Missing boat found. Comments?

[Tranona]

Can Sunsail "instruct" a Skipper?
Suggest maybe, but he is in charge & responsible.

You are right - the ultimate responsibility is with the skipper to decide whether to sail or not. However, much of the background material suggest that Sunsail employed the skipper and required him to sail the less safe route at a time when bad weather was more likely.

There is always a tension between skipper and employer and the pressures are huge. Note that according to some reports Sunsail used to support a community of 100 skippers in SA, but now this is down to 10 as they are shipping more and more boats rather than sailing them. So "instruct" can be as simple as "do as we say or we won't employ you".

If you want further information on the complexities of the delivery of charter boats suggest you look at the Reliance Marine cases. Sufficiently complex in both practicalities and law to make it into parliament with no sign as far as I know of a satisfactory resolution.

 

[alant]

You are right - the ultimate responsibility is with the skipper to decide whether to sail or not. However, much of the background material suggest that Sunsail employed the skipper and required him to sail the less safe route at a time when bad weather was more likely.

There is always a tension between skipper and employer and the pressures are huge. Note that according to some reports Sunsail used to support a community of 100 skippers in SA, but now this is down to 10 as they are shipping more and more boats rather than sailing them. So "instruct" can be as simple as "do as we say or we won't employ you".

If you want further information on the complexities of the delivery of charter boats suggest you look at the Reliance Marine cases. Sufficiently complex in both practicalities and law to make it into parliament with no sign as far as I know of a satisfactory resolution.

Having been a delivery skipper, not for Sunsail & certainly not for Reliance (for obvious reasons), I am aware of what the politics are.

 

[KellysEye]

>Sunsail boats are privately owned and returned to the owner fully refurbished after six years. The owner gets four weeks free sailing anywhere there is a Sunsail base. Basic details are here: https://www.sunsail.co.uk/yacht-sales-ownership

>>Is this relevant?

Sunsail don't seem to responding to the loss of the boat which likely to be because the boats are privately owned.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

>Sunsail boats are privately owned and returned to the owner fully refurbished after six years. The owner gets four weeks free sailing anywhere there is a Sunsail base. Basic details are here: https://www.sunsail.co.uk/yacht-sales-ownership

>>Is this relevant?

Sunsail don't seem to responding to the loss of the boat which likely to be because the boats are privately owned.

I would think that Sunsail / TUI are not responding because there is nothing for them to say. They TUI probably had a delivery contract with the skipper which he took in full knowledge of the weather patterns of the area at that time. Tragically the vessel was lost after being overwhelmed by weather and seas along with all hands. Any recovery would shed little light on on the circumstances of the loss, there would be little left of any bodies after a year in the upturned hull and any recovery operation costs would have been astronomical. So as a business what are they to do? the answer is of course nothing other than to protect their business interests and there is little or nothing else that they can do.

 

[Mariner69]

Has anybody been able to find a copy of the SAMSA Preliminary Report referred to in the Daily Maverick article?

 

[RichardS]

Sunsail don't seem to responding to the loss of the boat which likely to be because the boats are privately owned.

I thought we'd killed the "privately owned" hypothesis some posts ago?

Richard

 

[Tranona]

I thought we'd killed the "privately owned" hypothesis some posts ago?

Richard

You don't expect him to actually read things, never mind understand what is said!