Fifteen years and the end of one chapter
This season was the first in more than fifteen years that we did not offer bareboat charter in Estonia.
The enquiries kept coming, more of them than we expected. Agencies and returning guests wrote from early in the year to book a week or two, the way they always have. Some have sailed with us nearly every season. Some learned to sail on our boats and never quite recovered. Those messages were good to receive and harder to answer than we thought they would be.
So here is the answer, properly.
Bareboat charter was the backbone of this company for a long time and we are glad we did it. It brought hundreds of sailors to Estonia to see what the Baltic is actually like: our small islands, the long light of a northern summer, and a crossing to Finland when the wind allowed. Every Saturday a boat had to be ready for a new crew, whatever had happened during the week. If something broke, it was fixed at speed. Some crews were reluctant to leave at the end of the week and stayed on the dock to tell us about it.
Sailing the Baltic is its own discipline. The water is shallow, the marks matter, and the chart is not a suggestion. More than one crew came back grateful that we had been firm about staying inside the channels.
A charter business is really two businesses running side by side. One is the guest side: marketing the destination, answering enquiries, contracts and paperwork, making sure people reach the right harbour on the right Saturday and are met properly when they do. The other is technical: the boats themselves and keeping them working. Maintenance, cleaning, winter work, planned repairs, unplanned repairs, finding the right specialist at short notice even in a small harbour. Over the years that second side builds something durable: the knowledge, and the network of people you can rely on.
And gradually, other owners began asking us to do exactly that for their boats.
So that is what we do now.
We maintain and manage yachts, carry out repairs, run the larger projects, and help people buy a boat, whether it is their first or their fourth. We arrange the right insurance when that is needed. And we still sail: a few voyages a year, in the Mediterranean and further afield.
There is a lot ahead. Several things are already under way and we will be able to talk about some of them in the coming months. Fifteen years gave us knowledge we are now using more deliberately than ever, and this work suits us.
To everyone who sailed with us over those years, and to everyone who helped along the way: thank you!
Comments