Rob Swain Sailing School - www.swainsailing.com

My family (3 boys and husband) and I hired a yacht with skipper for three nights.

Issues range from lateness to a complete change of itinerary, appalling lack of responsibility and misinformation, and an extremely dangerous and distressing experience as a consequence of no briefing or knowledge of the waters and error of judgement. Finally and to a lesser extent, the condition and provisions on the vessel. I will present the facts as they occurred:

Confirmation of our departure was one hour after arrival from between 10 – 12 noon. Having arrived at 10.30am we were told departure would be at noon. We waited until noon before being told that we had to wait for G, our skipper. By 2pm we departed with R, head of . Sailing, We were to collect G from T. Bay, and stay there for the first night.

Having discussed our itinerary with a local friend, our chosen voyage was as follows:

Day 1

11 – 12 noon sail to Cooper Island for the afternoon. Stay the night.

Day 2

Early sail to The Baths, Virgin Gorda. Mid afternoon Sail on to North Sound. Stay the night.

Day 3

7am sail to Monkey Point, Guana Island. Sail on to Josh Van Dyke. Stay the night.

Day 4

Return home after morning at Josh Van Dyke.

All this information was relayed to R, the boss and temporary skipper.

Our subsequent route was as follows:

Day 1

2pm sail (waiting for skipper) to Trellis bay and overnight stay.

Day 2

11am sail (waiting for the skipper) to the Baths, Virgin Gorda. Due to the late arrival, no mooring available. Anchored in Spring Bay. Told to wait until someone arrived to repair the gearbox and jib sail. No one came. Stayed the night.

Day 3

7am slow motoring (due to accident and ripped sail) to Bitter End, North Sound. Told by office to wait for replacement of the jib sail and check propeller. Waited all day. Stayed the night.

Day 4

9.30am slow sail (due to ripped jib) to Cooper Island. Sailed home that afternoon.

I will now highlight the incidents in detail as they occurred:

Day 1

Neither C nor myself were given a briefing of the vessel. R was extremely chilled during the first hour. I recall his response to my suggestion of a drink was to “stick to coke”. By the time we arrived at Trellis Bay it was obvious to C and I that R had been drinking. This was confirmed when we smelt, then tasted his glass of ‘coke’ which was in fact rum. My eldest son later drove the tender to the jetty to drop Rob off, he was clearly unsteady on his feet and slurring his words.

Having confirmed our 'real' skipper, G's arrival that evening R then confirmed that he would now arrive the following morning. He left, later returning half way through our dinner at a restaurant. He sat down at our table and proceeded to help himself to some of my youngest son’s dinner. R then ordered something for himself and stayed, making the remainder of our evening awkward and embarrassing. When returning to the boat it became clear to our children that R was severely intoxicated from alcohol. We were both then mindful of why the mooring rope was so loosely arranged that it scraped and banged the side of the boat all night. The noise rendered a broken night’s sleep for ourselves in the fore cabin.

At Trellis bay we did no snorkelling, exploring or swimming. With a view and sounds of Beef Island airport our first day and night was a complete waste of time.

Day 2

R left at 8.45am stating that G would arrive at 9am. At 10.30am G arrived. He confirmed that on no account was he expected on the first day due to another sailing commitment. He confirmed that he had no briefing of the layout of the boat or our itinerary. We sailed at 11am to Virgin Gorda at which point he noticed two large rips in the jib sail. To make up for lost time we tried to motor, but were told the gearbox had failed, and so limped on to the Baths via the mainsail and damaged jib sail. With no moorings left due to such late arrival, we had to anchor in Spring Bay. G was in communication with the office. We were advised to wait until someone could come out to fix the sail and engine.

At around 5.00pm the swell began to pick up. We noticed all other yachts left for calmer waters and suggested that we also move to Spanish harbour. G advised otherwise citing caution due to the lack of a motor. As confirmed by several Tortolan friends that the waters around The Baths can be notorious for their unpredictable and large swells. Nobody came out to sort out the engine and the sail. Clearly no one had briefed G as he insisted that he sailing at first light so as to get to North Sound. We all had a shocking night, with very heavy swells making sleeping virtually impossible. As the skipper, G was given no bedding. I gave him my towel to use as his sheet.

Day 3

We were alerted by the sound of the anchor being raised. I notice that we were about 20 feet from the beach. We rushed up to deck to see our skipper trying to avoid bow impact with the Neolithic boulders to the port side and bow of the boat. The experience was truly terrifying. I alerted our children. C grabbed the mooring pole to try and push the boat sideways from the boulders. To quote from my diary:

…’heading towards the rocks. And straight at them we went, bow to boulder – boom, boom, boom. Bang went the side. I grabbed the helm, but it would not turn. BANG went the hull again, again and again. It was madness.’

G tried the engine and it suddenly worked. He rapidly reversed the boat away from the huge rocks whilst watching the bow. The stern went straight over a large, shallow reef. Our sons saw all of this stating we missed them by about 2 feet. I was asked to check to see that no water was entering. We thus, got away without being beached or sinking. We continued in silence to North Sound by motor.

We spent the day at Bitter End waiting for the jib sail replacement. There was no communication from the office. We spent the night here before sailing to Cooper Island for the last day, and before returning home.

In all of this G can only be partially blamed for decisions made that put our lives at risk. He was not given a briefing, nor did he know the waters well. This was the first time he had sailed ‘Justice’. He had worked since his arrival on December 16th without a break. As a cautious sailor he did his best. Any back-up support he was promised simply did not materialise.

We were given virtually no information on the vessel to support our sail. The boat was not very clean (there was excrement in the aft cabin toilet) with discarded toilet rolls left in the bathroom. One toilet was broken.

My eldest son has no wish to sail again. My youngest had nightmares the following night, as did I. In short, our formal complaint extends to the following:

• Not being truthful as to the arrival of the skipper (he confirmed his schedule as aforementioned).

• The skipper/boss being heavily intoxicated whilst on duty.

• No briefing or provisions made for our replacement skipper

• Little and no communication or support throughout the voyage in the event of the incidents of failed engine, ripped sails, poor judgement and the resulting vessel hitting rocks.

• Complete and unsatisfactory change of itinerary through no fault of our own.

I would not recommend this company.