Lack of maintenance...
We are a crew of six who have been sailing together for many years, and we were looking forward to exploring or rediscovering the islands around Rhodes aboard this monohull chartered from Hellenic Yachting Rhodes.
From the very first day, we noticed that several parts of the boat had suffered damage and had not been repaired.
A cupboard hinge was broken… Not a major issue in itself. However, when we discovered that almost all the starboard stanchions were loose and that the starboard guardrail was half torn away, safety became a serious concern.
The port-side hinge of the bathing platform was also half torn away.
On the second day of our trip, we encountered heavy rain and winds of 25–30 knots in squally conditions. That's when the real problems began…
The sprayhood, which was already torn and had several holes, ripped further by approximately 25 cm.
The GPS touchscreen clearly could not cope with the humidity. It started moving the chart around by itself or simply stopped responding to touch. We had to restart it several times while underway.
The mainsail furling line (outhaul) snapped while the sail was not yet fully furled. To be clear, this was not due to incorrect handling, nor was the furling system jammed. The line was visibly worn and in very poor condition.
Caught by the wind, the sail began to unfurl, putting us in a dangerous situation. We decided to drop the sail and head for Nisyros.
We had to stay there for 24 hours to have the line repaired.
But that evening, another surprise awaited us… Rainwater had found its way into several parts of the boat. Two mattresses were damp and a third was completely soaked. And it was still raining…
We had to carry out makeshift repairs to redirect the water leaking into the port cabin (couldn't stop it) and mop up water in five other places.
It continued raining for three days…
Back in Rhodes, after several hours of negotiation with the base manager, we managed to obtain a €400 refund on the charter price… A very poor compensation in our opinion but we accepted it.
We understand that charter boats spend very little time at the base between consecutive rentals, and that the staff on site cannot possibly repair everything in just a few hours.
However, we believe that several of the issues we encountered were critical and should have raised serious concerns for the base manager. In our opinion, this boat was simply not fit to be chartered.
As I write this review, I realise that we are not the only ones to have experienced problems related to boat maintenance…
We now know where we won't be chartering a boat next year…
