TIPS FOR FIRST TIME YACHT CHARTERING

ATHENS YACHT CHARTER GREECE

For first time bare boaters, as well as experienced sailors, stepping on board a new-to-you boat that will be your floating home for the next week or so, can be a little daunting. Although certainly not all inclusive (you’d never leave the dock!) knowing the answers and locations to the items listed below will help make your check-out smoother and give you the confidence that you have done all you can to have a great, safe adventure.

Before You Charter

• Important: Make sure you know the charter company emergency number, VHF frequency.
• Will the charter company provide a cell phone to contact them directly?
• Practice hoisting and reefing main. Review the mainsail “Stak-Pak”.
• Practice backing up a sailboat. Warping techniques are good to know.

During Check Out

• Make sure that you physically touch and operate the following components to verify that they are in working order.
• Water Tank Valves. Verify that tank(s) are full. Know how to switch tanks. Is heat exchanger providing hot water?
• Holding tank discharge valve. Dump holding tank ONLY in open water – NEVER IN HARBOR OR ANCHORAGE.
• Check fuel level • Locate on board tool kit • Ask about hanging 12v cockpit light. * Traveling dock lines on board.
• Radio check for VHF – send and receive. Bring personal hand-held VHF.
• Locate life jackets, flares, sound-emitting devices, spotlight, fire extinguisher (check date), and first aid kit.
• Propane cut-off procedure. Make sure all burners work, including oven. Do you have a teapot? French press?
• Locate boat documentation – Put charter documents in dry, safe place.
• Test anchor windlass at dock. Review reset fuse/switch with staff. Check anchor locker before departure. Engine must be running to use windlass.
• Make sure head(s) function properly. Crew fully understands head operation, and its delicate nature. Minimal amounts of toilet paper ONLY!
• Verify that refrigeration works well. Check temp prior to departure. Is it staying cold under engine power? Bring fridge temp gauge.
• Check and understand all running rigging. Show crew how winches and clutch stoppers work. Wind and time permitting, practice reefing your main before departing dock. Identify #1 and #2 reefing lines. Don’t forget to release reefing lines prior to first main hoist. Unfurl jib.
• Run engine without shore power for at least an hour before departure. Are all batteries individually charging above 12v under engine only? If wet batteries, is there water in each cell? Are Frig/Freezer as cold as they should be without shore power? After departure, use as little DC as possible. Turn off any electric you don’t need. Check charging indicators. If you have no access to shore power, run your engine in morning and evening, for about an hour, at least 1500rpm. Check all fluid levels.
• Locate all intake filters and valves. Verify that they are clean. Check external speedo impeller.
• Check battery isolator(s). Starting battery should be isolated from house system. Have staff show you how to switch to different batteries.
• Turn on Nav system, making sure all instruments are working. Find boat speed impeller. Clean if necessary, and spin to make sure it registers on instruments. Spinning of impeller through water has impact on true/apparent wind speed, as well as boat speed indicator.
• Run outboard motor on dinghy. Put in forward and reverse. Check fuel. Make sure dingy is holding air. Mark dinghy so that yours can be recognized at night, at the end of an evening, from all the others tied up together.
• For mooring balls, use 2 lines, one from each bow cleat, loop each thru mooring pendant, and cleat off back at original cleat. Helps prevent chafing. Better than one line looped thru pendant, with pendant sliding along line, secured to each bow cleat. Always approach ball from downwind.
• Generally, when hoisting main or reefing, come head to wind, release mainsheet, ease boom vang/lift, and lazy jacks.
• When dropping main for the day, run halyard down from head shackle, around lower mast cleat, and then tension main halyard. This prevents mainsail from sliding back up mast, and prevents batt cars from clanging against each other.
• Blue and white mooring balls for overnight use. Make sure you ask about free ice and water with mooring use. Small solid blue buoys for dinghy tie-up.
• When departing country, remember to save some cash for each person for possible departure tax. May be more fees for airlines.

Have Fun on the Water

Well, it looks like a lot to undertake but it is better to be safe than sorry. Expect your pre-departure check out to take a couple of hours. However, it’s worth taking the time at the dock than to find out two days into your vacation that you don’t know how to open the holding tank discharge.

HEAVY WEATHER STEERING , THE DO'S AND DO'NTS.....

STEER IN HEAVY WINDS AND BIG SEAS

Back in the early days of single-handed ocean racing, the winners of races like the Vendee Globe and the BOC Challenge were often the guys who slept the least and steered the most. Autopilots were useful in calm to moderate conditions, but once the waves were up you needed a live body on the wheel or tiller to achieve the fastest, smoothest ride. These days, however, the most sophisticated autopilots have “fuzzy logic” software and three-dimensional motion sensors and can steer in strong conditions just as well as, if not better than, most humans.

This sounds like a great excuse to spend less time on the wheel, assuming your boat has such an autopilot, but in the hairiest situations it’s still best to have a person in control. Modern autopilots can learn a boat’s handling characteristics and can sense a boat’s bow or stern rising to a wave, but they can’t perceive what’s going on around a boat. Once you’re in a big seaway where waves are routinely breaking, it’s best to have a helms person who can see and hear the rough stuff and steer around it. Also, of course, an autopilot needs electricity to function. If you've lost power, or have little to spare, you need a human on the wheel.

Some people are intimidated steering in big waves, but once you get the hang of it it can actually be a lot of fun. For experienced sailors, steering a boat through heavy seas, particularly downwind, is exhilarating, one of the peak experiences in the sport, and is something to look forward to.

Scull the Waves

Once wave heights are equal to or exceed your boat’s beam sailing on a square beam reach becomes less comfortable and less safe. Each passing wave may roll the boat badly and the threat of a knockdown or capsize will increase as the seas grow larger. Sailing dead downwind in very large seas can also be a bad idea. The boat, again, may roll badly, and it is easier for a following sea to throw the stern far enough off line to backwind a sail, which in turn can lead to a bad broach and perhaps a knockdown or capsize.

The safest way to transit large seas is by quartering them, sailing upwind or running off on a broad reach with the boat running at an angle to the waves. This attitude minimizes rolling, reduces the chance of a sail being back winded, and makes it easier for the helms person to maintain control and steer around the breaking portions of waves. When sailing over large waves at an angle, the fastest, smoothest course is not a straight line. Instead you want to scull the waves, sailing more of a scalloped horizontal course that matches the vertical shape of the seas.

This technique is particularly important when sailing upwind. Beating to weather in heavy seas, a poor helmsperson who doesn’t scull the waves properly will often bring the boat to a near standstill by pinching too close to the wind or will fall off the wind too far and let the boat get pushed down on to a beam reach. To prevent this you need to fall into a simple pattern, pinching the boat to weather as it approaches a wave crest and bearing away again as it sails down the back of the wave into the trough behind it.

Sailing off the wind, to achieve the same result, you need to reverse the pattern. As a wave crest approaches the stern of the boat, you should bear away a bit, and once the crest is past you should head up.

The end result in both cases is the same: at the wave crest the boat is de-powered, with the bow or stern closer to the eye of the wind; heading down into the trough the apparent wind angle is increased and the boat is more powered up. Sailing to windward this allows a boat to get over the top of each wave with less resistance and reduces the chance of it flying off crests and slamming down into troughs. Sailing off the wind, it keeps the hull flatter as the wave crests approach, reduces torsional twist on the stern that can lead to a broach, and sets the boat up to perhaps surf down the front of the wave. Powering up the boat as it heads into the troughs in both cases increases control and speed, so you can more easily avoid obstacles and negotiate the next wave crest as it approaches.

These illustrations show a simplified view of wave-sculling courses upwind and downwind with the course adjustments exaggerated a bit for clarity. As a general rule, larger waves require larger corrections. In the real world wave patterns are also normally less organized, with two or more wave trains interacting with each other. Steering over or around offline waves, and of course avoiding breaking waves when possible, will require additional course adjustments.

Another factor not accounted for here is surfing downwind. This can happen a little bit even in traditional heavy-displacement boats, but is quite common when sailing modern light-displacement boats with shallow bilges. Once a hull breaks loose and starts surfing on a wave, you are basically riding the wave crest. On many boats you will simply maintain course while surfing and then head up a bit after the crest passes to set up for the next wave. On some faster boats, you may want to head up a bit while surfing to make up for the loss of apparent wind speed and to keep the boat surfing longer.

Feel the Boat

The best autopilots now automatically scull waves as they steer a boat through heavy seas. The best helms persons do exactly the same thing–they feel the boat under them as they steer and instinctively scull the waves, whether they are conscious of what they are doing or not. Even if you are not a naturally talented helms person, you can learn to do this with a bit of practice.

When steering in large waves, body position is particularly important. You need to find a posture in which you can both comfortably grasp the wheel or tiller and can easily feel how the boat is moving under you. This is largely subjective and different people steer better in different positions. Some people can feel a boat easily through their butts and can sit while steering; many more feel a boat best while standing with their legs spread wide. Compromise positions, where you sit with one leg braced against a vertical cockpit feature, like a coaming, footwell side or wheel pedestal, can also be effective.

Vision, of course, also plays a role. Steering to windward in daylight you can easily see approaching waves and can make course adjustments accordingly. If you don’t scull waves instinctively, this is usually the best way to learn. When steering downwind with the waves behind you, or at night, you must rely more on other cues. Motion is the biggest one. As a wave crest approaches you will feel your boat’s bow or stern rise with it, and once you are practiced the nature of this motion can tell you a great deal. Depending on its speed and torsional twist, you can sense the size and shape of each wave and its direction relative to other waves around it and should be able to steer the cleanest course over or, in some cases, around it.

You also need to keep your ears open. In daylight you can look around to see what waves are breaking. At night you have to listen for them. This doesn't provide as much warning and your response time will be degraded, but sometimes you can at least minimize the effect of a wave breaking over the boat. Listening to the pattern of noises waves make as they pass in conjunction with the motion you feel can also tell you something about the size and angle of an approaching wave, even if it isn't breaking.  To get good at this, you need to practice, and you shouldn't wait until conditions are extreme to start. Switch off your autopilot when the seas get rough and take a long turn at the wheel. A great way to get all-round experience is to do a passage with crew and pretend you don’t even have an autopilot. Take turns steering and let your electronic friend take a break. There’s no reason why it should be having all the fun!

XMAS AT THE BOAT YARD

Well Xmas has come and gone for us here in Alimos, Boat Yard, Santa came and dropped a few new yachts into this mess of a yard, goodness knows where he found the room to put them... but they are here... some where.... if you can spot one let me know ....


The Cataramans have been relagated to the outside wall, they provide an additional barrier against the southerly seas that break over the breakwater here... actually its a good place for them... we will see how many remain at the end of winter...LOL>>>



it became apparent that we have alot of work still to do on K3 to get her ready for the start of the season. Never mind the thousands of other yachts that are currently 'Sitting" here in the yard. Their owners will un-doubtly leave things to the last minute as always and rush the whole mess back into the water just in time to make their first charter... some time in April !

So here she is with out her masts on deck.... a very strange sight to say the least



On the good news bad news front.... good news All primer paint and fairing has been completed on both K3 masts, now its a case of sanding and painting the final color coat. Which should happen after the New Years bash....

On the Bad news front.. we had to pull Calypso's mast as she had developed a serious problem with the mast shoe at the bottom of the mast... actually it has more or less disolved, the Clever boat builders had placed the Aluminmum shoe on top of a steel backing plate that connected to the keel bolts. Over the years the electrolysis had eaten away nearly all the underlayers of the shoe... Captain Michael only noticed it about 2 weeks before Christmas when he thought that the standing rigging was a little loose and the 3 spreader rig was bending in the wind causing Calypso to rock in her cradle rather alarmingly...

We both did some basic BN poking around at the bottom of the mast and when his screw driver went right though the Mast shoe... we kind of decided that we had a little bit of a problem..

Any way just as well to find it now rather than at sea while sailing in big winds... So here is Calypso all clean now with NO shitty antifouling left on her bottom, and ready for a primer coat before anti fouling... and her massive 3 spreader 31 meter mast on the ground... god that thing is a monster...




The Crew is off for the New Year, Captain Michael is going back to Croatia to see his Mum.... Uncle Nickos is staying here with the Famaily and our resident BN Kostas is already in Albania. The boss and his lady are off to Prague for a few days to see the sights and freeze my nuts off, So I will take pictures and let you all know what the city is like..

I hope Every one has a great New Year and I will see you all soon

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERY ONE...

CAPT.CHANDLER AND CONNY KEESSEN

SAIL YACHT OR POWER BOAT

SAIL YACHT OR POWER BOAT

Spent the day taking out the masts from K3, actually its a 3 day process, starting with removing all halyards, electrical wiring and any other connections... loosing up 15 turn buckles, check that everything turns..secure the furling system...call the crane... then lift slowly and lay down on secure barrels?... well what ever you can find that is sound and in good shape.. Now the work begins... strip all gear off, inspect, service, paint masts reassemble and back in the yacht... should be all done by January... weather permitting..

K3 WINTERIZED, HAULED AND CRADLED

Friday saw an early start as we had plans to get K3 to the 'haul out dock' by 0930hrs. Like all good things in greece plans get a little delayed and despite the fact we where on time... the crane operators and haul out crew where a little delayed. So we adapted the classic hurray up and wait mode... patience is something you learn quickly in greece... it was a pleasant morning the first real sunshine we have had all week after  all the clouds and rain that we have had this week.
Stammas (the Crane operator) and the boys finally showed up and we where under way.. Crane fired up and lifting straps placed under the hull.. final check to make sure nothing was forgotten.. speed log pulled, all though hulls open.. ok lift away....
Out of the water she came, pretty clean on the hull too, a little green slime on the starboard boot striping, some fur slime starting to grow on the rudder, otherwise clean as a whistle... quick guys power clean her off and lets roll again for another season.... I think not !!
In Alimos marina they pick yachts up with a 50 ton crane, transport them to a cradle on wheels and then drive them a short diatance to the yard where they pick the yacht up again and place it in the cradle for the winter... not the most efficient way of doing things but given that there is not a travel lift area and the confined space they have to work with... it all seems to work well.
So whats next... K3 in her cradle for winter service and maintenance... we have to prepare the masts for withdrawl and inspection at the end of the month. Along with getting 'Calypso' out of the water as well, all that is scheduled for the end of the month. Meantime the skipper and crew will be taking a week or so off, well working at half speed any way...
Here is a short video of the whole event... enjoy.. more later..

SAILING SCHOOL YACHTS AVAILABLE FOR CHARTER

Many of our students have asked us to help them find a charter yacht for them to use, once they passed thier Skippers exam. With so many 'Bare Boat' charter companies available it is difficult to recommend any one company.  It is also difficult to choose any one model of yacht.
The average sized yacht is around 40 ft and offers 2-3 sleeping cabins, from there your choices are pretty much endless.
We have choosen Jeanneau Yachts as our teaching yachts becasue of thier excellent construction and modern yacht design. They have a high attention to detail on interior construction and excellent deck layouts that make sailing easy and safe.
We can offer our students a 40ft Jeanneau Sun Fizz. The yacht has a 3 cabin layout, with 2 heads. The deck layout is traditional, with wheel steering, and a fully battened mainsail.


"Eleni" was built in 1992 and was the last of her series, she has been in private use for all her life and so is well maintained. The yacht has a 55hp Perkins engine, that offers good auxillary power, especailly when the wind dies off here in the Greek islands.

The school offers 'Elenei' on a daily/weekly charter option... 300 EURO a day...The rate does not include fuel, taxes, yacht expenses.



For bookings and further details please contact the school direct at
information@athenssailingacademy.com  or call 00-30-693-716-3246

Captained Yacht Charter Greece

Chandler yacht charter Greece is a little different from other yacht charter companies. Our company specializes in Captained yacht charter which falls somewhere between ' bareboat-with-rent-a-skipper' yacht charter, and the more traditional fully crewed yacht charter.

We believe that a ONE PRICE POLICY, Should include everything...... with no nasty surprises at the end of the holiday.

http://www.sailcharter-greece.com/

We are one of the very few companies in the Aegean who offer Captain guided sailing holidays that you can join as a single or a couple—on our own privately owned yachts.

In this part of the world, that's important!!

We are a small, owner-operated business—hence the Staff you talk to via phone or email will probably be the ones sailing with you
It's our personal commitment to ensure that you have a trouble free and satisfying vacation.

At CHANDLER YACHT CHARTERS we can help you plan your vacation with the right itinerary, and the best price. OUR ONE PRICE POLICY INCLUDES ALMOST EVERYTHING , and will avoid any surprises at the end of your holiday.

Our sailing holidays are available to everyone irrelevant of sailing experience. And if you want to learn how to sail then you can take a course at our sailing school...

'ATHENS SAILING ACADEMY'

What ever your wish, we are here to provide you the most exciting sailing experience possible.

Your choices for the best Vacation of your life begin here