Marina Kaštela · Saturday · 08:40 · handover 3 of 11
Hull, cockpit, rigging, galley. Signature, deposit, keys, “welcome aboard” — and the next crew is already waiting at the desk. You do this every Saturday of the season, and every time it is enough — until the letter from the guest’s bank.
HandoverBoat · check-in and check-out for charter companies · Croatia, Greece, Italy
The screen your staff walk the guest through. Sixteen zones, the same order every Saturday.
He does everything right. Watch where it breaks.
Every handover follows the procedure: a walk-through with the guest, a paper checklist, a signature, photos on the base tablet. By August the tablet holds six hundred photos and the folder forty signed sheets. He is sure the base is covered.
A fresh gelcoat scratch on the starboard bow of the Oceanis 46. The guest shrugs: “it was already there.” Martin shows the checklist and withholds €480 from the deposit. That evening the guest flies home.
The guest disputed the charge with their bank. Martin sends a scan of the checklist and the photos. The answer: the document was drawn up and stored by the company itself, and the guest never had a copy. The €480 goes back to the guest, the repair is on the base, and a “they keep your deposit” review sits in the Google results.
Where the mistake is
He lost €480 and a review after doing everything he understood as documenting. So the mistake hides inside the word “documented” itself.
Here is the difference
The record that sits in your folder is your memory.
The record the guest received in the same minute is a fact.
Your archive proves only that you have an archive.
The only question that means anything in a dispute: did the guest receive the very same record at the very same moment?
Boat, guest, jurisdiction: HR, EL, IT, EU or UK. Half a minute while the guest fills in the crew list at the desk.
Sixteen critical, eleven optional. Photos and defect tags. The same walk-through as always — only the order is fixed and identical for everyone handing over boats this Saturday.
This is the minute that changes everything. The guest opens the record on their own phone, standing next to you, and sees exactly what you see.
Search by boat, guest or date. The answer to a bank request is one link. The season report for a boat’s owner — every record for their hull in one place.
Link sent to the guest at 09:12. Opened at 09:13.
The manager of a neighbouring charter company shows his check-out: a link the guest opened back at handover. Martin is skeptical: one more service, rolled out at the height of the season, the staff will revolt.
A week later, at check-out, the guest opens the handover record himself, gets to the hull zone and says: “right, this mark wasn’t here — we clipped a buoy.” The deduction went through without an argument. Martin was preparing proof for the future — and got a Saturday without a fight.
Not a single disputed charge for the rest of the season. When the owner of the Oceanis 46 asked where the scratch on the bow came from, Martin pulled up the handover and the check-out in six seconds — with the date, the guest and the confirmation.
To the guest
Between the deduction and the money stand the guest’s bank, the booking platform and the reviews. A deduction grounded in a record the guest opened themselves at handover stops turning into a disputed payment and a star war on Google.
To the boat’s owner
Most hulls in a charter fleet are private owners’ property, and in autumn every one of them will ask about their gelcoat. A record of every handover and check-out turns the “where did this scratch come from” conversation from your word into an archive with dates.
If everything above sounds too smooth, here are three places where it won’t help you.
We record the condition by which someone later decides whose damage it is. The policy, the deposit and the excess remain your tools, and we have never reimbursed anyone for a torn mainsail.
No bank and no platform has signed up to accept our reports. The record works because it is independent and open to both sides. There is no certificate behind it.
An inspection that wasn’t done with the guest present will not appear later. For past seasons kept on paper, we have nothing.
“The guest will feel we don’t trust them.”
Usually the opposite happens. The guest has just left you a €1,500–3,000 deposit, and the person who paid it feels calmer seeing the condition recorded in front of them: the record protects them too — from an unfair deduction. What raises suspicion is the desk that hides the checklist.
“Saturday is a conveyor belt. The staff won’t take on one more service mid-season.”
The routine stays yours: the same zones, the same walk-through with the guest. The fixed zone order makes a new hire’s handover the same as the senior manager’s. One minute is added at the end: send the link. The guest needs no app and no account.
“And if the guest disputes the charge anyway?”
Then the bank will ask for evidence, and the bank will decide — nobody can promise how in advance. The practical value of the record lies elsewhere: a dispute where the guest opened the record at the dock almost never reaches the bank. The record works at the level of the dispute that never starts.
covers a year and a half of the Medium plan. One lost dispute per season already costs more than the subscription.
Five years of the Medium plan cost €1,500 — exactly the lower bound of a single deposit.
290 inspections for €60 on the Large plan. Cheaper than the bottle of water you put aboard for the guests.
The record is already assembled, sent and opened by the guest. The answer to a request is one link.
A month of the Small plan costs €15. One “they keep deposits for old scratches” review costs more.
The first handover needs no card and no account for the guest. You need to see exactly one moment: the guest opening your record while standing next to you.
For skippers and owners with 1–3 boats.
For skippers and small owners with up to 10 boats.
For growing operators with 11–30 boats.
For established charter operators with 31–60 boats.
For fleets with 60+ boats. Custom SLA, terms, and pricing.
14-day trial · No credit card required · Cancel anytime
By monthly volume: Solo — 15 inspections and up to 3 boats. Small — 50 inspections and up to 10 boats. Medium — 110 inspections and up to 30 boats. Large — 290 inspections and up to 60 boats. Fleet bigger than that — write to us about Enterprise.
Next Saturday will start the same way as all the previous ones: the desk, the crew list, the folder of checklists, eleven handovers before lunch.
Croatia · Greece · Italy · Spain · Turkey · France · Malta
What we have learned about charter deposits — the data, the checklists, and what actually holds up in a dispute. (in English)
What to do, in what order, with what deadlines: written demand first, then escalation, then the card. Includes the fee most people trigger by going to the bank too early.
ResearchNobody in the yacht charter industry publishes deposit withholding rates. We triangulated four independent signals. Estimate: 15–25%, typically €200–800.
GuideEvery charter checklist says what to look at. This one says what each photo proves if the operator charges you six weeks later. 27 zones, 30–45 minutes.
