Charter boat odors

[JPK]

We just got back from chartering a sailboat in the Ionian for a week. This was our first experience chartering a boat, and we all had a wonderful time. The only downer of the entire trip was that the boat smelled awful. it was a combination of strong bathroom odors, and a general musty/moldy smell throughout. It was a new boat, sailed only three times last season (due to Covid) and this was the first week she was out this season. I'm sure that being closed up for that long (and especially in the hot, humid Greek weather) didn't help. All the cushions, mattresses, bedding etc. all smelled of mold. The bathrooms reeked of a waste/urine odor. All the heads were seawater flush. We tried completely emptying them after use and filling with some fresh water, but that had limited effect. We tried closing all the sink drains when not in use but that didn't do much either. So my questions are: 1) is this to be expected on all charter boats?, and 2) what can be done about it? Most of the remedies I've read about getting rid of boat odors involve deep-cleaning, dehumidifiers, ozonators, replacing head tubing... all things that a person chartering a boat for a week isn't going to be able to do. So what should I come armed with the next time I charter a boat to make sure we don't all spend a week smelling that?

Thanks,
John

[goboatingnow]

In my experience ( I’m in Greece sailing ) it’s all down to the heads and holding tanks. If seawater is left in them for any length of time it stinks.

We find the first week we use the boat the head is obnoxious ( and I fresh water flush it at the end of the season ). But after about a week of use , along with vinegar etc. We find the smells vanish ( or maybe we get used to it. )

Remember most of these heads need 15-20 air pumps after the fluid is gone to empty the sanitation hose.

I suspect the situation was excerbated by COVID too as the charter companies ended up in limbo

[ChrisJHC]

See if you can find a bottle of this. One small drop a day will cover most odours.

https://www.google.com.au/shopping/p...,gclsrc:aw.ds#

[goboatingnow]

In Greece where toilet odours are common there are a wide range of sprays to cover up odours , of course that’s all you are doing !!

[LittleWing77]

Originally Posted by JPK

We just got back from chartering a sailboat in the Ionian for a week. This was our first experience chartering a boat; we had a wonderful time [and we really enjoyed sailing the Ionian.]

The one downer of the entire trip was that the boat smelled awful. It was a combination of strong bathroom odors, and a general musty/moldy smell throughout the boat. All the cushions, mattresses, bedding etc. smelled of mold and, unfortunately, the bathrooms reeked of waste/urine.

We tried completely emptying the heads after use and filling with fresh water, but that had limited effect. We tried closing all the sink drains when not in use but that didn't do much either. [The moldy cushions and bedding we couldn't do much about, as they need to be steamed and/or deep cleaned at least.]

John,

I've taken sections from your post and suggest that you send this as feedback to the Charter company (wording in square brackets are suggested additions), including a culminating paragraph to the effect of:

"We had been looking forward to chartering with [name of company] for future holidays and would have happily recommended [company] to our sailing friends, but that will all be suspended if the sanitation odors and interior mold in your Charter fleet is not addressed.

Should we choose to use [company] for future charters, how can we ensure that we will be allocated a clean boat?"

I was a charter skipper in the BVIs for years [Moorings] and we would NEVER have sent a boat out for charter with the heads reeking and musty, moldy bedding! BLEUCH.

As a Charter Skipper, if I had stepped aboard with Charter guests and the boat smelled the way you describe, I would have gone straight to the Fleet Manager and got him to allocate my Charterers another boat. You could have done the same thing if you had noticed the odors right away.

Perhaps the Base Manager is unaware that this has happened/ is happening and s/he should absolutely be MADE aware!

At any rate, sounds like shoddy base staff and the Charter company absolutely must be provided with feedback so you never encounter a similar situation. Hrumph.

Hope the sailing and exploring WAS lovely to compensate!

Warmly,
LittleWing77

[JPK]

Originally Posted by LittleWing77

John,

I've taken sections from your post and suggest that you send this as feedback to the Charter company (wording in square brackets are suggested additions), including a culminating paragraph to the effect of:

"We had been looking forward to chartering with [name of company] for future holidays and would have happily recommended [company] to our sailing friends, but that will all be suspended if the sanitation odors and interior mold in your Charter fleet is not addressed.

Should we choose to use [company] for future charters, how can we ensure that we will be allocated a clean boat?"

I was a charter skipper in the BVIs for years [Moorings] and we would NEVER have sent a boat out for charter with the heads reeking and musty, moldy bedding! BLEUCH.

As a Charter Skipper, if I had stepped aboard with Charter guests and the boat smelled the way you describe, I would have gone straight to the Fleet Manager and got him to allocate my Charterers another boat. You could have done the same thing if you had noticed the odors right away.

Perhaps the Base Manager is unaware that this has happened/ is happening and s/he should absolutely be MADE aware!

At any rate, sounds like shoddy base staff and the Charter company absolutely must be provided with feedback so you never encounter a similar situation. Hrumph.

Hope the sailing and exploring WAS lovely to compensate!

Warmly,
LittleWing77

Thank you very much for the detailed and thoughtful reply. I did already send a note to the base manager describing our experience, along with a few other smaller maintenance items about the boat. We really did have a wonderful time on the charter, and the odor was really the only negative aspect of the week, so I'm not going to dwell on it too much. My post here was mainly aimed at understanding how to avoid a repeat of this, and/or what we can do about it if we come across it again.

Swapping to a different boat was unlikely, as we were a large group and I had chartered the largest boat they had in their fleet at that marina. I know that they only had one of those at that location, so requesting a different boat would have had a significant impact on accommodations for our party. Additionally, I'll take some of the blame for not identifying the issue and bringing it to the base manager's attention when we first arrived. We arrived later than anticipated and wanted to get underway so we wouldn't have to spend the first night in the marina, so we loaded baggage and got underway without doing as thorough a walk-through of the boat as I would have if it were a bareboat charter. It was a skippered charter, and our skipper greeted us at the boat and told us he had done a thorough walk-through and check out, so we thought we were good to go. That's a learning right there.

[bstreep]

We've done maybe 16 or 17 charters. This isn't acceptable. Of course you had a good time - mostly. Probably everyone but you, who had a decent time, but you blame yourself for not getting this right, and it hurt YOUR vacation. Right? Yeah, been there... Our last one was so bad, it ruined mine. I swore I wouldn't be the main charterer again after that one. Yet, here we are, going to French Polynesia in November!


How the charter company responds is what's important. We spent $40K collectively on our last trip - and the charter company's offer of $3-400 was insulting. I wasn't looking for money, I was looking for a real apology. I told them that they would have been WAY ahead if they had met us mid charter with a case of beer, a couple of bottles of wine, 8 great steaks and 30 pounds of ice. Would have cost them less than they had offered, AND it would have been a fantastic gesture.

I learned this many years ago in business: When you screw up, stand up and take responsibility for the error, tell the client what you are going to do to make up for it, and then explain what you've done to make sure it never happens again. Works every time.

Dream Yacht hasn't seemed to figure that out...

[nextis12]

You mentioned it was the largest boat in the fleet, did it have air conditioning? The bathroom odor can be treated (covered up) with chemicals but I think short of a dehumidifier or AC the mold smell is tough to address by a charter. I have chartered a few boats with a horrible stink. Since head odor can be covered up and mold is usually more of a musty smell I wonder if someone got seasick down below and it ended up stuck in some corner??

[JPK]

Originally Posted by nextis12

You mentioned it was the largest boat in the fleet, did it have air conditioning? The bathroom odor can be treated (covered up) with chemicals but I think short of a dehumidifier or AC the mold smell is tough to address by a charter. I have chartered a few boats with a horrible stink. Since head odor can be covered up and mold is usually more of a musty smell I wonder if someone got seasick down below and it ended up stuck in some corner??

Yes, thankfully the boat had a generator and AC. We ran the gen/AC all night, every night to get some fresh air when sleeping, and that was a godsend. Sleeping in there with that smell without AC would have been unbearable, but when it was running it was actually fine. The problem was that the AC wasn't ducted into the heads, so any time someone opened the door to the head (which was now ~20 degrees hotter than the rest of the space) you'd get a blast of hot stinky air.

The generator had 8 hours on the clock when we picked up the boat. It had 45 hours on the clock when we returned her.