Sorry to bring up a delicate subject, but is Boaty Ball still active? I signed up earlier today (back up plan for our upcoming trip we still plan on FCFS) but have yet to receive a confirmation email. I realize its a sore subject here on TTOL but I want to be sure we have access to a mooring ball. That being said how crowded is it typically starting next Wednesday the 30th. Is it still somewhat quiet down there?
"We lost our corkscrew and were compelled to live on food and water for several days. ~W.C. Fields"
Yes, its still active. This time of year it will not be crowded. You should have no problem finding moorings. I just check the BB app and they have moorings available at all of the anchorages.
Use them as a "moorings availability" proxy...you can look at the website and as long as some are open you know you will be fine to end up on them as last resort if you cant find a FCFS ball. I am sure plenty of people are squatting on them as well since there is no physical collection mechanism.
Stayed in CGB last night about 15 boats on FCFS balls, all Boaty balls empty until one boat came in late and took one(not reserved). Saw the young man collecting this morning stop at that boat and he told me he did collect the $40 from them.
It’s sad that boatyball took the best balls in CGB and they now sit mostly empty.
I don't know why these are the best balls in CGB? They are not in the front, not in the back, not closest to the dock, and not farthest from the dock. Not sure how much more neutral they could be.
If I felt they were the best balls in any anchorage, I guess I'd be happy to pay $10 extra for that great mooring ball.
Boatyball has almost the entire row closest to the beach. I like those balls so the kids onboard can go back and forth to the beach. They run almost from the dingy dock down towards Myetts.
Glad to hear that we shouldn’t have any issues finding mooring balls. I’ve given up on trying to get the app to work anyways, I’ve used multiple emails to sign up with no answer from them. FCFS it is.
"We lost our corkscrew and were compelled to live on food and water for several days. ~W.C. Fields"
Boatyball has almost the entire row closest to the beach. I like those balls so the kids onboard can go back and forth to the beach. They run almost from the dingy dock down towards Myetts.
Wrong. The row closest to the beach is all FCFS. BoatyBall has the second and third rows. I just checked from my window to be sure. If you're looking at the map on their website, it does appear that way but it's because they don't show the FCFS balls on their map.
Gosh, Jason, color me shocked that BoatyBall would represent themselves that way.
I don't know why you would think they would represent themselves any other way. They have no control over when other operators add/remove balls so it would make no sense to put other mooring balls on their map.
They are also trying to buy the FCFS balls from other mooring ball operators so they can own their own balls which would adversely affect their partners as they would sell their own balls before the other boats balls that they only recieve a percentage of.
They are also trying to buy the FCFS balls from other mooring ball operators so they can own their own balls which would adversely affect their partners as they would sell their own balls before the other boats balls that they only recieve a percentage of.
How would they sell their balls first when people pick the ball they want at the time of booking?
At the very least it would make sense for boaty ball to indicate that there are other balls so one would know booking a boaty ball mooring they wouldn't be the closest boat to shore.
I write programs and considering its a visual map of available moorings I don't see how theirs would come up first unless they pretend the others are sold out until they sell all theirs.
They move the goalposts all the time on the website they control it its easy to make a random selection for each mooring field once they own their own balls.
Mostly because it would be pretty obvious that a group of balls suddenly became available after they showed as unavailable earlier in the day. Since they mostly sell out during high season, I don't see why they'd bother.
Ended up not needing a BB on our ten days, a few were taken when we arrived at Leverick, closer to the dock I guess, we were probably the 5th boat into Great Harbour on Wednesday and only 1 was being used but by nightfall the place was full up.
"We lost our corkscrew and were compelled to live on food and water for several days. ~W.C. Fields"
I see that this morning, last night they showed 10 more in Leverick Bay.... Either way, that doesn't sound like very many. I wonder how many total fcfs balls there are in the bvi?
There are 55 reservable BoatyBall moorings in the BVI. From the map it will show this regardless of whether they are reserved or not. Bay owners have the ability to "hide" moorings, if they need to take them offline; that is why it showed that there were 43 a few days ago and 54 now.
It's getting to the busier time of year...just read about an incident (on the BVI Abroad - Hurricane Irma FB page) at Coooper where a person let a boat loose since they were squatting and refused to leave.
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