NauticEd - International Sailing & Powerboating Education

To find south using the constellation Orion, locate Orion's Belt and the small vertical line of stars hanging from it called Orion's Sword. Follow the line of the sword straight down toward the horizon; that intersection point marks due south when the constellation is high and vertical in the sky.

Best Time to Charter in the BVI: Weather, Prices & Hurricane Season

When is the best time to charter in the British Virgin Islands?

The answer depends on your budget, your tolerance for heat, and how flexible you are with weather. December through March is the busy winter season in the BVI, and it is usually more expensive because so many people want to escape the cold and sail in the Caribbean.

April, May, and June can be excellent months for a BVI charter. The weather is still beautiful, the crowds may be lighter, and the pricing can be more attractive than peak winter season.
July, August, September, and October are hotter months, and they also fall within hurricane season. That does not mean you are likely to be sitting in the middle of a hurricane during your charter, but it does mean you need to pay attention, stay flexible, and understand that weather can affect your trip.

The good news is that modern forecasting usually gives plenty of advance warning when a tropical system may threaten the area. If a serious storm is tracking toward the BVI, your charter company will be monitoring the situation and may adjust or cancel plans for safety.
If you are looking for a lower-cost time to book, summer and early fall can be worth considering. Just understand the tradeoff: it can be hotter, there is more weather risk, and you may want a boat with a generator and air conditioning, especially for sleeping at night.
October and November can also be nice as the weather starts to cool off again and the islands move toward the winter charter season.

The best time to sail the BVI really comes down to the kind of trip you want: peak-season comfort and demand, shoulder-season balance, or lower-cost summer travel with more heat and more weather awareness required.

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The original Bluenose was launched in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, in 1921 as a working Grand Banks fishing schooner—and a racing vessel. That same year, she won the International Fishermen’s Trophy. For the next 17 years, no American or Canadian challenger managed to take it from her.
She became known as the “Queen of the North Atlantic,” and her image has appeared on the Canadian dime since 1937.

Then, in 1946, Bluenose struck a reef off Haiti and was lost.
But the story didn’t end there.

In 1963, Bluenose II was launched from Lunenburg. Remarkably, she was built at the same shipyard and by many of the same people who had worked on the original. Original designer William Roué endorsed the new vessel, and legendary Bluenose captain Angus Walters joined her maiden voyage.

The project had originally been financed by Oland Brewery as a promotional vessel. In 1971, Bluenose II was gifted to the Government of Nova Scotia.

Why doesn’t a sailboat tip over?

A sailboat does not keep tipping over because it is constantly balancing two opposing moments: the heeling momentfrom the wind and the righting moment from the keel. A moment is simply a force acting through a distance, so it is not just the force itself that matters, but where that force is applied. The wind pushes on the sails high above the water, creating a heeling moment. That force acts through the sail’s COP (center of pressure), so the tipping side of the equation can be simplified as area × height × vel². In other words, the heeling moment grows with the sail area exposed to the wind, the height of the COP, and the square of the wind speed.

As the boat begins to heel, the system starts working back toward balance. The keel weight moves farther off centerline, which increases the righting moment, while at the same time the sail presents less area to the wind and the height to the COP is reduced. That means the heeling side of the equation is decreasing while the righting side is increasing. The boat will keep heeling only until those moments balance: keel weight × distance = area × height × vel². That is why a sailboat can heel hard without simply falling over—the geometry of the boat and rig is constantly adjusting to bring the forces back into balance.

Selling your boat soon? 🚤 Don't underestimate the power of organization. Keeping a binder of service records.