Beware of Pacific Yacht Deliveries

[Fantazia]

I recently had my vessel, a Switch 55 catamaran delivered to NZ and then onto French Polynesia by this outfit based in Whangarei NZ. The damage was devastating and the lack of concern was outrageous. There was also an itemised 4000 AUD satphone bill that I was left with, for which they disclaimed all responsibility. For more details take the trouble to email me at johnpwoodruff1 at gmail.com and I will give you all the terrible details. Just don't use them. John Woodruff

[David_Old_Jersey]

A $4k Satphone bill? - ouch! .

Just curious - did you have a formal written contract with them?

[Auzzee]

The satphone bill should not be difficult to legally attribute to them.

[atoll]

last time i crossed the pacific,my sat phone bill was aprox £300,or $500 us dollars over 3 months,that was,phoning every day for 2 minutes on passage to let the owner know our position ,status and a quick weather up date!

[Fantazia]

I did have a contract and in fact to garner goodwill, paid advances on the schedule - stupid or what? The biggest problem was that besides the skipper being useless, the company did not tell me about the damage until I arrived and tried to get the crew to cover it up, and then flatly refused to take any responsibility for that or the sat phone bill. JW

[Captain Jeffry]

WoW! Was sat phone also used to send receive email and gribs? Ours does and our bill home from Hawaii is normally $5-$600. Perhaps they spent a lot of time discussing the damages with the home office figuring out how to avoid blame..
Horrible story

[ozskipper]

What was the damage? NZ to FP is a decently long trip. One would expect wear and tear perhaps. But I am curious to know more about the actual damage.

[David M]

Geeze....$4000 sounds like they may have been downloading porn.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by Fantazia

I did have a contract

Good .

In that case the Sat Phone bill and the damage would be covered - whether in your favour or not would of course depend on the terms..........

[JEBergel]

Not to be confused with Pacific Yacht Delivery of California. These NZ guys came along about 15 years after we did and tried to capitalize on our stellar reputation by using a nearly identical name. When contacted they refused to consider changing to an original name. I thought that was a bit shady. At any rate, you should always verify references before contracting with any yacht delivery service. Sorry you had such a horrible experience.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Auzzee

The satphone bill should not be difficult to legally attribute to them.

Assuming the contract does not permit them unlimited use of your satphone at your expense.

[BandB]

The majority of yacht transport companies have been problematic for various people. Yacht Path was one of the huge blowups. Then there was Yacht World I believe. The only two I know of that have consistently performed and received good reviews have been Sevenstar and DYT (formerly Dockwise).

Also, to anyone transporting, Insurance. In most cases the transporter will not claim responsibility. Good transport companies will advise you on getting insurance but most transport companies do not provide it themselves. DYT does include insurance with their quoted price but you may want additional. SevenStar includes it in most quotations but you actually get it through Pantaenius.

Now this practice is not limited to yacht transport. This is standard for all transport, from household moving to international shipment of containers of products.

In most cases the carrier does state in the contract their limits of liability and often is it something very low such as 60 cents a pound or so. The only way the carrier can generally be held responsible for more is to prove gross negligence and that is normally very difficult to impossible.

So choose transport companies wisely and insure your yacht for transport.

[nigel1]

This is an old thread, but I think the OP's complaint concerned a delivery crew.
The post above relates to carriage of a yacht as deck cargo.

[HappyMdRSailor]

Originally Posted by PYDelivery

Not to be confused with Pacific Yacht Delivery of California. These NZ guys came along about 15 years after we did and tried to capitalize on our stellar reputation by using a nearly identical name. When contacted they refused to consider changing to an original name. I thought that was a bit shady. At any rate, you should always verify references before contracting with any yacht delivery service. Sorry you had such a horrible experience.

In light of the less than scrupulous business practice of naming a business nearly identical to your own previous existing business....

I hereby formally request your blessing to start up Pacific Yacht deliveree of Mississippee ...

[JEBergel]

HappyMdRsailor, that's fine as long as I have your permission to change my company's name to Missippiee Yacht Delivery of the Pacific.