Treasure trove
Think of your standard flotilla and you’ll probably imagine eight to 12 boats crewed by two to four people each, an easy week’s sailing in the placid Med and an engineer, a hostie and a skipper to point you in the right direction and serve up a bowl of punch in an anchorage one night.
This was a flotilla with a difference. Held to mark the 50th anniversary of The Moorings, it involved 27 boats, 130 people and seven stops in the British Virgin Islands.
The Moorings allocated our journalists’ crew (two American sailors, one French, and me, a Brit) a Robertson and Caine 4500: a 45ft sailing catamaran with four double cabins, all en suite. Provisioning was the easiest it’s ever been – I filled in a form ticking preferences for breakfasts, lunches, snacks and a couple of dinners (and I was heartened to see the option of a box of BVI farm-grown fruit, veg and herbs) and it was all delivered to the boat the morning we set off.
Before we cast off our lines, we were given a run-through of the boat by one of the Moorings’ engineers. I’d never before cruised in such luxury – we had a generator, air-con, electric saltwater toilets, powered davits for the dinghy, a large drawer fridge and freezer, toaster, coffee percolator and even a watermaker. Being seasoned sailors, we didn’t use the air-con; rarely switched on the genny, instead using the inverter to power the toaster and coffee maker; and returned to base with one
