What's your worst guest/crew experience?

[belizesailor]

I rarely take on unknown to me crew, Ive got plenty of former students/friends who want to sail. Im cautious about new to me crew and have never had a truly bad experience, but have had some overstate their experience.

One great experience I had with new to me crew was a guy that not only turned out to be good crew, but a good musician as well. He wrote a song about the trip which he recorded when he got home. Good tune too...its still on my iPod.

[Flying Pancakes]

The worst guests are those who imagine they're on a luxury holiday with room service and don't lift a finger to help (put them ashore after 3 days).

My worst crewing experience was for a millionaire, unpaid chef position for an Atlantic crossing, provisioning for crew of 5 without limits - sounds good right? Then the wife arrived day before we left, us 3 treated like skivvies, "crew meals" very different to what I was told to cook for them and other similar niggles. Yes I know, doesn't sound too bad but definitely not fun to have hostile atmosphere when camped together for a couple of weeks.

[Rubikoop]

While on shore a guest went back to the boat to clean up before dinner. When I went back to the boat to shower I saw water slosh out of the head onto the cabin sole... The head and shower on my boat is actually pretty large and requires a water depth of six inches or so to escape.... So in essence she must have used 20-40 gallons of water and not pushed the button to pump the water out!!!! And managed to flood the locker/vanity under the sink basin. At what point would an average person stop and think that the water is getting deep in here, maybe I should stop? This wouldn't have been quite so maddening if she and her husband hadn't sailed with us many times before. When she asked if it was going to be hard to clean up I explained that would be for her to decide after she was done and it met my approval.


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[Mycroft]

Wait a minute, didn't we see that happen in Captain Ron?!

[Teleman]

In the mid-80's, two young guys (19 and 21) I knew were excited to be doing their first ocean passage, crewing from Durban to Mauritius on a 30' sloop.
I went down to check out the boat while they were preparing it, and met the owner.
He seemed a bit unstable and very intense, and while I was there exploded in rage at something totally innocuous one of the boys had done. Later at the pub I told them I wouldn't want to be at sea with him. They decided to go anyway.

The boat was later found drifting 100 miles off Mauritius, the skipper in a catatonic state, both boys shot dead with a .38 revolver he had on board.

A few years later there was the boat that sailed from Cape Town to Brazil with two young female backpackers as crew. They pushed the captain/owner overboard in mid-Atlantic after he tried to rape them, and eventually ran aground on the coast of Brazil.

Be careful if you're thinking of crewing offshore for someone you don't really know..............

[MonsterJoe]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

The conversation came to her performance in bed and I replied..."great".

NEVER answer that question, or anything comparative. It's a trap! (And if it isn't, nothing good can come out of it, no matter how you slice it. Any answer will eventually bite you in the ass... Just like asking for stuff like that doesn't get you anywhere. Fake an injury or actually fork yourself in the eye if you have to... just never answer that one)

[crazyoldboatguy]

Never EVER answer that question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpaEqv1MSQk

[Capt Phil]

On deliveries I normally had a crew who I knew were capable and dependable on watch but bringing our own boat (and home) north from Mazatlan back in the late 80's, I needed to pick up one crew member for the trip north up the Baja. My twenty odd year old son was the third crew member.
I checked out this guys' references in Cabo and took all three of us to dinner in town before leaving early the next morning. At the time we were bringing our Transpacific 49 back to San Diego and having made the 'bash' many times before, I was not at all concerned.
Turns out the crew guy was bi-polar and had either lost or forgotten his meds in Cabo. He went stark raving mad just below Bahia Tortuga and we had to restrain him in a bunk.
Fortunately, I knew some of the fishermen in the town and convinced them to get him on a bus to Tiajuana.
Until you have experienced an emotional and mental breakdown of someone aboard a vessel, you have no idea how spooky it can be.
Never heard from the crew member again but paid for his trip by bus north and stuffed $100 in his jeans before he left the boat.
My son frequently reminds me of the 'trip from hell' as he calls it. All good in the end as the two of us got the boat back to San Diego without any more problems. Cheers, Phil

[Siberianhusky]

Hippy woman from my marina asked to go for a quick sail on my boat, her's wasn't quite ready yet, engine work being done.
This woman had the worst B.O. I've ever experienced in my life, you could not be down wind of her, she stunk up the cabin so bad I left the hatches open to air it out!
Glad it was only a quick rip around the bay, couldn't imagine cruising with that, I'd toss it overboard and hope it didn't cause an environmental disaster!