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We arrived in Chaguaramas Trinidad in August 2000 with our recent purchase, a 12 year old Dutch built aluminum cutter. We were proud new owners and still part-time employed so we took advantage of the timing and location to undertake a significant refit of the boat. This included a complete repainting from the bottom of the keel to the top of the mast and the replacement of the teak deck, renewal of the anchoring system, the installation of some new electronics, and the integration of a stainless steel stern arch including davits into our pushpit.
The contract for the work excluding the stern arch and the installation of electronics went to CrewsInn Boatyard (since mid-2002 re-christened Southern Caribbean Yachtworks). We were told that this would be a four month proposition. We expected it to take about six months. After 18 months we removed our boat from the yard and completed the work with our own contractors at Power Boats. This took another six months. In all we were occupied for 24 months at a cost close to double our initial contract. Clearly, we were unprepared for what we had gotten ourselves into.
Before describing in minimal detail our experience and the ultimate solutions, it must be understood that we enjoyed our time in Trinidad, enjoyed excellent relations with the management and workers at CrewsInn. Our concerns were immediately responded to and more often than not positively resolved. At the end, we received a refund for a part of the work that was unsatisfactory. However, we would not consider repeating our experience with CrewsInn. Even when they offered to rectify remaining problems two years later at no cost to us, we chose not to accept this offer. We recommend that work be done only if the owners or their representative were there at all times and then only for specific work such as bottom painting and woodworking. We acknowledge that the boatyard manager present in August 2000 made promises that could not be kept and that operations are now run by Michael Smith who is aware of their limitations and is trying to rebuild their reputation. They do have a 200 ton travel lift and a master shipwright, Allan Paul.
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Our paint work was appallingly poorly done. We believe that the hull was properly prepared below the waterline. However, the rubrail was not removed and the blisters above and below the rubrail reappeared within months. This part of the work will have to be done again in Chile. The boom and mast were badly painted and the hardware was not removed so that they look good only from a distance. The doghouse and cockpit were painted four times. They initially left on the hardware that was to be removed and sprayed over the dynamo plastic labels. The second time they took off all of the hardware in the doghouse and lost much of it, then got dust in the paint. The third time it looked like a melting ice lolly, and the fourth time they got it largely right or possibly we got worn down. I can tell you that in retrospect that our fixation on the doghouse prevented us from really understanding how bad the paint job actually was. They also painted the hydralic backstay cyclinder which they then cleaned with paint remover. This resulted in the destruction of the seals, which collapsed on our first sail after the paint job. We were fortunately saved by the running backs, modest seas, and some creative jury rigging. The boatyard had also replaced some screws in the mast with longer ones so that the first time that we unfurled our in-mast sail, it came out rather like swiss cheese.
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We had decided that since we were repainting, it would be worthwhile to replace the six Lewmar hatches, which had begun to come apart. Instead of removing the old hatches before painting, they chose to remove them after the new paint work was almost complete. Despite this, they still managed to get a fair degree of overspray onto the new hatches. They had neatly covered and protected the old hatches using cardboard, but failed to do the same with the new hatches!
The laying of the teak deck they did well. Amanda made a few trips back to inspect each stage of the process which meant that we knew that the old deck had been properly removed, carefully sandblasted and the thousands of old holes welded shut, then pretreated, epoxied and the new deck installed. However, we did lose some nice teak interior (CrewsInn replaced the most obviously damaged) and a few wires to molten slag as they were sufficiently careless not to have someone below to prevent slag from falling into the boat despite assurances. We are still finding sandblasting sand, and unfortunately the welded plates were held in place by some rather large and ugly braces, which still remain in the ceiling.
We had just had the cabin soles refinished and found them heavily damaged by the workers. We complained about this and were gratified that they put cardboard everywhere that mattered. We were less gratified a year later when we removed the cardboard and found that they had not swept away the nuts, bolts, screws and other odds and ends that in the interim became imbedded into the sole.
After the deck was laid, replacing the interior took forever as we were 'almost finished' and there were other, more pressing, jobs to be done. To expedite our departue we replaced much of the interior cabinetry ourselves and supplied new insulation as the old was largely ruined by carelessness (we found some pieces removed that were used as a platform for mixing adhesives, stirring glue, butting out cigarettes, ...). We did receive help installing the new insulation but had to argue to get the hours removed from our final bill. By the time we had departed Trinidad, only about half of the insulation had been replaced and Amanda spent time in Isla Margarita replacing most of the rest.
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Rigging was done by special agreement by an outside rigger, Neils Lund of Budget Marine Rigging, who was excellent. But the yard did manage to lose some hardware and trash our new lifelines by leaving them in a garbage pile long enough to be covered in paint from empty cans. Everything was replaced by CrewsInn at no cost to us and without argument.
Darwin's Passage carries two anchors, but they could not easily be deployed since they became entangled. The contract thus called for an aluminum welder to alter the tip of the bow slightly. This was not done. Instead a stainless steel extension was fabricated. This was not something that was discussed with us and we should not have accepted it. We have made some modifications of our own, including adding "cheeks" high enough to keep the rode from jumping all over the place and a captive bracket to keep the anchor in the track. Since that time we have learned more about the regional capabilities and learned that no one with the skills required was ever available to do the job.
Many things were broken or lost in the yard. In cleaning the doghouse with a hose, the yard managed to drown our autopilot and fill the interior electrical channels with water, leaving the connectors for the radar's CRT sitting in a pool of water. We elected to replace the autopilot, and fortunately our new radar was still functional. Additional damages include drilling through our Magnavox MX100 GPS antennae and then attaching the VHF output to the GPS input. After the mast was stepped, the wiring was connected so that switching went through ground which took us a while to figure out. The B&G masthead was smashed and then lost as was the Windex. Later we found that they had burnt out both windshield wiper motors. To hide this, the wires had all been cut to keep the whole dogouse wiring from shorting. You can appreciate that, by comparison, having the wires for lighting connected to our speakers (and thus their destruction) and no salon lights because they were instead connected to the speaker wires, seemed quite a minor matter, almost humorous.
In our initial test sail to Tobago the fore hatch leaked. On closer inspection, we discovered that part of the hatch had not received any calking and was thus sitting directly on the teak, only that there was a gap between the two parts! What calking was used was coated OVER the blue masking tape, and then the entire assembly screwed down using dry wall screws. Needless to say, these rusted out within two weeks.
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Then in late 2001 the boatyard decided to shutdown and restart as Southern Caribbean Yachtworks with a small crew to try to get it right. We were thus given an opportunity to leave and complete the work on our own. The timing was right because our salvation came largely through the last of our five project managers at the boatyard, Peter Laine. Peter is an ex-pat American with a sound knowledge of boats and strong ethics. He helped to complete properly and to correct as much of the work that was possible in the last two months that we were at CrewsInn.
When we left the CrewsInn yard in January 2002, we had to rerun much of the wiring, wire the arch, replace the autopilot, replace damaged electronics, redo some of the hatches, refinish the saillocker hatch and replace the seal, finish off the bow modification, and do many other tasks to complete the refit and get the boat ready for the next voyage. Peter also helped us here by introducing us to Jorn Grote who runs European Yachting Connection out of Power Boats. Peter, who had been laid off from CrewsInn, managed the work together with Jorn in our absence. Jorn sent weekly updates with digital photos. His mechanic, Dutchy, worked on our auxiliary engine and generator. Rainer from Electropics helped us with the installation of our new autopilot, as the local Simrad representative. In total is was a professional job. Peter, together with their electronics expert, Volker, installed several new instruments including a GPS chart plotter, an Interphase Probe, a 110V/220V universal isolation transformer, an Iridium phone complete with mast antennae and so on. We highly recommend Jorn Grote and his European Yacht Connection. He has a complete team of well trained people who know their stuff and are very reasonable. Jorn can be reached at (868) 637-0664 or europeanyachtconnection throught the yahoo.com email system. The well-made arch was done by Harry Stauble of Superior Machine Shop engineering in San Fernando (868) 653-1870. We also had good working relations with Barrow Sails (868 634-4137) who built us a new trisail. Kathy and Kent were fantastic. We also were very pleased with how things worked out with Doug Billings at KISS who helped with the installation of the arch and supplied our 24V KISS windgenerator.
It was, without a doubt, one of the most traumatic experiences and it is particularly difficult as we enjoyed many of the people with whom we worked. Ryan, who had worked for CrewsInn, was a local mechanic who worked wonders with our propellar shaft and engine mounts. He was skilled, patient, and honest. The fact remains, however, that without the skills of Jorn, Rainer, Neils, Peter, Harry and their crews, we would had a very difficult time recovering from the damage incurred by the boatyard. This is yet another one of those examples that the largest facilities are not necessarily the best, and that even major jobs should be carefully partitioned down into smaller tasks.
We are pleased to say that Darwin's Passage is more than intact now, and has proven her ability after 6400 nautical miles since the refit. Most of the "kinks" seemed to have been worked out and the repairs from the damages complete.