We answered a questionnaire saying that, although the staff were delightful and very willing, we were extremely disappointed at the quality of the boat.
And you write back saying you are glad that we had a great time????
We arrived at 16:00 on the first day of the charter. We were told very firmly that the navigation briefing would take place that afternoon but that the boat briefing would take place the following morning. In fact, the boat was not ready for our arrival 16:00 on the first day of our cruise.
The following morning, two or three technicians came on board and conducted various bits of maintenance, amongst other things they let all the anchor chain out and wound it back in again. The dinghy was hoisted onto the davits and we were given a cool box and some cockpit seat cushions.
We were then given a briefing on how the boat works - having already spent one night aboard, during which the service batteries completely discharged. We can only assume that they had not been sufficiently charged before our arrival.
Why all this could not have been done the day before so that the boat was ready for our arrival, I do not know. We paid in the region of GBP 500 per night. The very least the mooring could have done would have been to have the boat ready.
Why the full briefing could not have been conducted the afternoon of our arrival, I do not know.
We finally left around 10:30 am.
The following morning, on trying to raise the anchor, the windlass would not operate, either powering up or down. I checked the breaker, played with the connections on the solenoid and the motor itself and the windlass worked. This lead me to believe that there was some sort of poor electrical connection in the system.
That evening, we anchored in 8 metres of water and, wanting a good night's sleep, I let out 50 metres of chain. During the evening the wind changed direction and increased to 35 knots with driving rain and we touched a coral head. so we set about raising the anchor and re-anchoring. We managed to raise approximately 10 metres of chain before the windlass stopped working. I did all the things that I had done before but we could not get it working again. In order to keep the boat away from the coral, by reversing with both engines I managed to get the boat into deep water. The windlass would still not operate so we were faced with the prospect of driving around in small circles all night in near gale force winds, driving rain and zero visibility because we could not raise the anchor to re-anchor properly.
During this time the saloon door could not be latched open or closed causing it to slide violently back and forth, risking damage to itself and injury to us. At one point the port engine would not start. On investigating, the engine compartment was found to be full of water. The automatic bilge pump was not working. We were forced to bail by hand. In addition, neither fuel gauge worked.
The following morning the technicians came on board and got the windlass working. I told them that I thought it was a poor connection but they told me that it was because the clutch was wound in too tight. I recognised this immediately as a ******** answer but did not argue. The windlass was working so I just let it go. What they do not know is that I have been around boats all my life, spent 35 years at sea professionally in the yachting industry and then a further two years managing a fleet of yachts. They also got the engine and bilge pump working. Both turned out to be corroded electrical connections
On anchoring that night, the windlass stopped working after a few seconds and never worked again for the rest of our time aboard. This severely limited our choices of where to spend the night.
To sum up, the boat was very poorly maintained and patently not fit for purpose. This, along with the very poor preparation for our arrival, make this holiday very bad value for the expensive price charged.
We have done plenty of bareboating before, with various companies in the BVI, the South of France, Greece and Turkey, amongst others, but this was our first time with The Moorings. For the price charged we expected much better than this from a company that many consider to be the best of the lot.
Unless you are prepared to make a substantial financial gesture, this will be the last time we use The Moorings. Simply offering us a discount off our next trip will not be good enough. We will have no compunction about using trip advisor and other similar websites as well as social media to make our extreme dissatisfaction known to your prospective clients.
