If you’ve notified us of your flight details and arrival time, we’ll be happy to send a taxi to meet you at St Vincent’s Argyle International Airport. The ride to our base takes about 25 minutes and costs $6US ($15EC) per person (minimum 4 person charge). Someone will be here to meet you at our marina and settle you into your shore accommodation or aboard the yacht (sleep-aboards available only if guests arrive before 7.00 p.m.).
BAREFOOT OFFSHORE SAILING SCHOOL St Vincent’s premier only sailing school and most active in the Eastern Caribbean, is owned and operated by the Barnard family who have been sailing the waters of the Grenadines for 3 generations. This background gives us the distinct and unusual advantage of insight and local knowledge that most charter companies, no matter how experienced, simply cannot offer.
Barefoot Offshore Sailing School is not a large organization. We don’t have a hundred yachts in our fleet (we’ve actually limited our bareboat fleet size to 25 yachts), we don’t have 60-page glossy brochures and you won’t see our full-page colour advertisements in all the yachting magazines. The fact is that most of our guests hear about us by word of mouth, or are repeat customers who have already sailed with us or are people who have been recommended to us by others.
We insist on a highly personalised service – and many of our guests are surprised to discover that such a “small” charter outfit offers facilities normally associated with so-called “premium companies” – including a waterfront restaurant and bar, small boutique hotel, water-sports equipment centre, full-service sail loft and canvas shop, engineering workshop, boutique, provisioning service, taxi service and free Wi-Fi throughout our property.
Our full-service charter base, just a 25-minute drive from St Vincent’s Argyle International Airport, is at Blue Lagoon, the best protected harbour on St Vincent’s south coast. Bequia, northernmost of the Grenadines, is just 5 miles over the water and the islands of Battowia, Baliceaux and Mustique are visible from the surrounding hills.
Meet the B.O.S.S Team
Barefoot Yacht Charters and BOSS is owned and run by yachtsmen, one of whom is a former America’s Cup sailor whose family has lived here in St Vincent & The Grenadines for many generations.
Our team, some of whom have been with us for many years, are not only certified American Sailing Association Instructors, but also people who know the islands intimately and are able to get along with folks of all ages and from all walks of life.
Captain Ian Joseph
Ian grew up in South Africa where he started sailing dinghies on inland lakes. He subsequently lived in Canada for a number of years where he both took formal instruction and sailed on the Great Lakes. In the interim he financed his love for sailing by working in Information Technology. In 1999, he relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area together with his family and two children. Ian furthered his sailing education on San Francisco Bay and the surrounding area, gaining multiple ASA qualifications as well as becoming an ASA certified instructor. Ian has taught, chartered and skippered boats in California, Israel, Greece, Croatia, Turkey, French Polynesia and throughout most of the Caribbean. In 2016 Ian left IBM to begin new adventures and started working with Barefoot Offshore Sailing School. Ian gained a further qualification by becoming an ASA instructor evaluator with the aim of furthering sailing education in the Caribbean by enabling local sailors to gain an ASA sailing instructor certification. Ian has a BS Comp Sc, an MBA, is an Advanced Open Water Diver and has his USCG Captain License. Ian is the author and presenter of multiple short and long seminars centered around various sailing activities.
Jimmy Slater
I was born in Guyana and after working in the diamond and mineral mining industry there, came to live in St Vincent and the Grenadines 20 years ago – and in these beautiful cruising grounds, I’ve been able to spend time living my passion for sailing.
After many years skippering charter yachts of many sizes for different companies here, I decided to hook up with B.O.S.S. which is the most prominent sailing school in this region, and, after passing my ASA Instructor qualifications, I became a full-time Instructor with them.
Other than sailing, I love music and art – I paint, tattoo and create local artworks by hand.
Chris May
After sailing on Lasers and 420s, I really got hooked the first time I sailed on a keelboat, a 40’ Cheoy Lee that my Navy ROTC unit rescued from a Customs storage yard after seizure. No self-tailing winches, no electronics, kerosene stove, but my oh my was the sailing sweet. I did my first offshore trip on Majestic and went on to command the Sailing Company before getting my commission and moving on to much larger ships. After leaving active duty as navigator on USS Nassau (LHA 4), I took groups on bareboat charters in the Caribbean, some of whom are now my best friends.
After several short summers racing on Lake Michigan, I decided to move to the Caribbean where my time on the water wouldn’t be limited to a few months, and scuba diving doesn’t require a drysuit. Now I live on my sailboat Troubadour, where I have time to practice my guitar and ukulele when I’m not teaching sailing.
Marc Castel
I started my sailing career as an avid racer, but I discovered my love for cruising and instructing when I spent a summer teaching teenagers on liveaboard boats in the BVI in 2007. Since then, I’ve taken an interest in sailing as a platform for travel and a way to live a simpler life that is more compatible with nature.
After getting married in 2015, my wife and I decided to buy an old boat to fix up and sail down to the Caribbean. We sailed down the east coast of the US, through the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico and to the Virgin Islands. We now sail between the Virgin Islands and the Grenadines, while I work as a sailing instructor and boat technician and my wife works as an ICU nurse.