I have previously published an article written by John. He gave us a quick insight into his experience as a bare boat owner with DYC and what his Catamaran “Montaigne” looked like after one charter season in Croatia.
Having a week’s worth of “last minute” charter allowance available as part of his DreamEasy contract, he asked me about Thailand, which was in easy reach of his home base.
The Thailand base and its cruising grounds are a quick and easy escape for me from Hong Kong. It’s such a very relaxed and friendly place. Naturally I was full of praise.
So how was the trip John …..?
“Well. It continued raining for about the first 7 days (out of 9), then we had one good day , then had to take it back. So the weather wasn’t as advertised for December.
Found the water quality pretty disappointing also. I would probably go back but would stick to Jan/Feb/March in future.”
(Authors note: unseasonable, severe weather throughout the month caught many locals and tourism operators by surprise – statistics show 8 rain days in December, guess you got them all but one. Sorry John)
Can’t do much about the weather. How about the boat?
“The boat was fine. The Lagoon 400 was doing one of its last charters before being phased out, so it was interesting to see what one looked like at the end of its tour. Overall it was in pretty reasonable condition.
I am now up to having gotten 56% of my initial payment back in charter ‘value’ , although I am very glad I wasn’t actually paying the 9900 euro ‘value’ of this charter” …
“I have to get back to the weather. It really can have an effect on the boat. There was the odd bid of water damage as you can see in the pictures. Because Thailand is so hot and humid a lot of the time, you just have to keep the hatches open …. so if it starts to pour down, you got to be quick to close them. Plenty of chances for missing the onset of the downpour.
“The dunnies – amazingly enough, they didn’t have holding tanks , ‘cos they didn’t have to’!
Can’t tell you the engine hours as the hour gauge didn’t work properly – something to keep an eye on with your yacht Nils”
What did you think of the DYC Thailand base, the service they provide to their clients as a bare boat provider?
“The staff were fine – our main dealings were with a nice German girl (sic Slovenian), can’t remember her name either but I think it began with a K . Katrine? (sic Christina). Check in and check out was all standard and no problems. I recall they did give a really good chart briefing in the office. I don’t recall getting one quite like that on the previous one: a couple of them sat down for half an hour or so with us to talk through possible routes etc.
Thanks John, let us know how your next charter towards the end of the year in Turkey goes…
Thanks for your input John. I appreciate you taking the time to send in some feedback.