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★☆☆☆☆

“Good UK support, appalling Greek boat and support”

written by on 08/10/2013

Booked through bareboatsailingholidays.com (a subsidary site of sailingholidays.com)_

Good service from the UK branch, quick response and easy booking.

However, the story when we arrived in Greece wasn't so good.

The handover of the boat was handled exceptionally badly. We arrived at 1.30pm (and were well aware that handover was not formally due until 5pm). No signposts or signs to indicate where the Kiriacoulis (the Greek partner supplying the boat) base is, it took a good half an hour of wandering around trying to find someone who knew where they were.

We finally met up with one of the team, who took us through the formalities of deposit, cleaning fee, certificates and so on, who told us that the yacht was on the way and would be at the base before 5pm, or 'at the very latest, 5pm exactly' – he would call or text us when the boat arrived. Having only a few hours until this time, we decided to get some food at the local tavern and some shopping. 5pm came and we were told – “just another half hour or maybe an hour” – this pattern then continued for the next 3 hrs, being consistently told that the boat was “just around the corner”. Finally at close to 8.30pm the boat arrived and we were able to board.

As a skipper with a reasonable amount of miles accumulated in varying conditions in the UK and abroad, I appreciate that conditions can slow down progress and that getting a boat back from another port is not always going to be straightforward, delays can happen through circumstances beyond control. However, my complaints are:

· The conditions were constant through the day – they didn’t change. Given the boat didn’t leave Paros until gone 1pm (according to the Kiriacoulis skipper on board) there was no way it was going to be back for 5pm into a headwind and average swell. Had we been told early on that the boat would be delayed by a few hours, we would have had the option to go into Mykonos, wander around a bit and come back relaxed at a more appropriate time, instead of being fobbed off with lies every half hour. An honest approach would have been appreciated. Not sure why the boat left so late, given that handover should have been at 9am – it should have been a priority to get the boat to sea asap.
· They claimed to be in communication with the skipper as he was bringing the boat back. Given that they clearly had no idea when the boat was going to arrive, I can either conclude 1) they were lying and had no idea where the boat was or 2) the skipper is massively inexperienced and has no idea of how to passage plan and make an estimated ETA based on the conditions and the ability of the boat
· The level of assistance was shocking. We had to consistently ask for help, which I would have expected to be offered as a matter of course (ie allowing us to store baggage on their office boat, showing us the location of the local facilities, supermarket etc). The offer of some water or a cup of tea after we had been hanging around for a few hours after 5pm waiting for the boat would have made a massive difference to our view of the team there. All we got was a shrug of the shoulders, nothing in the way of an apology and the sense that we were being brushed off. We had arrived in clothing more appropriate to September in the UK but were offered nowhere private to change. In short, we were treated like we were an inconvenience to them.

The handover and boat quality
We asked for handover to be at 9.30am the following day, so we could get going with our holiday. Handover started at gone 10.30am and by the time we tackled some of the major points below it was gone 1pm before we were able to leave. To summarise, the level of equipment, maintenance and safety on the boat was shocking – even more shocking was the off-hand attitude of the Kiriacoulis team that seemed to want to skim over things and just ignore any potential problems
Key safety failings
· VHF radio – this took over an hour to get working. Initially, we were told it was fine but again, we had to ask specifically for it to be shown working, which they were unable to do. We asked them to do a radio check from their boat – and were then told that their VHF was not working, which is appalling in itself! We felt like we were being pressurised into just accepting it and leaving. They finally said that we could get it repaired or looked at in Paros, they had no spare parts or available hand-held VHF units – passing the responsibility on to me as skipper to leave in a force 6 with 2 metre swell without adequate safety equipment on board. I am very used to such conditions and have no qualms about sailing safely in such wind / swell – however I am not happy to compromise the safety of my crew in the way I was being asked to do without a working VHF. Eventually, after pressure from the UK as well, they found the skipper from the previous evening, who came on board and casually mentioned that the radio could be got to work by fiddling with the hand receiver unit – the controls on the main panel of the VHF (squelch and volume) did not work. They also then managed to conduct an adequate radio check. I accepted that this was working, but still far from happy - the receiver unit was held together with electrical tape, bare wires just about wrapped up with tape were holding the connection to the main unit together. We had no other option though, so proceeded with this.
· Flares – the handover person had no idea where the flare box was on the boat. We eventually found a part-ripped plastic bag in a personal cabin locker with rusting flares over a year out of date. My surprise at this flagrant breach of safety was only heightened by the attitude of the team, who didn’t seem to think this a problem – we had to ask them to remove these from the boat, they didn’t offer to do this as a matter of course. Subsequent to this, as we looked around the boat, we found a more secure box with in-date flares.

Salt water causes the internal aluminium casing to corrode and swell, it also makes the propellant unstable. Therefore if you pick one up it may go off of its own accord and if you are holding it, it may explode as it cannot exit the casing via the top as it may get stuck in the casing. To leave these rusting flares in a plastic bag in a cabin locker is unforgiveable, highly dangerous and potentially prosecutable.
· First aid kit – all the items in the first aid kit carried expiry dates of 2008 or before. Need I say any more about how this reflects on the standards of the shore crew or Kiriacoulis in general?
· Main halyard extremely frayed – whilst this was a boat with in-mast furling of the main, and therefore didn’t need the main halyard in normal day-to-day operation, this is a system that is prone to the occasional problem and jamming. An alternative method of quickly dropping the main if needed is imperative – given the state of the rope, I wouldn’t have trusted this not to jam or cause problems.
· Labelling on water / diesel points – The diesel fuel cap was labelled petrol – any inexperienced boater following the labelling and putting petrol in the tank would have severely damaged the engine – compromising safety at sea. The forward water point was closed with a cap labelled “diesel” –again, any inexperienced sailor mistaking this for the fuel input would compromise the health of anyone on board, and indeed would require a full change of the tanks – flushing would not be adequate. Thankfully, we were an experienced bunch on board so did not make these mistakes.
· Anchor light inoperative – We anchored several nights in bays with little light, but with fishing vessels coming in and out at all times, an anchor light is imperative. This wasn’t working from the start.


Other significant failings
On top of the above features, which I consider significantly affecting safety and came close to pushing me to refuse to take the boat over, we experienced the following:
· Holding tank blocked from the start – blocked and venting out of the top pipe close to one of the cabin portholes from the moment we first used it, significantly affecting the occupant with the smell and requiring us to divert to Paroikia on Paros, to speak to the Kiriacoulis team there. Again, we had to get the UK team involved, we texted several Greek number that had been given to us to ask for assistance, with no reply. On arrival in Paroika, it was a couple of hours before someone turned up, shrugged their shoulders and said they would be back at 9.30am the following day. True to form, it was gone 10am when someone turned up, taking over an hour to clear the blockage and once again delaying our departure time.
· Condition of the boat at handover – fridge with over 3cm of stagnant dirty water in it, worktops with grit and dirt on them, front cabin and the mattresses were completely soaked. Both heads were grubby and marked. The boat was far from clean at handover, we spent a good hour between 5 of us cleaning surfaces, trying to dry the boat and tidying up – I massively resent paying over 100 euros for a cleaning job that someone clearly spent no more than half an hour on. We left the boat in a condition significantly tidier and cleaner than it was handed over to us.
· Expectation to hand back with full fuel tanks, when it wasn’t refuelled on arrival – the boat would have done over 7 hrs at sea at an average of 4 litres per hour. We filled up in Tinos and motored no more than 2 hrs to get back to base.
· Water tanks not full ­– down to us to check and refill before leaving
· Cabin locker – rear port-side cabin locker was missing a door. Many other locker doors were missing the buttons, making it painful to press the metal studs in to open the door
· Front heads toilet seat – very loose and the thread broken, making it impossible to tighten
· Charts – many of the charts were just photocopied! Again, exceptionally poor and a reflection on attitudes to safety.
· Dinghy – one of the oars was broken and there was a missing nut for the lock on the rollocks, making it very hard to row ashore. Dinghy was partially deflated at handover.
· Frayed lines – in addition to the frayed main halyard, two out of the three mooring warps were significantly frayed – I wouldn’t have trusted these to hold in a blow or significant swell. The in-haul for the main furler was also very frayed (see point above about in-mast furling systems jamming / main halyard!)
· Rear electrical socket – the connection on the shore power socket was very poor, probably not least due to the fact that there was no cover for the socket – exposure to salt spray would have easily corroded the connections.]
· Engine oil – very dark / muddy and clearly hasn’t been changed for a long, long time.
· Broken gimbal on the oven / hob – virtually unusable at sea and a danger even when moored. Someone had attempted to mend it inadequately with a screw that was about to drop off and cause the whole oven unit to fall out – a huge danger if in a large sea.
· Poorly repaired porthole closure – the rear cabin window hatch broke within a couple of days – it was clear that it had previously been inadequately repaired. This left the hatch partially secured, thankfully we didn’t experience much in the way of spray
· Overall general condition – the general condition of the boat – the state of the hull, fraying and rusted guard wires, fenders with leaks (hence deflating on compression), poorly stowed diesel tanks, broken bucket – was very poor and reflects years of lack of maintenance.

When renting an older boat, a few of these niggles are expected and accepted, but on the background of so many problems and so many of these directly affecting the safety of the crew and integrity of the boat, this is unacceptable, particularly on the background of the lackadaisical attitude of the team in Mykonos.

I would book with Bareboat Sailing Holidays again, but only if they guaranteed they would not be using Kiriacoulis in Greece to provide the boat and a certain reassurance that safety issues are not overlooked.

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