Soft Opening of our New Base in St Thomas, USVI

This month saw the soft opening of our latest base in St Thomas, USVI. We are ecstatic to be offering charters out of this new location in Compass Point Marina, on the East End of St Thomas. We will have a small fleet of yachts based here permanently and will also be making our BVI based yachts available to pick up and drop off in St Thomas.

To our customers this means easy, often direct flights to St. Thomas with no time consuming transfers or ferry boats. Easier travel connections, facilitates more reasonable air fares. Compass Point Marina is a smaller boutique area with nearby restaurants and shopping, but without the hussle-bussle of Charlotte-Amalie. Sailing from the USVI gives our guests the opportunity to explore St John, or easier to the Spanish Virgin Islands, for the seasoned sailor amongst us, or to easily clear customs and enjoy the British Virgin Islands too.

If you are interested in chartering out of our base in St Thomas, visit our ‘US Virgin Islands‘ Page.

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THE STORY BEHIND IT ALL…

The Story of how the St. Thomas fleet happened from the managers, Kristi Chapman and Jim Query…

Virgin Islands Yacht Charters
Kristi Chapman and Jim Query – The Journey to VIYC

Even though VIYC was officially launched in 2016, the road that led us to this point began in 2012 with a call to Chris Bent at Atlantic Cruising Yachts regarding purchasing a sailing catamaran. Within days, we had signed a purchase agreement and were moving forward with the purchase of Being Nauti, a beautiful Fountaine Pajot Lipari 41.

We truly began to fall in love with Being Nauti when we traveled to Atlantic Cruising Yachts Annapolis facility to begin the outfitting process. The team at Atlantic Cruising Yachts was incredibly helpful and insightful about setting the boat up perfectly to be ready for the charter fleet. They also were able to help match us up with the perfect charter situation for us and for Being Nauti, which was BVI Yacht Charters based in Road Town, Tortola.

From our first sailing trip aboard Being Nauti, we were completely hooked on the Virgin Islands. The combination of crystal clear caribbean water, beautiful islands and friendly people convinced us that we would make this our home as soon as possible. The opportunity to make the leap to the islands finally came in 2015 when we purchased VIBE Charters, a successful day charter business based in St Thomas. Our passion for being on the water combined with our commitment to giving our customers the highest level of service available on St Thomas has fueled our continued growth and success.

As our day charter business continued to grow and we began looking for other opportunities to expand, it became obvious that the answer was already in plain sight. We knew that St Thomas, and specifically the East End, were in need of a bareboat charter company bringing the same level of service that we provide our customers. And we knew just who we needed to call. BVI Yacht Charters and Atlantic Cruising Yachts! We knew both companies intimately from the perspective of a yacht purchaser and yacht owner. Both had completely exceeded our expectations over the course of the three years we had been affiliated with them as customers so we were 100% confident that they were who we wanted to be affiliated with.

As we began having discussions with BVI Yacht Charters about a possible expansion and partnership in St Thomas, we were thrilled to learn that they had already begun to explore expanding into the St Thomas market and were just looking for the right management team to be available. We quickly realized that it was a perfect fit for both of us and we moved forward quickly with getting the St Thomas base open and fully operational. The benefits of having the full support of the highly professional and successful team at BVI Yacht Charters paired with our knowledge and expertise regarding St Thomas has fueled explosive growth.

We feel extremely blessed to be living our island dream and look forward to the opportunity to help many more people fuel their island dreams through Virgin Islands Yacht Charters.

Sincerely,

Kristi and Jim

Other resources

• Restaurants and stuff… Patti Sez…

Dive Bar is in the marina and opens at 4pm daily.  They cook everything fresh, right on the grill.  And, of course, Red Hook is just 5 minutes away and has a multitude of offerings.  Island Time Pub for happy hour and great pizza, XO Bistro for a nice air conditioned option and amazing food, Pesce, also air conditioned, for Italian food, Raw is our local Sushi bar and very unique, and The Tap and Still for burgers and beer.  All of our favorites!