Chartering in Greece

[Obi]

It can be strange in September, you can be sat in a Taverna, very warm, in the distance you can see electrical storms, lightning flashing everywhere, it may not come anywhere near you, but when it does, it is usually over quite quickly, its years ago now, but a Sunsail yacht smashed into my boat, which was moored up, Sunsail were the scum of the earth, they avoided/denied damage and told me to take them to court, i should have done, i had witnesses, i wish i had now!

You echo a much repeated attitude, I imagine you were dealing with the legal team at HQ in the UK, if you were not then, well shrug.. I do not see why Sunsail would be responsible for a charter boat crashing into yours? Hertz do not seem to be responsible for the actions of hire car drivers. Or if it was a Sunsail skipper then that is different, but you did not say that. Lawyers have long been called "scum" Sunsail or otherwise.

 

[Davy_S]

It was a Sunsail charterer that crashed into my boat, what made it worse was the fact that they admitted it! but Sunsail told them to deny it and leave it to their lawyers, it was not an expensive repair, i simply found the attitude of Sunsail to be unacceptable and not very sympathetic to an innocent persons financial loss, it is certainly not an attitude i would have adopted had i damaged someone else's vessel!
anyway, its a long time ago (i did post on here about it) we will simply have to agree to disagree.

 

[mjcoon]

It can be strange in September, you can be sat in a Taverna, very warm, in the distance you can see electrical storms, lightning flashing everywhere, it may not come anywhere near you, but when it does, it is usually over quite quickly, its years ago now, but a Sunsail yacht smashed into my boat, which was moored up, Sunsail were the scum of the earth, they avoided/denied damage and told me to take them to court, i should have done, i had witnesses, i wish i had now!

Amusing co-incidence: the BBC weather page is showing one hour slot this afternoon having more than twice the wind speed of all the other hours. I don't know if that will already have a smidgen of averaging...

 

[skipmac]

I have not yet come across a Charter Company that will charter without certification. We have chartered in Thailand, Greece, Turkey and Croatia.

Have chartered in the US, Bahamas and USVI and none of them asked for any kind of certification. They wanted to see my sailing resume, ask me questions and confirm I actually knew how to drive a boat. I guess they have seen too many people with certifications that barely knew bow from stern.

 

[skipmac]

You should be able to do just a one-day ICC assessment for a relatively small amount

Finally found one place in the US that will do this. Problem is the US is not a signatory to the ICC operation so not too many options.

 

[skipmac]

USA isn't a signatory to the ICC resolution and can't issue them.

Found a UK company with a US operated by an Aussie that can issue the ICC. So far the only one I've found.

 

[skipmac]

It can be strange in September, you can be sat in a Taverna, very warm, in the distance you can see electrical storms, lightning flashing everywhere, it may not come anywhere near you, but when it does, it is usually over quite quickly, its years ago now, but a Sunsail yacht smashed into my boat, which was moored up, Sunsail were the scum of the earth, they avoided/denied damage and told me to take them to court, i should have done, i had witnesses, i wish i had now!

Makes me not want to do business with Sunsail.

 

[DownWest]

You echo a much repeated attitude, I imagine you were dealing with the legal team at HQ in the UK, if you were not then, well shrug.. I do not see why Sunsail would be responsible for a charter boat crashing into yours? Hertz do not seem to be responsible for the actions of hire car drivers. Or if it was a Sunsail skipper then that is different, but you did not say that. Lawyers have long been called "scum" Sunsail or otherwise.

I find that an odd reply.. Sunsail presumably insure their yachts against accidents caused by their renters? So, the claim should be delt with by the insureres? 'The legal team' sounds like a bunch of people who browbeat people with genuine claims. Not too attractive...
We used Sunsail, but had no problems, apart from some missing batterns, that they had no spares for. Mainly brecause it was the only boat of that size at that location. Not a big problem.
I have a few relatives in the legal zone. They definately have ethics on situations.

 

[mjcoon]

I have a few relatives in the legal zone. They definately have ethics on situations.

That's on my list of oxymorons: business ethics, youth culture, military intelligence, feminine logic, ... (invent your own!)

 

[DownWest]

That's on my list of oxymorons: business ethics, youth culture, military intelligence, feminine logic, ... (invent your own!)

On your photo..You old cynic

 

[pmartin127]

I have seen other large charter companies where the staff just do not care. At Frikes I had to go and find the lead crew of another flotilla company to tell them the swell was pushing their boats into each other and against the quay, fenders and lines were not doing their job. I offered to sort it out for them, they agreed to let me clamber over their yachts and sort it out for them so thry could stay in the bar. This company's name begins with "N" and their entire fleet was a fleet of sheds that I would not want to holiday on. Sunsail would not do that, and I repeatedly saw the Sunsail crews dive into the main channel in Fiskardo to untangle anchors that had nothing to do with them, they were just helping out. other sailors.

For the purposes of clarity the company "N" will not be Nisos who, in my opinion, are on a par with Sail Ionian in terms of yacht reliability, maintenance and response to issues happening.

Although I know who the "N" is I won't name them here but having eliminated Nisos it shouldn't take long to work out which company it is - and I would agree with Obi in his summarisation.

 

[Obi]

For the purposes of clarity the company "N" will not be Nisos who, in my opinion, are on a par with Sail Ionian in terms of yacht reliability, maintenance and response to issues happening.

Although I know who the "N" is I won't name them here but having eliminated Nisos it shouldn't take long to work out which company it is - and I would agree with Obi in his summarisation.

Correct. Not Nisos.

 

[Obi]

It was a Sunsail charterer that crashed into my boat, what made it worse was the fact that they admitted it! but Sunsail told them to deny it and leave it to their lawyers, it was not an expensive repair, i simply found the attitude of Sunsail to be unacceptable and not very sympathetic to an innocent persons financial loss, it is certainly not an attitude i would have adopted had i damaged someone else's vessel!
anyway, its a long time ago (i did post on here about it) we will simply have to agree to disagree.

Having thought a bit more about this, you are of course correct. Sunsail do insure the public paying skippers with a damage waiver or something like that. It was a bit out of my remit, but I agree you should not have been out of pocket and it is not a good way to behave towards you.

I was simply curious whether you were dealing with a legal team or the local base, because I expected that they would have different areas of influence and responsibility. but having thought about it a bit more, I would also expect that the base staff should have been able to help you in whatever way they could.

Sorry you had a bad experience, obviously this sentiment is nothing to do with Sunsail, I feel for anyone that has a poor experience at the hands of any company.

 

[shan]

Have chartered in the US, Bahamas and USVI and none of them asked for any kind of certification. They wanted to see my sailing resume, ask me questions and confirm I actually knew how to drive a boat. I guess they have seen too many people with certifications that barely knew bow from stern.

The US, like Britain doesn’t require much from leisure boaters. The EU is considerably stricter. Not charter related but we recently added a 6hp auxiliary engine onto our little day boat and had to have the boat reinspected and the livrette redone.

 

[Skellum]

The US, like Britain doesn’t require much from leisure boaters. The EU is considerably stricter. Not charter related but we recently added a 6hp auxiliary engine onto our little day boat and had to have the boat reinspected and the livrette redone.

In Europe the requirement for certification is at least partly driven by the insurers. If they let you take the boat without a ticket and there is a problem the insurers won’t pay up.

 

[xyachtdave]

Obi we had an excellent week on a Neilson Dufour 325 including a bouncy night in Frikes!

There must be another outfit beginning with N....

Our boat was absolutely fine and we spent all week smoking much larger Sunsail equipment. I didn't see another charter boat all week that I'd rather have been on instead.

 

[Tranona]

Have chartered in the US, Bahamas and USVI and none of them asked for any kind of certification. They wanted to see my sailing resume, ask me questions and confirm I actually knew how to drive a boat. I guess they have seen too many people with certifications that barely knew bow from stern.

That is how it used to be in Greece when I first chartered there 25 years ago but started to change in the mid 2000's following the explosion in the number of boats in the charter fleet with a subsequent increase in the amount of damage, mostly to do with mooring incidents and therefore pressure from insurers and the authorities to have more control over the standard of charterers. This reflects the fact that just about all European states have certification requirements for their own citizens (not that you would know it!). Fortunately they accept the ICC even if it is very basic even though Greece is not actually a signatory. The UK RYA has been at the forefront of promoting the ICC and persuading the UN to widen the range of people to whom it can issue it. That is why you are able to get an ICC in the US. It is assessment only and not difficult. I had a pleasant morning out on my boat with a crew and the assessor who tested the required competencies. took 4 hours, but professional schools usually do it in a day with maybe 4 people. It is for life with 5 years renewal (just money!) and small beer compared with the overall cost of chartering a boat in Greece,

 

[DownWest]

We were on the quai in greece, talking to the Sunsail rep, when he looked out and said 'Oh dear, ramming speed.' One of the flotilla Jaguar 27's was coming in quite fast. Girl with rope on foredeck, bloke at helm. He had completely underestimated the braking power of reverse gear. They hit the quai quite hard and the girl did a forward flip onto it. Lots of amusment... They were quite pissed and she didn't seem to suffer any real damage, despite minimalm clothing.
The boat got a slight ding in the prow. There were others.. Tough things.

 

[mjcoon]

That is how it used to be in Greece when I first chartered there 25 years ago but started to change in the mid 2000's following the explosion in the number of boats in the charter fleet with a subsequent increase in the amount of damage, mostly to do with mooring incidents and therefore pressure from insurers and the authorities to have more control over the standard of charterers. This reflects the fact that just about all European states have certification requirements for their own citizens (not that you would know it!). Fortunately they accept the ICC even if it is very basic even though Greece is not actually a signatory. The UK RYA has been at the forefront of promoting the ICC and persuading the UN to widen the range of people to whom it can issue it. That is why you are able to get an ICC in the US. It is assessment only and not difficult. I had a pleasant morning out on my boat with a crew and the assessor who tested the required competencies. took 4 hours, but professional schools usually do it in a day with maybe 4 people. It is for life with 5 years renewal (just money!) and small beer compared with the overall cost of chartering a boat in Greece,

This was on flotilla even further back than that, when there was some danger of harbourmasters asking awkward questions. So the company (Island Sailing in this case, a precursor of Sunsail) issued their own certificates!

 

[DownWest]

This was on flotilla even further back than that, when there was some danger of harbourmasters asking awkward questions. So the company (Island Sailing in this case, a precursor of Sunsail) issued their own certificates!
View attachment 154797

Photo is an imposter, def not you