Summer Magic: “If this is a charter boat…”

Wereceive and publish the letter of protest forwarded to us by Pierluigi Bernardi, who in Scarlino chartered (for 2,000 euros in early booking) a Beneteau Cyclades 43.3 from a charter company. We have contacted One Yachting by email but are still waiting for their response. Meanwhile, here is what happened to Pierluigi. What do you think? Do you have similar experiences to relate? In case do so with a nice comment!

PROTEST OF MR. BERNARDI
“By now the ‘vacation’ is gone, but I would like to point out a few inconveniences that manage to send it crooked despite the good weather.

1-The boat was NOT ready, and when it was handed over to us we had to wait for the tender to be changed (the one that was there was impassable), for it to be cleaned up (there was still garbage and one of the lockers for the pantry was with food remains), and given the way things were going then we cleaned it up ourselves.

2-per plotter we were proudly handed an Ipad with Navionics navigator installed. But on a 10 percent charge (we didn’t get to Elba), and with no possibility of charging except with 220!

3-As we arrived at the roadstead in Porto Azzurro, we were not overly surprised that the anchor light was NOT working.

4-Yet because the VHF was declaratively not working from the start, replaced by a laptop.

5-We were surprised, on the other hand, that the reserve cylinder-already sensing it from the lightness but not wanting to believe it-was EMPTY.

6-Want to dine in the cockpit? here’s a nice neon light – so you don’t wear out – to hang with its power supply to plug into the cigarette lighter. A bit campy for a 14-meter. But come on, we are sailors. Too bad the wire only reached the ladder.

7-The wind instrumentation worked at times.

Since I have been an owner for a couple of decades, I am well aware that breakdown is always lurking, but the overall condition, much of which is discovered in navigation, spoke volumes about its state of maintenance:
-a broken drape patched with a strop
-fuel and water quantity gauges stopped on full or nearly full
-portholes in cabins without blackout blinds
-two of the three winch handles that were not coming off the seat
-almost all flap latches blocked by oxidized spring
-transparent opaque sprayhood to stick out or lower it
-Bow bath exhaust handle that wakes everyone up if operated at night.

Small things, of course, but valuable to me, given the value of the vacation. And I’m talking about money, to be clear.

In this regard, I must say that “Sailing race & service,” this the rental company, which is part of “Sicily By Car,” thought it fair to return the 120 € paid for the cleaning and gas items. But the rental money I gave to you, XXX XXX (we deliberately decided to obscure the name of the person Pierluigi is addressing, ed.) of One Yachting. What do you think is right?“.

FIND THE CHARTER RESPONSE HERE