Just wrapped up 8 days in the USVI. I've chartered from three other companies in various locations and I must say that I was impressed with CYOA. The booking agent Sarah was fantastic. Incredibly responsive. Booking system worked well. Online briefings were great. Loved that I could look back and review the material at any time. Office staff was helpful. Kyle ensured we had everything we needed and Rupert went out of his way to give an outstanding chart briefing. I would rent from CYOA again without hesitation. read more

Great Charter outfit on St. Thomas Island in the US Virgin Islands. No passport needed and big jet accessible, I nevertheless recommend you a) bring a passport and b) fly to Puerto Rico and hop to St. Thomas on a Cape Air Cessna. CYOA has nice people and an interesting variety of boats. They manage owner's yachts and do not require them (like some big names in the business) to be uniform. So, you might select a large Fontaine-Pajot catamaran, or a sleek Jeanneau with teak decks and a blue hull, or a luxurious Hunter with upgraded electronics. There is real variety here. Now, if only I had the time and money to sail them all... :) Iguanas hang out on the docks near the marina restaurant. They look really cute and are happy to pose for pictures. Just don't feed them people food! read more

We did our fifth charter with CYOA in July 2015. Our previous four charters were on their Hunter e36 Island Angel and Jeanneau 44i Mei Nu. We love those two boats for different reasons. Island Angel is super simple and perfect for a couple or a family. Mei Nu is great for couples with generator/ac; she really is a beautiful and striking boat with her teal hull. Service has been great with well maintained boats. The staff and reservations team is knowledgable and responsive. We love sleep aboard the night before we head out and having the restaurants in French Town right there. Great, right? What's even better is avoiding the high cost of flying to the BVIs or the pain of trying to negotiate the Tortola ferry; its a ten minute taxi ride from the St. Thomas airport. Our favorite part is being able to spend days in the pristine bays of the St. John national park. You don't get that with a BVI charter. When we're finished with St. John, it takes 30 minutes to check in at Tortola or Jost Van Dyke customs for the BVI portion of the cruise. Our fifth charter in July 2015 was a step up for us to Glad In It, a Helia 44 catamaran. We had ten people for this trip, the full extended family. We were passing familiar with catamarans, but no experience on our own. We spent a day with Capt. Kyle working through the maneuvers before we headed out on our cruise. Kyle is awesome, he had my lady on the helm doing mooring/docking/anchoring and gave her a lot of confidence. I did those maneuvers too and felt quite comfortable when we dropped Kyle at the dock. He did a great job, because we had no problems docking at four stops and the anxiety level was low. Our family had a great week on Glad In It and ten people worked nicely on this beautiful catamaran. Its a real luxury to have a two drawer refrigerator, separate drinks refrigerator, ice maker and freezer. We ate all of our breakfasts and all but one dinner on the boat and we were able to fit food for ten people without any spoilage. Their provisioning service worked nicely for us. There were four distinct common areas that let everyone spread out and ten people never felt crowded. The cabins were enormous and had more storage than we needed. Two of the kids were sleeping in the single berths forward of the cabins and they loved having their own rooms. A month later and everyone wants to do it again. As captain, I had an easy check in and check out. No damage to the boat, no maintenance problems, no drama. We'll be back. read more

I'll admit, I don't typically review anything on Yelp despite using the search feature. However, when I was searching some charter companies in other parts of the world for our next trip, I was appalled to find CYOA had such a low score. We had an amazing trip with CYOA. They were very accommodating, helpful, and informative. We had a 8 day trip aboard Sarah Sue, a Fountaine Pajot Lavezzi, and absolutely loved the entire trip. Whether we were sailing hard to wind up to Virgin Gorda, motoring the dinghy from Great Harbour to White Harbour on Jost, or hanging out in an anchorage and jumping aboard a rendezvous dive boat on Cooper Island, Sarah Sue performed amazingly. We had a captain the first day of the trip as it was our first time ever chartering (although I had owned and sailed boats across deep water passages before, it had never been a large catamaran or twin screw drive vessel). Captain Kyle was wonderful. He showed us everything that the cat could do, he gave us wonderful tips, tricks, and recommendations for the local area. He also handled everything wonderfully when we had a small item break on the first day. Something broke on the first day and I'm giving 5 stars??? Yes, I am, because things break while sailing, and I reserved an older boat because it was cheaper, but I realized the risk. And although it was a small issue, the staff repaired it quickly and perfectly while we grabbed a bite to eat at the Pie Whole (also recommended). After our charter they let us look at some of the other vessels so I could get ideas for future chartering adventures, and they were very accommodating with helping us disembark, inspecting, cleaning everything up, and getting us to the airport on time. CYOA is a great outfit and I plan to charter from them again if I come back to the USVI. I only hope they get some 12 person boats because we talk so positively about our trip that I now have 20+ people waiting to come on my next charter adventure. read more

Second time we received a boat with many things broken on it only for them to say after we rented the boat they were retiring it! Very rude staff! Never again! read more

I read some negative reviews regarding CYOA on several web sites AFTER we had booked our boat. It appeared that most of them where from one or two disgruntled customers with a serious vendetta against CYOA. Still, it was troublesome. Our group was delighted to find the experience with CYOA seamless, the dock staff especially helpful, cordial and truly eager to please. Our boat, the Mie NU, was very clean and ready to go upon our arrival. Overall opinion is that this is an excellent small company to deal with that goes above and beyond to take care of its customers. read more

Just got back from our first BVI adventure. CYOA came as a recommendation to me from 2 other folks in my yacht club that have previously used them. CYOA exceeded my expectations and will certainly use them again. read more

Terrible experience! We have chartered from many different charter companies through the Caribbean (started chartering in 1992), but this was our first charter with CYOA. Our crew of 7 chartered Fair Wind II in Jan. 2019, and this is by far the worst experience we've ever had, starting from the moment we walked onto the charter base. I had been contacted via email by Kyle, the base manager, to coordinate our boarding the boat at 8:30 , with a boat briefing & sail checkout to follow approx noon. When we arrived at the base the CYOA office was locked. There were numerous CYOA employees working out on the docks, but no one was at the office or close by to check in with. Eventually Marsha , the gal in charge of the office, showed up & said in a very sullen manner "we're busy at the moment. Put you're luggage under the tent on the dock & someone will let you know when we're ready for you". I explained that Kyle had mentioned we could board at 8:30. Marsha stated "The boats not ready, & we have several other charterers ahead of you. Someone will let you know when it's ready". After just having spent over $14,000 with a company, I'd at least expect a smile, a "good morning. Nice to see you. Sorry we're backed up at the moment....." The gal who did our boat briefing had an appointment to get her own dinghy repaired so was in a rush to get us done. A lot of the information she gave us about the systems was either lacking, non-existent,or simply incorrect. Fair Wind II is advertised as having 4 double cabins plus a convertible dinette. NOT! Two people laying in the berth on their backs have one of their shoulders pushing against a cabin wall & the other tight against the person next to them. Because our couple using that cabin couldn't fit in the cabin together we tried to make the dinette down into a bed. The cushions onboard that supposedly fill in the center of the dinette are just some random cushions There is no way the cushions could be kept from sliding all over & leaving gaping holes in the bed during the night. Because of the layout of the galley & salon area there is very little cabinetry & stowage area for provisioning. The typical situation of trying to get 20 lbs of sh*t into a 12 lb box. Throughout our two weeks onboard we had constant problems with both the mainsail & electrical system. When we went out for the sail checkout with Kyle (the base manager) onboard, we had difficulty getting the main up. Kyle took over at the mast & had to very forcefully "jump" the halyard manually to help the person at the winch raise the main. Kyle stated "we need to replace the sail cars. The previous charterers also had a problem with it". For the next two weeks it was a four person job to raise or lower the main, & we were never able to get it above the 2nd reef. We lost 3 days of charter time sitting on a mooring ball waiting for 2 different riggers that Kyle sent out to us to try to fix the problem.....which they were unable to do. Because of all the electrical systems onboard, Fair Wind has a fairly large house bank plus a generator to help keep the batteries charged. There was apparently a short in one of the batteries that would almost immediately drain the batteries. Several days we ran the generator for as long as 7-8 hours in addition to motor sailing for several hours (with the alternator supposedly putting a charge to the batteries) only to have the low voltage alarm for the house bank sound off after anchoring & shutting the charging systems down 30 minutes earlier. At night the house bank would go virtually dead so nothing electrical worked until we started the generator. This is a serious problem with 7 crew onboard & all of heads are electric!! I'll never make THAT mistake again. We lost 2 more days of charter time between waiting for a mechanic to replace the impeller for the raw water intake for the generator & taking a slip at one of the marinas to use their electricity to try to get a full charge on the batteries. After returning the boat I discussed with Kyle all of the problems & lost charter time. He called John, the owner of CYOA, &John agreed to reimburse us for 5 days lost charter time. When we agreed to the settlement Kyle stated he'd formalize it in an email message to me. When I hadn't received his email by the next day I texted him to remind him. He texted back that he'd "run into some unexpected challenges yesterday. It's on my to do list". Six week later I've still not received that from him. The end of February I sent John an email just to remind him of our agreement. I received no response from him, & as of today (March 11) no check. I thought the dock hand working at the marina where we re-fueled prior to returning the boat was just joking when he made a comment about CYOA standing for "Cover Your Own Ass" Apparently good advice, and my advice to anyone considering doing business with CYOA is to "Cover Your......" read more

Just plain RUDE! Spend your money somewhere else. Yacht chartering is the hospitality business, yet those folks don't seem to get it.

Great charter service with a top-notch website and knowledgeable marina crew. We booked our Christmas 2018 sailing adventure on a 2016 Fountaine Pajot "Lady Juliette" this Catamaran was everything I hoped it would be. We literally just got off the boat and wish we could stay another week. This is my third experience chartering a sailboat and our second time in the virgin islands. The first two charters were with Sunsail, one in the BVI's and then another charter in the Ábacos in the Bahamas. Both were great experiences but this experience with CYOA surpassed them. This catamaran with its on-board water-maker and a generator that could run three air-conditioning systems made this whole experience a game changer. It was never necessary to stop for water or for Ice or to even refuel during a week long charter. Our charter rate was reasonable and our experience with the company was solid. I made two phone calls during our sailing trip to attend to a tripped breaker for the generator and a tripped breaker for the windlass. My calls were answered immediately by technical support and resolved within minutes. read more