TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Diesel, water, and ice prices?

I tend to be a bit of a planner... I was wondering if anyone knows what the current prices are for diesel, water and ice? I'm just wanting to make sure I bring plenty of kitty funds for a smooth trip. Any fuel/water docks to avoid or plan for? Rough idea of gal/hr generator usage on a Lagoon 450 3 cabin? Any help and tips are much appreciated!

Plan 70 gallons of fuel for the week including main engines if you run the generator only at night for AC. You won’t be far off.
George

Paid $0.20/gal. for water and ice was $3.50 for 10 lb. bag this past May at CGB.

Water is $.30 at GH JVD, $.25 (IIRC) at ST VG and $.15 at Leverick. (October)
Can't remember the prices for diesel or ice.

Diesel was $4.50 at Great Harbour and $4.25 at Voyage in Soper's Hole last week.

On Sea Tiger, my lagoon 42, with liberal use of engines and generator(virtually all the time when not underway), I plan 10 gallons per day .

With Lagoon 45, maybe a bit more (12 gallons/per day?) . IIRC, Diesel in $4.50 /gal range. Ice $4-5 per bag.

Water= Water maker.;-)

Thanks for all the input! Super jealous of the water makers... That will be a priority for picking our boat next year.

We spent $350 on diesel. Arrived 10/10 and left 10/20. Hooks up to dock 10/10, 10/11 and 10/19. Otherwise, ran the gen at least 12 hours a night and motored at least 1 1/2 days because of no wind. We were on a Nautitech Open 40 from Horizon's.

I think we spend around $30 per night to run the generator. Diesel to run the engines is cheap as they do not consume much fuel.

Scuba Doo also has a watermaker.

Yes, we added water maker to our list of priorities. Not because water is expensive, but because of the logistics to get water.

When you look at a boat with a watermaker check the onboard water capacity. Many boats are really reducing that number. If the water maker fails it puts you in a bind if you have 60 gallons of tankage. It’s also important for obvious reasons if the boat does not have a water maker installed. I see cats of equal size with huge differences in capacity. I consider 200 gallons a personal minimum on a cat over 45 feet. With that amount of water I need only one stop with zero rationing for 8 people and don’t stop at all if it’s just the family.

Or the convenience of not worrying about water plus the time saved not having to dock to load water.

George - what specific boats (or charter companies) are you seeing with this significantly reduced water capacity? 60 gallons is ridiculously small. 185~210 gal is pretty standard for the 45-52' cats (at leaat FP, Lagoon, R&C, Voyage).

If you have freshwater flush (no smell) toilets and 8 persons onboard, you'll use 40+ gallons every 2 days just for the heads.

To practically cruise the SVI for more than a couple days with 8 on a cat and maintain the high level of comfort charter guests have become used to, you need a watermaker (regardless of tankage).

We just chartered Cool Change, Lagoon 450, TMM for 3 weeks. We ran the AC every night for at least 12-14 hours.
Very hot and humid the first week and we motored a lot since the wind was non existent.
It was about $800. for the 3 weeks in diesel. About $40.00 per night.
Diesel. $4.50 per gallon
Water. .20 per gallon
Ice. $3-5.00 per bag.

Barrdj,

Lagoon 42 is challenged for water capacity as delivered by the factory. If the second water tank option is chosen, then the generator is deleted.

The fix has been to add more capacity after market and or a water maker.

Sea Tiger added both in the after market.

If you charter a boat specifically because of a watermaker, be sure that it is working before leaving base. We chartered Salt Crush from BVIYC, because it has a watermaker. I. The boat briefing, the briefer, showed us how it was supposed to operate, but couldn’t get it to make water! He tried several times, and then said the water at the base was not clean enough for the maker to work. Well, we all know that water at bases does tend to be dirtier, so we accepted his explanation. He assured us it work fine at the anchorages we would be visiting. At first stop at the new balls in Benures Bay, I turned on the watermaker. It failed again to produce. Called base about the issue, and at first, they refused to even make a service call, saying that watermakers are not covered! I then mentioned that the ice maker wasn’t working either. They finally agreed to meet us if we moved to the Bight, since they had a service call later that day.
So we moved to the Bight and waited. The service crew finally arrived with the same guy who told us all would’ve okay once we left base. He basically did the same things he did before but just managed to waste about 10 gallons of our now precious water. He then made the same excuses about water quality. He also didn’t fix the ice maker. So it was back to docking for water.

The Lagoon 450 at 92 gallons and the Voyage 480 at around 105 gallons are two that come to mind when I was looking at a purchase recently. Even the Moorings 5000 with 185 gallons I considered on the small size since it’s a seriously large 50 foot cat. I would have preferred 250 gallons. One nice thing about extra tankage is you don’t have to fill the tanks if you want to keep the weight down but you have the option if departing to a area where water is scarce. I did notice in looking at cats over 44 feet all new boats coming into the charter market have water makers. It’s the new standard as AC became in the last decade.
I have heard the next big thing coming in charter boats is a detachable submarine between the hulls. In 10 years it’s going to be standard equipment at every charter company!
G

George 1,

The standard lagoon 450 has 1 tank with 92 gallons. There is a factory option for a second 92 gallon water tank. Out Lagoon 450 Scuba doo has that option. Therefore Scuba Doo has 184 gallons plus the hot water tank.

I could not imagine having only 100 gallons of water on board.

We had a similar situation last year. We did a 4 week charter on Blue Kite a Helia 44 from Virgin Island Yacht Charters. One of the main reasons that we chose this particular boat was because it had a watermaker.

There were only 4 of us on the boat and we are all used to being very frugal with water, however as the boat has fresh water flush toilets you are always going to be using freshwater.

After 3 days of running the watermaker for only an hour a day, it came up with a message that the filters needed to be changed. We were not to stressed as we were in the SVI and were going to be going back to the VIYC base in the next three days anyway, before continuing our charter in the BVI, so knew that we would have enough water until we got back to the base.

At the base they replaced the filters, but the attitude was that we must have abused the watermaker. I asked them to give us spare filters as we still had another 3 weeks of our charter to go. They refused and said that we were not "qualified" to change the filters.

Sure enough the new filters only lasted for about 5 hours of use. When we contacted the base, we were told that the watermaker was not an essential piece of equipment and that there was no shortage of places in the BVI where we could get water.

On our return to the base, I presented them with bills that we had paid for water, and asked to be reimbursed, pointing out that on a 4 week charter, we were entitled to expect the watermaker to work for the full 4 weeks. It was not about the relatively small amount of money, but about the principle.

VIYC refused to reimburse us, and as result of their attitude to the watermaker issues, I would never charter with them again, which is really a pity, as besides the watermaker problems, Blue Kite was a really nice boat.

This year we have booked a 4 week charter with CYOA, starting next month, and are holding thumbs that the watermaker on the Lagoon 42 works for 4 weeks!

I am jealous, I wish I could do 4 week charters!
G

We are currently on our first boat with a water maker and it has been great! MarineMax 443 and it makes about 14 gallons an hour when it's on. It will overflow the tanks though, so you need to keep an eye on it. They did tell us not to run it at Anegada as the coral particles in the water can jam it up. We're out for a week and always need to fill up at least once.

We had a problem on our boat last month and TMM paid the entire $900. gas bill without us asking them.
Go with a great company and you will have a great trip!
Love TMM

Lcrich

Was your issue with water maker? $900 for what?

No. The $900.00 was for our diesel bill for the 3 weeks. Our boat did not have a water maker.

Did anything change? My last Charter was 2017. I am signing up for 2020 now so starting to read and re-educate myself. Normally on the water at night almost always with a nice breeze at times it can be "chilly" even in late June early July when we typical charter, at least for us, from Florida. Never would need an AC on the water at anchor or mooring. Fresh clean air is so good. Our friends are coming from China so breathing the BVI air is a vacation in itself. So only used the engine 2 to 3 hours a day for charging for the Fridge mainly.

Only place I every used AC on the water was in Belize due to the bugs near the mangroves

At best we used $100 for fuel for the week. This seems crazy compared to all the other posts.

For water I load up from Bobby's (or other) with gallon jugs and such for drinking. Then usually fill up at Leverick's and also Marina Cay, though I think that may be an issue now. This is not a large cost.

We are only 4 on the charter so maybe that has something to do with the needs. More folks equals more water and so on.

Dave

Things haven't really changed. We like open hatches and air moving but often we find crew are tied to A/C so it's a bit of a balance. More generator = more diesel. Many boats now have water makers. The responses on here are split about drinking that water but it has less to do with quality of desalination than just drinking out of the holds. We tend to buy bottled water with or without a water maker. Like you said, more people more water but a water maker is definitely nice to have.

As always .... relax and enjoy!

Dave

Dave,
We just returned from 10 days aboard a Leopard 43. We ran the engines a bit at night to recharge the batteries and sailed most days. No AC, we ended up topping off the tanks at the end with a total of 20 gallons so aprox $100 for fuel.

20 cents a gallon for water at Marina Cay or Scrub Island

We fill water bottles direct from the Watermaker when the watermaker is running.

We don't consume water from the tanks, although we know some who do.