Hey chums.
So I returned this weekend from my first chartering experience, with Mythos Yachts out of Athens. I chartered a Jeanneau Sun Oddessey 36.2 for two weeks, Athens->Syros, with four other folks, all of whom were novice sailors. It was, for the most part, a very dramatic success, though it''s clear that at the beginning I wasn''t really as prepared as I could have been.
Mythos was fairly good, and with a few exceptions their service was topnotch. The boat was not delivered at the agreed time - we''d planned to pick it up at 5pm and it wasn''t ready until 7, forcing us to spend the first night in Athens instead of setting off for the islands. That was really an inconvenience rather than a major problem and I didn''t really bother with it. A few things weren''t fully functional, nothing major - the boatspeed indicator never showed anything other than 0 knots (except when travelling backwards, then it showed 0.5!) but I had a handheld GPS to use instead. A few other trivial problems though - we had to disassemble and fix the dinghy outboard on the quay in Paros - there''s the real cruising experience!
ONly problem that actually bothered us was the jib halyard snapped the first time we tried to furl the jib, preventing us from ever getting our spinnaker up as we had to use the spin halyard to work the roller furler. I would have appreciated seeing the extra money we paid for the spinnaker back since the boat was clearly unable to fly it, but such is life. We were also instructed to go to a certain port for repairs when the outboard failed (Naousa, on Paros) and when arriving there were told (after several hours of waiting) that actually we needed to go somewhere else - difficult to do when the meltemi''s blowing. There are more but unless anyone actually cares I won''t list the issues we had.
Some of these problems may have been miscommunications between Mythos, who we contracted with, and the Moorings, who were the actual owners of the boat, something else I wasn''t expecting, but either way it did put some extra stress into the vacation. Not certain whether I''d use Mythos again - the problems certainly weren''t major, but all the same they were somewhat frustrating. Opinions on whether these are the sort of things that typically happen on charter cruises would be welcome - I''ve really got no idea whether we made out wonderfully or whether we got cheated, having never tried anyone else.
The meltemi certainly made itself known to us. We had some very rough days and some changes of itinerary when we found that we could only go south - even east was impossible. It also blew for the vast majority of the time, we had one day of southerly and two days of calm, if I remember right. I guess I wasn''t fully prepared for that part. The crew was also very unprepared, having only sailed in the relatively light winds of a Seattle summer. All the same they adapted admirably and by the end were fine with beating into the teeth of a strong blow. The islands were lovely and the food wonderful, and the vast majority of the people we met were wonderful and friendly. I feel much more confidant in my sailing abilities now than I did when we started, and my girlfriend and I are already planning our second for next summer.
If anyone''s interested I''ll post a more detailed trip report, and will of course answer any questions you folks have.
Thanks lots - keep sailing!
-Req