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From the BVI Community Board 30 min. ago:
I did not realize that you were able to raft up together on a single morning ball down here in the BVI’s. I have seen this for the first time in Norman Island and now here in Levrick Bay tonight on the new “BoatyBall” reserves mooring balls. If this is the case, you can split the mooring fee:)

We’re the rafted boats flying the flag of Puerto Rico?

No idea, and not sure why it matters.

Rafting is common during regattas however the sailers involved are usually skilled at doing it correctly and in settled weather only.
G

I’ve used this twice this week and it’s pretty cool; first at Coopers island on 12/30 and again at Leverick bay on 1/1 (tonight).

The good: I know I have a ball that I’ve already paid for so I can take my time getting to the harbor. The payment is electronic so I don’t have to carry cash.

The bad: it’s a bit like buying concert tickets. You have to get online at midnight to get the balls. Most seem to be gone within a few minutes. Coopers’ balls were gone within seconds.

Also, at Leverick, someone took “my ball” when I moved over to the dock for fuel and water. But they moved to another ball when we explained that we had already paid for the ball. Most people don’t seem to know about it.

Here’s the text of the email you get after booking.

————————

Reservation Confirmation

Hi TVS, you have successfully booked a mooring ball. Please see details below.
Reservation
Dates: 2019 Jan 01 - 2019 Jan 02
Check in: 2 PM
Checkout: 11 AM
Price: $35.00
Payment method: MASTERCARD ****1234
Mooring ball
Location: BVI/Leverick Bay Resort Moorings
Ball number: 8
Coordinates: 18.498604, -64.388041
Mooring ball owner
Name: Leverick Bay Resort
Phone number: +12844957250
Email: becky@leverickbay.com
View Reservation
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Contact Us: info@boatyball.com
© 2018 BoatyBall.com

So if checkout is 11am and check in 2pm, does that mean the balls can be used between 11 and 2 free of charge? Like for a lunch stop?

That was the intention but I think it’s been causing some complications. Boaters who have reserved moorings but show up before 2 o’clock to find someone on their ball have gotten frustrated and some people who who stay on the moorings during this time have been uncooperative when it comes time to leave. I think the BoatyBall guys were considering a switch to a fixed check in/check out at 12 or something but I’m sure they would love some input

Rafting is prohibited. This is a safety issue. The current BoatyBall moorings have a maximum weight of 20 tons and maximum length of 60 feet. The mooring fields are spaced out to keep boats from colliding. Rafting can damage the hardware and cause collisions. We appreciate your help in keeping the moorings safe for everyone.

Alec is correct. We are considering changing the 11 am check out and 2 pm check in time because it has caused confusion. We are looking to make a number of other changes based off of feedback that we have received during this pilot phase. One is reservation time. Regardless of the time we select we will not be able to please everyone but keeping boaters up to midnight to make reservations was never our intention. Another change we are considering is a mandatory check in time. If a boat does not moor up by a specific time they would lose their reservation. These are all recommendations that boaters on this thread have recommended and we appreciate the feedback.

Changing the reservation time and a mandatory checkin time would be excellent enhancements.

George

Doesn't that somewhat nullify the whole reason behind your service?

Just got back from a week in the BVI and used Boatyball twice-Once for Christmas day on Anegada and then on a repeat visit to Cooper at the end of the trip-Great experience both times and it was nice to know that we didn't have to rush to get a mooring and could enjoy where we were and not worry about rushing to get to where we needed to be.

Narwhal

Adding a mandatory check-in time is a good enhancement, which would benefit the charter companies. Last night I sat outside watching a half dozen boats, all sailing cats under power, come in looking for (unavailable) moorings after sunset. I would have photographed them, but it was too dark. I have never seen it this bad, and I don’t know the reason. It’s not safe for anyone involved, and it’s risky for the boats.

Which mooring field was this?

What would be a good mandatory check in though? Because I may want to reserve a ball so I can show up just before sunset. If the mandatory time was sunset or even an hour ahead of time, that wouldn't be good either because who else would be able to use the ball at that point anyway? Make it early enough so someone else could make use of the ball and then the whole purpose of it is defeated.

The Yacht Week has been sailing the BVI. Could explain the boats rafted together on a mooring ball. I have definitely seen The Yacht Week do this in the past.

I think the Moor Seacure piece of paper we sign has always prohibited rafting up.

I reserved #7 at Leverick Bay yesterday. Arrived to find abandoned 50’ cat on it. Dock guy said to take #6 then another car with several large guys kindly said they had it reserved. Marina made things right but told me to send complaint letter to their boss. Said it happens about every day.

But it’s all good in the islands. I made pain killers then sent crew to swim over at 3 am and cut their mooring lines. Not really, but if anyone sees Wonder Boy charter boat, give him a piece of my mind.

We’ll try again for Anagada tonight. Unless

I think Capt. D has just experienced the reality of "Boaty Ball" and the frustration that can ensue. In the past if we were having a good time and decided to stay another night somewhere then we just stayed put and paid the mooring fee again. Didn't have to stay up and try to reserve it and frankly didn't have to give it another thought. What if someone reserves for the next day right out from under you and now you have to leave???? It sounds good on the surface with a guaranteed mooring but what about the days of "deciding on a whim"? If you wanted to guarantee you a spot somewhere then you had to get your tail up and get over there.

So for Capt. D there was a boat on his mooring and nobody onboard. But what if they were on it? What if they simply say "I'm not moving" or "My crew isn't onboard with me" or whatever? Do you just hover around in the mooring field trying to find out what to do? Do the crews square off and just show a battle of wills? Is there someone monitoring and preventing boats from taking the moorings incorrectly? So much room for error....

Capt. D, I'm curious to know how the marina made things right? Did they make one of the boats that didn't have a reservation get off the Boaty Ball's mooring? Were there other moorings still available in the field or did someone end up spending the night on the dock?

You raise the pirate flag!

Wonder Boy or Wonder Boat?

Seems like the one constant in the issues with reserved balls are crewed boats.
G

And the absence of the so-called harbour managers who are supposed to be monitoring this.

While this seemed like a good idea on the surface, we are seeing the problems that result from this type of system. I guess time will tell if these things work themselves out as people get more familiar with the 'system', but it seems there will still be those that just don't care to follow the 'rules' and will cause problems for everyone.

On the surface this seems like a very good idea, with two (at least) fundamental problems: squatters and not being able to spontaneously decide to stay an additional night on your mooring. As for the latter issue, I don't know how to solve that one, other than, if you think you might want to stay another night, don't use a BoatyBall mooring.

As for squatters, I don't think it's realistic to expect harbour managers to be able to prevent bad behavior. So, I suggest implementing a fine system. The harbour manager can report the squatter boat to BoatyBall, who then fines the charter company $100, which they charge against the charterer's deposit. Rental car companies essentially do the same thing if you get a parking ticket in their car. Of course, the charter companies would have to be on board [no pun intended :-)] with this and warn charterers in their briefing. This wouldn't solve the problem that evening if somebody squats, but I imagine it would do a lot to prevent it.

If these squatters have not paid thru BoatyBall, who is collecting the mooring fee?
New sign on BoatyBall mooring....
<<< $35 night with reservation (paid online), $70 night w/o reservation. >>>

Or Carol can create a new forum... The BoatyBall forum of Shame. Pics of the violators to be downloaded!

I don’t see it being an issue if I want to spontaneously stay another night in the same harbor after reserving a Boatyball the first night. Unless it’s a NYE or Full Moon event, then there should be plenty of other balls open up in the morning for me to move the boat. So the situation presents a solution. Having folks that respect the BB reservation system and having folks to enforce it is the same as all of the other discussion points. But I personally wouldn’t use my last-minute decision to stay as an excuse on why I shouldn’t pull in the lines and move over to one of the other vacant balls.

Haven’t posted here in a while but I’m compelled to report a Boatyball fail for us today at Anegada. I was excited about this idea at first, but after getting up at 6:30 this morning to reserve a mooring only to find someone on it with no signs of leaving, I’m pretty pissed off right now. Plus we’re out $35.

Consider yourselves forwarned!

Charge it back

This is another argument for fining the squatter through their charter company. Otherwise, in this situation the squatter gets a free mooring, BoatyBall is out the $35 after the appropriate and inevitable chargeback, and the reservation holder has a frustrating experience.

BoatyBall will likely not survive if this keeps up.

What time did you arrive on your ball?

I would imagine that the time he arrived at the mooring would be irrelevant because he has paid an overnight fee.

FYI
Per the Boatyball website, "Reservations only moorings have a check in and out time. As a boater, you can reserve a mooring for that day from 7:00 am until 12:00 am (midnight). Check in and check out times for a reservable ball are 12:00 pm (noon)." "Update: please note that the time you can start to reserve the balls, check in and checkout times have changed as of Jan 18, 2019."

Because if he got there before his check in time (noon) the boat from the previous night could still be on the mooring.

Based off of feedback we did recently change the check in and check out times to noon. We also change the time that moorings become available for reservation to 7 am. We are continuing to make changes to improve the boaters overall experience. However, the number of reported issues has drastically been reduced over the past three weeks as more and more boaters are aware of the program. We did have an issue with a squatter the other night in Anegada that caused us some issues. We did communicate with the boat owner who was not on the boat but apologized for what happened. We are wrapping up the pilot phase of the app and we will be making some changes on Friday that we believe will help with enforcement. We appreciate the early adopters of BoatyBall and everyone that has provided us feedback to help us improve the app. Thanks to many of you we are much further along today then we were 6 weeks ago when we launched this new service.

Followup to my post yesterday: We arrived at the mooring around 2:00 p.m. All moorings taken and anchorage more packed than we've ever seen. As no one was on the boat on our mooring, we had no choice but to anchor far out. I probably should have just let it go but I was really pissed off. So we did manage to track to down the captain outside Anegada Reef Hotel around 5:00 p.m. and it was a local captain. He proceeded to talk in circles and act like he didn't understand what was happening but I don't really believe that. Although perhaps if the system is only six weeks old, it could be true. In the end he paid me $35, probably because he was worried we'd embarrass him in front of his guests, as they were booked for dinner. I should also note that Anegada Reef would have kicked them off for us, and the captain did offer to leave the ball when we talked to him around 5:00, but at that point we were already anchored and one Smoothie in so it was pointless by then.

So I'm less pissed off this morning (Anegada!) and I appreciate Boatyball chiming in here. We did successfully reserve a mooring at Cooper last week.

Same theme over and over. Crewed boats!
G

It was entertaining to watch the negotiations between two squatters and "owners" of the reserveable moorings last week at Leverick Bay.

Tried reserving a ball at Cooper Jan 25th at 7:01 am but all of the the balls were already taken. Lesson learned, hit that reserve button at 7:00 am, not 7:01 for Cooper on a Friday.

Soon you’ll have TSA inspections before allowed on a mooring