Bavaria C45 with 4 Cabins - Sailing Yacht (2019) - Atokos (Pax 9)

Poor We (4 friends) had rented this yacht. The local lessor is Ble Yachting. Reception at the office was very friendly and correct. Deposit arranged. Cleaning fee and the fee for being able to take the boat earlier I had to pay in cash. Odd that this could not be done by credit card or pin and since I did not have it with me in cash, it was OK if that was paid after the trip. The boat check-in went smoothly. A balloon fender was missing and I noticed that for a 2019 ship there were quite a few small things broken anyway. Strange that sheets and towels are provided but no tea towels and dish towels. The ship is very spacious and sails easily. I did find it strange that it was skewed in the water (tilted to starboard). Possibly something with the ballast? During the voyage it soon became apparent that the anchor winch was not working properly. In port they only lowered the winch a few meters during check-in, but in actual use in bays and harbors, where you sometimes want to use up to 40 meters of cable, the winch kept failing. The fuse kept blowing out after a few meters of cable. Without a better, stronger and faster winch, I would strongly advise against this boat. Especially in windy conditions in ports, this is a recipe for damage. A second issue was that the swim platform winch failed due to a broken bolt. We could not get in touch with the base manager or the office. Only after Tubber's intervention did the base manager call us. He indicated that there were spare bolts in the chart table (there were), but even though we were in a port on Lefkas, no one from Ble came to help. We had to fix this ourselves, which meant a 3-hour delay and a lot of fiddling in a small room in the aft of the ship. You could only reach this through a hatch in the right cabin. We noticed how much rust was on the winch, and rust was also the cause of a bolt breaking that worked the winch. We had to take out the winch motor to replace the rusted bolt. The tools on board (especially the pliers you need), were also completely rusted. It definitely affected the fun of this week of sailing and therefore not 5 stars.