[cockney steve]

Hope you "name and shame" in the appropriate media, to help others avoid burnt fingers or premature funerals.

This tale is really reminiscent of a certain operator out of Blackpool, who was in the habit of renting -out Pipers with incomplete records, no Annual..... Didn't seem to mend his ways at Barton, either!

[Josh]

Sounds fairly reasonable to me. It can be quite rough with short, sharp seas with the wind funnelling between the islands there so Mayday was a sensible call.

Very few people outside NW Europe who are trained to know better understand PAN PAN or respond correctly so Mayday is a wise starter for 10 to ensure your difficulty isn’t lost in translation.

[Flyin'Dutch']

He wasn't happy with it when he signed for it and he told us so as soon as we arrived. But he was in a difficult position. He'd paid for it, and we'd paid him our share. If he refused the boat at the start then he'd be stuck in Gran Canaria with no plan and an annoyed wife, as well as us losing the money on our flights. He'd probably have felt obliged to refund us both our flights and our share of the charter, with little hope of him getting anything back from them.

The old money vs safety argument!

Glad you were all OK but next time tell them to stuff it and get the money back from the cc - company.

Life is too precious.

[OCB]

Never seen the attraction of l’il boats personally- but got a few close friends who are mad ferrite.

One had his mast snap somewhere mid Atlantic- and we aren’t talking the 50s/60s propensity for British MCs to talk a bit funny.

He had a genuine mutiny.

Another one hit, they believe, was a just submerged shipping container somewhere between the Croatian islands and Italy. Emergency winch from one yacht to the other.

Yep...sounds a great laugh!

There isn’t the saying “worse things happen at sea” for no reason.....

[JoeC]

Is there a maritime equivalent of Wingly?

[Dusty_B]

Sailly?

[Flintstone]

Sinkly?

[Genghis the Engineer]

A salutary tale, but haven't we all been there in some form. Turning up with a plan, to an aeroplane / boat / holiday cottage / hire car to find it's really not in the state we were led to expect - but to withdraw would be expensive / problematic / embarrassing / damned nigh impossible.

So there's no easy decision and sometimes we get it wrong: perhaps in such cases there is no right, or wrong - just a judgement of "least worst" and our judgment can't be perfect, as we just don't know what will or won't go wrong after we've made our decision.

G

[OCB]

Once met a nice lady diver on a dive boat heading out of Sharm.

She was in her late 50s, single traveller, and Belgian. The boat was full of Germans except her.

I asked how she ended up on the boat - she explained that the hotel was affiliated with a local dive company, who (in her opinion) were cowboys.

She did 2 dives with them, decided it was worth losing the booking money than her life.

She did some research, found the German based dive company I was with, and in effect paid twice to have peace of mind (and well maintained kit + dive leads that weren't dangerous).

I have to say that I was quite impressed.

[NickS]

What is the situation regarding international credit card payments? If you did decide to walk away on safety grounds (and had sufficient evidence to back it up) would you be able to recover the money through your card issuer?