What next for Sunsail?

jimi said:
Once upon a time Sunsail before it was taken over by the big boys was a great little company, the villa holidays (Yedi Tepe, Marmaris Gallini etc etc ) with child daycare, dinghies and little day yachts provided great holidays for families. The Solent fleet provided training for the flotillas. IMHO the market niche they occupied with the villa holiday and or villa holiday /flotilla combination still exists and is crying out to be occupied.
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I wonder if the Gordons might take it back on?
 
jimi said:
Once upon a time Sunsail before it was taken over by the big boys was a great little company, the villa holidays (Yedi Tepe, Marmaris Gallini etc etc ) with child daycare, dinghies and little day yachts provided great holidays for families. The Solent fleet provided training for the flotillas. IMHO the market niche they occupied with the villa holiday and or villa holiday /flotilla combination still exists and is crying out to be occupied.
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Now know as, well when I used them a few years ago, Neilson.
 
It's a bit sad to hear- since both Sunsail and Neilson provided quite a good service- in among the semi - independant occasionally dubious operators you can find in the web.
We've had good holidays- both bareboat and villa based with both. Not by any means cheap.. but reasonable value in both cases. The apatite for such "non-cheap" hols is probably shrinking a little, leaving only the bottom and top ends, which will exist almost regardless. The troubles in the Eastern Med do not help.
 
pagoda said:
It's a bit sad to hear- since both Sunsail and Neilson provided quite a good service- in among the semi - independant occasionally dubious operators you can find in the web.
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I'm not convinced it is sad (though it might be). Sunsail did not prosper under TUI, in fact it is now a shadow of its former self. For all sorts of reasons it did not fit in to a mass market operator's portfolio, it might well find a buyer who understands its market rather better and with a fair wind (qv my post above about current issues with Neilson) it might get back towards where it was giving more choice in the market sector.
 
It doesn't surprise me TUI are selling Sunsail there are too many charter companies and too many yachts for the size of market, that's why Jane and I started ww.latesail.com now the world's biggest discounted charter yacht company in 1999. The market was exactly the same then, so they should have known not to buy Sunsail.

Out of interest Sunsail were the first company we approached and they bit our hands to sign up. We approached one of the Greek charter companies and they did the same then all the other Greek charter companies called us and signed up. It was mayhem because it spread to charter companies all around the world. They now have 700 companies signed up and around 6,000 to 8,000 boats available at any one time.
 
status said:
After much consideration I think I understand this bit:

I think it means if no one books a holiday it is quite difficult to sack a yacht.
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Ahh, you may be suffering from a bout of Travelopia.

Over to the Sunsail bods to explain once more. Now I've no idea what the underlined bit means :confused:. But I think they're going to buy more boats and mitigate the something or other for their staff :ambivalence:

"Q. Following the announcement of the sale, what advice can you give customers who have already booked with Sunsail?
"A. It is business as usual for all our Sunsail customers and colleagues. Sunsail and the other brands in the Specialist Group (now known as Travelopia) were originally independently run and the last few years have been about collaborating with TUI as we all worked towards creating the largest global travel business. We anticipate the sale the best return on investment. We know that our customers come first – and we also know that they are fundamentally different to TUI’s core Tourism customers. Therefore this sale is an excellent opportunity for us to take Sunsail forward through our already growing fleet and expanding our holiday choices further for our customers."


Q. "What does the announcement mean for the future of Sunsail and its staff?
A. For the majority of our colleagues, their day to day job will continue as normal, however, in the long run, this will impact some individuals and we will work with them to mitigate any impact as much as possible. We believe that this is a really exciting time for the Specialist Group brands and we hope this will create even further opportunities down the line."


From our very own ybw: http://www.ybw.com/news-from-yachti...group-sell-off-specialist-group-sunsail-20052
 
Moorings are also owned by TUI, are they part of the Specialist Group as well?


I do not think this will result in cheap boats because, because, as I understand it, Mooring/Sunsail own nothing except their headquarters in the BVI's, (the properties are leased) and boats do not belong to to them

EDIT
Just noticed the YBW side bar story so yes Moorings are included
 
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jimi said:
Once upon a time Sunsail before it was taken over by the big boys was a great little company, the villa holidays (Yedi Tepe, Marmaris Gallini etc etc ) with child daycare, dinghies and little day yachts provided great holidays for families. The Solent fleet provided training for the flotillas. IMHO the market niche they occupied with the villa holiday and or villa holiday /flotilla combination still exists and is crying out to be occupied.
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Dude, I knew it when it was emsworth sailing and port Solent was a hole waiting to be dug out......
 
vyv_cox said:
Does that mean you worked with my son Owen?
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Possibly; I worked there the summers of 1983 and 1984 when Tom Gregory was in charge, Graham was 2i/c and Chris Gordon was starting up Island Sailing at Northney.

Owen's name rings a bell. I'm sure he had a fun time there too although most of us seemed to drink out (meagre) wages during the course of the week.
 
langstonelayabout said:
Possibly; I worked there the summers of 1983 and 1984 when Tom Gregory was in charge, Graham was 2i/c and Chris Gordon was starting up Island Sailing at Northney.

Owen's name rings a bell. I'm sure he had a fun time there too although most of us seemed to drink out (meagre) wages during the course of the week.
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He was there rather later than that, started about 1989 I would guess. Worked for them for seven years.
 
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