Fountaine Pajot Lucia 40 charter in Greece (name: "PRESTIGE")

“Steer well clear”

We chartered a Bavaria C45 from Kiriacoulis for 10 days in May 2022. It didn’t start well. There was no-one at the airport to pick us up, as arranged, and when we finally got ourselves to Alimos Marina there was nobody there to meet us. When we eventually found someone from Kiriacoulis we were let onto the boat and given a very rushed briefing. There was no boat inventory or any sort of boat handbook, the boat was dirty and the bedding provided was grubby and stained. Then it got worse. On our first day of sailing we were approaching a busy harbour entrance with strong winds and a high sea when the steering failed completely. The emergency tiller didn’t work, neither did the autopilot and we were being blown onto rocks. Amazingly, there was a Rescue boat close by and they managed to pull us away from the rocks and eventually recover us to the safety of a harbour. (It transpired that the Rescue boat had been called out to a MayDay an hour earlier but had failed to find the boat that placed the call). It is my firm opinion that without the rescue boat we would have ended up on the rocks with serious damage to the boat and the risk of injured crew. Once we were safely under tow, I spoke to the Base Manager, Nicos Vlachakis, to explain what had happened. He was not interested in our welfare but keen to blame us for the steering failure and accuse us of placing the MayDay call. For the next three days we waited at the boat for Engineers to come and fix the steering, with several promised visits not happening and no apology. I eventually texted Nicos for an update and finally got a call back – he was angry, wouldn’t let me speak and then put the phone down on me. Four days after the incident we were eventually able to resume our sailing holiday. At the end of charter we were summoned to the Base Manager’s office and told we had to hand over a 3,000 Euro Security Deposit “as a result of the incident”. We protested, but there seemed no alternative and we were assured that we could expect to get most of it returned to us, although it might take a couple of months. Five months on we are still waiting. I have been sailing boats in the Med for over 20 years. We had 3 qualified skippers on the boat this year but none of us have ever experienced problems like this – in particular the shocking way we were treated. From our perspective a poorly maintained boat led to a steering failure, a dangerous and frightening experience which we managed to resolve, then three lost days of sailing AND an additional charge of 3,000 Euro on our charter. Yet Kiriacoulis decided, without any evidence or due process, to blame it all on us. If you want a well maintained boat, fair treatment and good customer service I strongly recommend you steer well clear of Kiriacoulis.

“Scam company,”

Scam company, avoid at all costs