Sunsail in the Solent

sailorman said:
allowing inexperienced crews hiring a large large powerful yacht, most of us started small & worked up
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In Ye Olde Days maybe but nowadays a starter boat is at least 35'. One simply cannot sail without hot and cold running water my dears.

I knew someone who bought a 38 footer as his first boat. He generated five major insurance claims on his way out of the marina where he bought it and, I am told, has not moved it in five years from the marina berth to which he took it.
 
sailorman said:
allowing inexperienced crews hiring a large large powerful yacht, most of us started small & worked up
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I see your point, so what do you think is the max size you should be able to sail without any qualifications. Its not just chartering, you can buy or borrow as well. Or do we suggest that its OK to buy any sized boat without qualifications, but not charter one.
 
han34 said:
I see your point, so what do you think is the max size you should be able to sail without any qualifications. Its not just chartering, you can buy or borrow as well. Or do we suggest that its OK to buy any sized boat without qualifications, but not charter one.
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I am saying that as an owner i started small, its all i could afford 17`3" with an o/b = small mistakes. These crews are in charge of crew + a £100k + boat with very little real experence & only a deposit to loose
 
Sailorman,

I think the term you're looking for is ' a bloody menace to themselves and especially others '.

I learned on dinghies first and remain convinced that is the way to learn; regulation in sailing itself is not necessary, but before being let loose with a big boat one ought to have to do a course on a dinghy then a small cruiser first.

I could hire an expensive fast car, but I'd need a driving test and proper not token insurance before I could go anywhere in it...
 
Once more into the breach dear friends...

As someone who chartered a number of times from the Port Solent base, and then went on to drive corporate boats for them for a couple of summers, and now encounters them most weekends I feel uniquely qualified to comment...

There is no doubt in my mind that the vast, vast majority of the type of stories typified by the OP (and beloved of SeaJet) are the result of bare boat charterers. Most of the skippers employed by Sunsail are very good sailors, and that is also something I know they've had a focus on in recent years.
A good proportion of their charterers in the UK (possibly unlike abroad) will not be boat owners, but people who want to get afloat at lower cost and commitment. Does that mean that they are necessarily worse sailors? Well no, I've seen boat owners on private boats do things just as dumb (and a lot dumber) as the OP on many occasions, but it does probably make it more likely.

Sunsail are probably, to an extent, victims of their own success and their marketing team. To see what I mean, name 3 charter firms in the Solent. Can you without looking some up, or thinking hard? I can, with a little thought, and I used to work in the industry. But everyone knows Sunsail. And all the boats are the same, and all branded... So it may seem that their are more incidents involving Sunsail, but there are 40 of those boats. Do you really think that a random sample of another 40 charter boats in the Solent would generate fewer incidents? I don't, but a lot of the other companies used "unbranded" boats so you may not have even noticed that the prat who got wedged in the corner of a pen in the yacht haven was a charter boat.

I well remember turning up in the yacht haven in the days of the old 37s one day as part of a 60 boat corporate regatta. As we were tying up this chap appears and proceeds to berate me for the incident I'd supposedly had in the boat I was now sailing 2 days before in Yarmouth. He simply wouldn't be told that I'd only been sailing this particular boat since this morning, and wasn't anything to do with his incident. He just gave me both barrels as a representative of the "evil empire" and the poor sod who was currently driving the boat that he'd seen in Yarmouth. And it hadn't even hit him or anyone, he just wanted to tell me how shocking the seamanship on display was. People remember incidents with Sunsail boats in a way that they don't with others...
 
Seajet said:
Giblets could tell you I'm sure ( he wasn't one but worked / works alongside them ).

I must admit when I read that arse-covering epistle from Sunsail I smiled at the vision of Sunsail charter types earnestly flagging down the MOD Police boats and waving bits of paper at them...:)
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I am sure that MODPOL would be over the moon to have every SS yacht passing through Portsmouth Harbour pulling over and proffering their papers at them! icon_mrgreen.gif I will pass the suggestion on to QHM!

That clause looks like a catch-all for all areas that SS operate in
 
Flaming,

my view is based on a lifetime in the Solent & elsewhere, a top crew and now skipper of his own boat was an instructor for the school at Emsworth where it all started but was horrified by what it turned into.

One look at the way the Sunsail fleet is left at Port Solent, looking as if they were dropped by a passing Hercules and the crews ran off to the pub, says it all.

I'm sure you know what you're doing, but then you're not a Sunsail skipper...
 
Seajet said:
I'm sure you know what you're doing, but then you're not a Sunsail skipper...
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But I was, and I was not the best skipper by a very long way.

The best sailor I know personally, a person whose achievements have been rightly saluted on these forums, was a Sunsail skipper. And still does a bit for them from time to time.

As was Alex Thompson, Dee Cafari and (I think though I'm not 100%) Sam Davies.

The stories you love are stories of inexperienced charterers. And in that way the only difference between Sunsail and the others is the branding, and therefore the getting noticed.
 
flaming said:
Once more into the breach dear friends...

As someone who chartered a number of times from the Port Solent base, and then went on to drive corporate boats for them for a couple of summers, and now encounters them most weekends I feel uniquely qualified to comment...

There is no doubt in my mind that the vast, vast majority of the type of stories typified by the OP (and beloved of SeaJet) are the result of bare boat charterers. Most of the skippers employed by Sunsail are very good sailors, and that is also something I know they've had a focus on in recent years.
A good proportion of their charterers in the UK (possibly unlike abroad) will not be boat owners, but people who want to get afloat at lower cost and commitment. Does that mean that they are necessarily worse sailors? Well no, I've seen boat owners on private boats do things just as dumb (and a lot dumber) as the OP on many occasions, but it does probably make it more likely.

Sunsail are probably, to an extent, victims of their own success and their marketing team. To see what I mean, name 3 charter firms in the Solent. Can you without looking some up, or thinking hard? I can, with a little thought, and I used to work in the industry. But everyone knows Sunsail. And all the boats are the same, and all branded... So it may seem that their are more incidents involving Sunsail, but there are 40 of those boats. Do you really think that a random sample of another 40 charter boats in the Solent would generate fewer incidents? I don't, but a lot of the other companies used "unbranded" boats so you may not have even noticed that the prat who got wedged in the corner of a pen in the yacht haven was a charter boat.

I well remember turning up in the yacht haven in the days of the old 37s one day as part of a 60 boat corporate regatta. As we were tying up this chap appears and proceeds to berate me for the incident I'd supposedly had in the boat I was now sailing 2 days before in Yarmouth. He simply wouldn't be told that I'd only been sailing this particular boat since this morning, and wasn't anything to do with his incident. He just gave me both barrels as a representative of the "evil empire" and the poor sod who was currently driving the boat that he'd seen in Yarmouth. And it hadn't even hit him or anyone, he just wanted to tell me how shocking the seamanship on display was. People remember incidents with Sunsail boats in a way that they don't with others...
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One AWB looks much like another :)
 
flaming said:
But I was, and I was not the best skipper by a very long way.

The best sailor I know personally, a person whose achievements have been rightly saluted on these forums, was a Sunsail skipper. And still does a bit for them from time to time.

As was Alex Thompson, Dee Cafari and (I think though I'm not 100%) Sam Davies.

The stories you love are stories of inexperienced charterers. And in that way the only difference between Sunsail and the others is the branding, and therefore the getting noticed.
Click to expand...

No, I'm talking of the Sunsail skippers I have encountered, who would have been more at home asking " Do you want fries with that ? "...:rolleyes:
 
If only it addressed the problem it reffered to...

I once thought about going to Sunsail as I was unhappy with my job then and they had vacancies, but I was taken to one side and advised it would not look good on my CV.

Judging from the ones I have actually seen not just heard about as maybe's, my advisor was spot on.
 
Flaming I totally agree
I have used Sunsail many times, skippered and then latterly bare boat. All the skippers I have used were very expereinced and knowledgeable.
I think Sunsail have two problems; Bareboaters who are actually useless and cause mayhem, and also the occasional cockup when the crew of a Sunsail skipper makes a hash both as you say exacerbated by the fact there are so many of them and they are easily recognised.
Whats with this other misconception that just because someone is young they are useless, my daughter is 22 a Yachtmaster Instructor with well over 50,000 sea miles and much of it teaching in and around the Solent, I would trust her way above most of the people on here - dont judge a book by it cover.
 
Seajet, glad you appear to be feeling better and back on customary sparky form here. It must be galling to the owners of small old boats to see these youngsters down from London charging around in the Sunsail fleet - bigger, better and so much faster! So we quite understand that your self-esteem needs some point of difference (ie handling in the confines of a harbour) where you may prove to be better than they. Or me, come to that, even after years of practice with my own boats I still find close quarters manoeuvring tricky!
Surely tha key point about the Sunsail fleet is that over the past 15 years it has enabled thousands of people to enjoy sailing in the Solent. Don't be grumpy and deny them the pleasure and the excitement.:)
 
Resolution,

I sail my ' small, old ' boat by choice, having owned larger and tried many; as for ' better ', how is that qualified then, hot water on tap ?

I don't find youngsters learning to sail galling at all, I was a chief dinghy instructor at 16 and have taught many people, young and old.

The upsetting thing about Sunsail is the way they think they own everywhere they go, and seem to attract that sort of punter; ' please and thankyou ' are in short supply with these people, and ' mind if we come alongside ' unheard of.

Try waiting to get into Port Solent when this lot are also waiting, and have a look at the manners displayed.
 
Seajet said:
The upsetting thing about Sunsail is the way they think they own everywhere they go, and seem to attract that sort of punter; ' please and thankyou ' are in short supply with these people, and ' mind if we come alongside ' unheard of.
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I still think you have entirely missed the point if you think this is exclusive to Sunsail charter clients, or even more prominent in Sunsail clients.
 
Why have I missed the point, when it's what I have seen with my own eyes ?

Sunsail skippers too, not just punters.

I have been on courses myself, and met rather a lot of charterers since starting in 1970, and very few have been rude or arrogant; with Sunsail it's a fair bet.

There must be something about the company, and its marketing, that attracts people to sailing as if it was a track day with a Subaru.
 
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