If a guest is fortunate enough to experience a professionally crewed charter yacht, you can be assured that most of them are unaware of the amount of work involved to guarantee their charter will measure up to their expectations.
Several factors determine the success of a charter. The yacht. The crew. The weather. The cost, the broker, and the politics to make it all possible for them to board the chosen yacht of their dreams and have that much anticipated glass of champagne.
Most owners of charter vessels rely on professional crews to maintain and run their expensive investments. A charter vessel requires a team of professionals to guarantee that the boats reputation, and reliability measure up to the task of providing the client with their monies worth. In order to ensure that this happens the Charter Yacht Society of the British Virgin Islands was created on August 23, 1982.
The founding members proposed to establish an entity that insured three criteria.
• “To ensure good relationships between the resident, independent crewed charter boats and the Government and people of the British Virgin Islands.”
• “To propagate the observation of the laws of the Territory and respect for its social standards and culture.”
• “To foster a business climate beneficial to its members consistent with the smooth development of the charter boat industry and promote the interests of locally owned vessels”
These objectives are the cornerstones of the Charter Yacht Society of the British Virgin Islands.
The initial ‘Society’ of 1992 would act as a liaison between the burgeoning fleet of charter owners and captains that chose to leave the USVI due to the introduction of the Passenger Vessel Safety Act of 1993 which restricted the amount of paying guests a vessel could legally carry in US waters and the government of the British Virgin Islands.
Beginning in 1993 the CYS was in place to encourage Lavity Stoutt and his ministers to see the benefits of the charter industry and assist him in establishing the new laws to encourage a charter vessel to “work” out of the BVI’s. This action prompted the ministries to allow vessels to make incremental payments of Import duties and enacted the seven pick up rule. The “New Charter Yacht Strategy” encouraged vessels to charter out of the BVI’s.
As we all know there can only be one captain on a ship and in the case of the Charter Yacht Society that “captain” is Janet Oliver who began working with the CYS in 1996, and has remained at the helm for twenty seven years! Janet’s tenacity, foresight and perseverance has enabled the charter yachts in the BVI to be represented through the cyclical times of the charter industry. Over the years, Janet has been involved in twenty nine Charter Yacht Broker Boat shows, earning her the induction to the CYBA hall of fame in 2021!.
In her tenure as executive director she has witnessed the transformation of the fleet from monohulls to luxurious catamarans where charter fees grew from $6000 to over $60,000 for a week on some of these large catamarans and powerboats.
Hurricanes have decimated the infrastructure of the islands, destroyed two thirds of the boats and businesses. Pandemics literally closed the islands down, but the CYS boat shows continued to show the brokers that the BVI “took some licks” but stayed afloat through any adversity. It took a while but returning guests equated their experiences as “going back to the eighties” with empty anchorages, beaches and fewer vessels. The marine life flourished and the island industry was reborn. Janet was there for all of it.
So with that in mind we are anticipating a stellar charter season here in the islands with boats queuing up to be included in the forty first Charter Yacht Society Boat Show from November 7th – 10th 2023.
Welcome aboard, tell your friends and families that there has never been a better time to escape to the islands and experience the beauty around us.
www.Crewedyachtsbvi.com; info@bvicrewedyachts.com; 284 494 6017
