Importance of the Checkout Process
The only way that most of us can ever hope to sail our own $500,000 yacht is via the popular routine known as "Bareboat Chartering." The “charterer” becomes the responsible party, and "temporary (contract) owner” of the yacht for a designated period of time. Underline the word responsible! Included in the word “responsible” are things such as knowing navigation rules, conducting safe passage, crew safety. and a basic knowledge and understanding of the yacht’s complex system’s. Fortunately, these things, and more, are taught in courses such as ASA-104.
Each yacht is not only complex, but unique insofar as its state of systems reliability; that’s a fancy way of saying that things wear out and break—continuously. Most, if not all, charter companies, in order to keep their rates as low as possible, do not routinely swap out non-critical components before they actually fail. Sometimes, you will encounter what we call a “jury-rig."
This brings us to the importance of the pre-charter checkout briefing. These briefing are “tuned” for each individual yacht. If there is something that you need to be aware of, it will, or should be, covered in your briefing. Ask questions. Pay attention, and take good notes.
A brief article on this topic appeared in Sail Magazine Online.
Safe sailing!
/fl