Change of yachts and Instructors

After a really smooth running summer the last few weeks have brought us a number of problems.

The major one is that Zotelot, our Oceanis 400, was taken up to the Ionian for three weeks in August. Unfortunately she had an engine fire and has not yet been able to return to the Aegean. There was a long wait for a part that had to be ordered from the Netherlands. This has now arrived and we expect her back soon but it is unlikely that she will be here before the end of the month.

Fortunately we have been able to use another yacht, Erofili, that is based in Aegina. When we looked at Valentine with a view to buying her, we also looked at Erofili on the same day. We were very tempted by her and it was really a choice between those two out of the many yachts we saw.

So it is quite a co-incidence that she has ended up on Aegina, and even more strange that we are now using her for the school.

Erofili is an Athena 44, the same size as Valentine. She is very comfortable and has one advantage over our other boats in having a cabin with twin bunks. She does not have quite the same spec of navigation equipment but has enough for courses. We have moved over a lot of the school’s safety equipment to ensure that she meets RYA standards.

As well as being ‘down’ a yacht, we are also currently short of an instructor. Martin Chambers, who has been with us since mid August, has returned to the UK for a couple of weeks. His father is undergoing an operation and Martin wanted to be nearer home.

We hope to welcome him back soon. Meanwhile Brian Wray, a very experienced skipper and instructor, who has sailed in this area for many years, has kindly agreed to ‘stand in’ for him.

We don’t think that these changes will affect the standard of tution you receive on our courses over the next few weeks and hope that all will have returned to normal by early October.