Does your bareboat charter company employ a diver....

E39mad

E39mad

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....at the end of the week to inspect the boat below the waterline?

First time for us 10 days ago in Split.

I can understand why they do it and it's both sensible and reassuring for the next charterer - anyone else experienced this?
 
It sounds like a pretty sensible business decision - check to ensure you've not near snapped the rudder off / driven the root of the keel into the hull by some high speed dodgy driving and grounding.
 
I await the threads saying that diving is unseamenlike and they have chartered for years without anybody diving to check their boats so it should be stopped.
 
Seems to be the routine thing for a while now. Trouble is, can be open to abuse. Do you see the pictures from the charter before yours?

Some good friends of ours chartered in St Lucia some years ago. The company came up with 'evidence' that the keel had been damaged. Bad move as our friends run a Dive School in Gib and had taken their own photos at the start of their charter, having all the expertise plus some to do that showing the damage was already there.

Prudence, mmm. Not all companies are what they seem. When I had a charter company in Gosport it was not something I ever considered, but have people changed?
 
They didn't take pictures so how they could prove it was you would be interesting - deposit was purposely put on a credit card so could dispute anything untoward that may have arisen - fortunately the charter co were sound and I was refunded in full.

What really annoyed me was that we did know he was there and I had just been asked by another Charter company employee to tighten the bow line due to strong winds coming in so I duly started the motor put it gear and gave it some revs for the crew to take up the slack (as there was not any to be had manually). I was then told to turn it off by another employee as they had a diver down. No forewarning, no flag, and no dockside man to assist. Luckily he was not under our boat but I told them what I thought of their slack procedure and conflicting instructions. Suppose that's Croatia for you, little or no H&S.
 
Had a diver inspection on one of the last charter holidays I did with my parents as an older teenager - can't remember if that was Greece or Croatia, but it shows it's by no means a new practice.

Pete
 
I thought this must happen after the incident quite a few years ago with the boat handed over sans keel; must add to the costs but seems good overall.

As always with photo's, I recommend if you take your own to include some with a current newspaper showing the headline to prove the date - OK maybe not underwater but you get the idea.
 
Yes, and I think it was also Croatia, probably Pula. Since the yacht did not have a holding tank, and we presumed others did not either, we did not think it was a job to be coveted...

Mike.
 
I once had to snorkel under my Dads' Centaur to clear a lot of weed round the prop, at the earlier better version of East Cowes Marina, as the boat settled on a falling tide - I was rather conscious of the ' seabed ' I was crawling through, so straight for the longest shower of my life afterwards ! :hororr:
 
mjcoon said:
Yes, and I think it was also Croatia, probably Pula. Since the yacht did not have a holding tank, and we presumed others did not either, we did not think it was a job to be coveted...

Mike.
Click to expand...

I'm genuinely shocked that a charter boat in Croatia was hired out without a holding tank - they should be named and shamed. Most bays in Croatia, like the rest of the Med, are anchorages and swimming pools at the same time and the idea that some boats are full of people but without a holding tank is both awful and illegal in Croatia.
 
RupertW said:
I'm genuinely shocked that a charter boat in Croatia was hired out without a holding tank - they should be named and shamed. Most bays in Croatia, like the rest of the Med, are anchorages and swimming pools at the same time and the idea that some boats are full of people but without a holding tank is both awful and illegal in Croatia.
Click to expand...

We did two charters from Pula (one flying to Trieste, the other direct). One was in 2004; I don't remember the other's date - some years ago. If you have a reference to the legislation that might come in handy on future charters!

Mike.
 
I've had 5 charters in Croatia and one in Sardinia, all were dived. Assuming we're in waters/weather good enough my OH always has a swim/snorkel around on the first day and takes some of our own pictures.

Our most recent charter in Sardinia did irk me somewhat though; usual med-rules of back in base on the Friday by 5 or 6pm, fully fuelled etc. Was only at boat check-in they told us that Portisco Marina is too murky to dive in and that we had to report to a nearby bay at 1pm on Friday for their diver inspection and join a queue of returning yachts, thus essentially losing us half of the final day.
 
I wasn't surprised when a diver went through Split marina checking boats at the end of our charter. However, I was surprised at the cavalier attitude to the holding tanks - they just opened the valves in the marina while the diver was splashing about underwater (albeit not under our boat).

We had emptied them at sea but no one asked about it!

Yuk! We all felt very sorry for the diver....
 
My last 3 charters were all dived on. First by me on day 1 as soon as I could find a nice spot and then by the pro diver on return. Forewarned is forearmed.
 
It appears to be standard industry practice now for bareboat charters. Anyone had a dive done on a flotilla?

I still have an issue over how do they prove it was you if something is damaged unless they have pictures taken the previous day which you sign off as part of inventory. The diver could have missed something from a previous charter or the damage does not appear until after a period of time.

It sounds like it would be worth investing in some form of underwater camera/video such a Go-pro.
 
Comparable with car rental. After a flotilla holiday in Greece we ferried across to Bari and picked up a rental car. A right hot day it was and we just wanted to be off, but my wife insisted i photograph the rental car. I decided to video it on my samsung s7 with a walk-around that i promptly forgot. Neither we nor the staff present saw any problems with the car with the naked eyeball.
We turned the car in at Venice airport and 2 months later received a claim for damage complete with photos. I dug out the video and (thank you samsung!) it was clearly there at the pickup time, but not obvious to naked eye casual inspection. Europcar simultaneously agreed that
a)the damage was pre existing therfore no problem, and:
b)sent the claim to debt collectors in Italy who passed it over to Australian debt collectors. I live in New Zealand so i guess that was near enough for an Italian!
As you can imagine this took a lot of un-doing, though it was resolved in the end at no cost to us. Lots of time and aggravation though.
For Bare boat, would an underwater inspection using a water proof go pro on a stick be a good plan?
 
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