Tortola is the hub of the British Virgin Islands and one of the world's premier bareboat sailing destinations. The dominant product here is the self-skippered charter — sailing catamarans above all, with crewed cats, monohulls, cabin charters and luxury crewed yachts filling out the fleet. Most char...
Tortola is the hub of the British Virgin Islands and one of the world's premier bareboat sailing destinations. The dominant product here is the self-skippered charter — sailing catamarans above all, with crewed cats, monohulls, cabin charters and luxury crewed yachts filling out the fleet. Most charters begin at Wickhams Cay in Road Town, home of The Moorings and Sunsail bases and one of the largest charter fleets in the Caribbean, or at Nanny Cay Marina on the south coast, where Horizon Yacht Charters keeps its fleet alongside a full boatyard with two travel lifts and around 300 berths. Conch Charters works out of Road Town's Road Reef and Fort Burt marinas, while Soper's Hole at West End and Hodge's Creek to the east — home to BVI Yacht Charters and others — round out the bases.
The cruising centres on the Sir Francis Drake Channel, a sheltered twenty-mile corridor ringed by islands where every hop is a short, line-of-sight reach to the next mooring field. A classic week from Road Town runs Norman Island first — The Bight, the snorkelling caves at The Indians, and the Willy-T floating bar — then Cooper Island, with the RMS Rhone wreck off neighbouring Salt Island, on to Virgin Gorda for The Baths and North Sound, and weather permitting the two-to-three-hour open passage to Anegada for lobster at Loblolly Bay. The return loops back through Jost Van Dyke, with White Bay's Soggy Dollar Bar and Foxy's at Great Harbour, before a final night at Soper's Hole or Norman Island.
The wind is the easterly trade, steady and reliable. From November to May it blows NE/E at 15-20 knots, building in peak winter to 20-25 and gusting toward 35; the Christmas Winds of December and January bring 25-30 knot spells with plenty of forecast warning. Summer eases to 10-15 knots. This is largely beginner-to-intermediate sailing — protected hops, plentiful moorings, little anchoring required. The one real test is the open-water Anegada crossing, attempted only with winds under 20 knots and seas under eight feet, after the morning weather check most charter firms require before 9am.
High season runs December to April, with the steady-trade window at its best and Christmas-New Year the busiest and priciest stretch. Boats are commonly bookable December through July. Hurricane season, August to October, is the low period — hottest, wettest, lightest winds, with some firms closing. The water is warm year-round, around 26°C in January and February rising to 29°C by late summer, so snorkelling is comfortable in a swimsuit whatever the month.
Provisioning is straightforward at the Road Town and Nanny Cay bases, and a BVI cruising permit — around $6 per person per day for locally based charter boats — plus National Parks mooring fees apply across the grounds. Note the 2025 licensing change: foreign-flagged charter yachts now face sharply higher annual fees, so verify a non-local boat's entry status when sourcing. Bareboat charter requires a recognised qualification such as the ICC or equivalent; if you do not sail, a skippered or fully crewed catamaran is easy to arrange. Pick up your mooring by early afternoon, and the Drake Channel does the rest.
