Credit card chartering

geem

geem

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Do charter companies actually check if charterers have experience/qualifications before letting them lose in a yacht?
Yesterday a Moorings yacht hit the very visible reef near where we are anchored. They hit it so hard that the skipper split his head open needing several stitches.
We dragged the boat off using a large rib with a pair of 150hp engines. Pulling from the top of the mast perpendicular to the yachts hull so we leaned the hull over to reduce draft. Once it was heeled we pulled forward with my dinghy and it was clear.
Will the charterers declare to Moorings that they hit the reef? Is the keel joint damaged? Is it leaking? How do such incompetent people get to be behind the wheel of a charter yacht? Its not an isolated incident and the quality of anchoring seen by charterers has to be seen to believed!!
 
Incompetence is incompetence .... a few years back I kedged an American circumnavigator off the shallow spit in the bay in Punat after he ran aground and couldn't free himself. He was most embarassed and admitted he just wanted to move across the bay and didn't turn on his plotter or consult a chart.

Charter yachts are normally checked under the waterline by a diver on the Saturday morning when they're all back in the marina for handover - hit sand and the diver probably won't notice the damage, hit rock or anything that gets through the anti-fouling and he probably will. There's a good chance he's pushed the keel backwards and compressed the hull, causing interior damage around the companionway/chart table/galley/toilet - an expensive repair.

You could be a good citizen and inform the charter company ... they usually have their web site address all over the boat ;) ..... it might be in an ownership program or a danger to the next crew.

Short of doing a competence check before a charter the companies can only go on paper qualifications, and that is no guarantee of competence.
 
On the occasions I've chartered (not many) this was with Sunsail in Croatia, and we were asked for the originals of skipper and crew certs / license / qualifications. That in itself doesn't prove actual competence of course....!

Arrangement probably differ between companies and locations.
 
Baggywrinkle said:
Incompetence is incompetence .... a few years back I kedged an American circumnavigator off the shallow spit in the bay in Punat after he ran aground and couldn't free himself. He was most embarassed and admitted he just wanted to move across the bay and didn't turn on his plotter or consult a chart.

Charter yachts are normally checked under the waterline by a diver on the Saturday morning when they're all back in the marina for handover - hit sand and the diver probably won't notice the damage, hit rock or anything that gets through the anti-fouling and he probably will. There's a good chance he's pushed the keel backwards and compressed the hull, causing interior damage around the companionway/chart table/galley/toilet - an expensive repair.

You could be a good citizen and inform the charter company ... they usually have their web site address all over the boat ;) ..... it might be in an ownership program or a danger to the next crew.

Short of doing a competence check before a charter the companies can only go on paper qualifications, and that is no guarantee of competence.
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Good idea. I sent Moorings an email this morning.
 
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