TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Advice on Sailing schools?

We've bareboated twice in BVI with friends...handling the boat ourselves..(I've served as crew) but realizing we'll soon need to include our kids, I've been looking into sailing schools recently in hopes of obtaining bareboat certification.
I'd appreciate any comments - pros/cons and other advice on what to look for in choosing a school. Thanks!

Where do you live?

South Carolina...I've been looking at the colgate fast track programs in florida and bvi...also the Swain school in bvi..

Depending on the time of the Year Black Rock Sailing school from Boston teaches on our boats at CYOA Yacht Charters during the winter. They can do a private charter with you or you can book on one of their group classes.

Highly recommend Black Rock Sailing School. They are based out of Boston but do school of CYOA in St Thomas. I did my ASA 103/104 in April of this year and could not have asked for a better course. We trained on 49 Beneteau. There were 3 students to one instructor. It was like being on a bareboat charter for a week but included instruction each day along with practicing skills. We got to visit St John, Norman, Sopers, BEYC, and JVD. It was my 6th time in the islands chartering and learned so much. I'm looking forward to doing more courses with them in the future.

Big up for Blue Water Sailing School in Ft Lauderdale, also in St Thomas.
We successfully completed ASA 101,103,104 and 114 in a very busy week living aboard About Time in FLL. Smaller classes = bigger learning we did EVERYTHING from meal planning to pre-flight checks on the engines, dishes, boat handling, route planning.
Definitely NOT a vacation, but we went from there to buying our own cat 4 months later.

For a closer to home thought, the Admiral and I did the 7 day livaboard for 101, 102, 104, 114 with the Charleston Sailing School in Charleston SC. It's a smaller operation that others mentioned above but we found it to be thorough instruction and now have 3 BVI charters behind us. Fourth trip now scheduled for April 2017.

We used Swain for 103 & 104 in April - feel free to send me a PM if you have questions. We paid the group price but it wound up being a private course because nobody else signed up for our week! We did 101 locally a year earlier, but they also offer 101 as part of a package.

Our instructor was Keanna and she was excellent. I would recommend requesting her if you go with Swain. Her style is effective but fun. She let us set the itinerary. We did the full loop with Anagada and JVD. We also did 6 dives over the week - could have done 8 but we opted to relax rather that dive on on the last day.

We passed our tests with Swain and then I tested to skipper a boat at my local sailing club and passed easily. We have a boat reserved with Horizon in November and got a discount because they have a relationship with Swain as they are both in Nanny Cay - a great marina.

Not sure the boats you are used to with friends, but after chartering with Moorings, going to Swain we noticed the boats are older and not as fancy. Happy to provide more details if you want them - just send me a message