
Which one fits your group
Take the bareboat if someone aboard is a confident skipper, the group likes cooking and cleaning up together, and the sailing itself is the point of the trip.
Take the crewed charter if you want the week genuinely off, if the group spans ages and abilities, if anyone has dietary needs worth cooking around, or if nobody wants to be responsible for anchoring at dusk in a crowded bay.
If you are on the fence, the deciding question is usually the galley, not the helm. Cooking three meals a day for eight people on a boat is a real job. Some groups love it. Some discover on day three that they hired themselves.
Either way, we book it
Both sides are run by the same two people. We crewed these boats for five seasons before we brokered them, so we will tell you plainly if the other option suits you better.