Hope for the Best

"I just returned from Ecuador after answering a Crew Wanted ad posted by a woman skipper," Dave Hohman wrote to us in an email. "It turns out that the gal is, in my opinion, a nut job and a drunk. Matt Olson and I answered the ad, and the woman said that if we came ASAP, she’d get us to Mexico as there was a weather window.

"To make a long story short, I had to buy a return ticket to the United States at a cost of $884. Matt, however, is stranded in Canoa, Ecuador. I believe the woman at least owes us return airfare. After all, it was her fault that we didn’t leave on schedule."

We are sorry that things didn’t turn out for Dave and Matt, but we try as diligently as possible to warn everyone that the world of Crew Lists — like the world of internet dating — is as unregulated as it gets. That means everyone has to be as diligent as possible in vetting all possibilities, and always expect the worst while hoping for the best.

If we were looking for a crew position and the skipper told us to hurry from the United States to Ecuador because there was a "weather window," that would be the end of it. After all, what kind of weather window would allow you to fly to Ecuador, provision and go through the boat, complete the time-consuming clearing out process, and then sail 1,500 miles to Mexico? You can’t let your dreams of adventure run roughshod over your common sense. Similarly, Dave’s complaint that they didn’t "leave on schedule" is a little bit naïve. What cruising boat ever left on schedule? 

As for Dave’s opinion that the skipper is a "nut job and a drunk," we can only imagine what she’d say about him. Maybe he’s right, but there’s no way for us to take sides in ‘he said, she said’ situations, particularly when we don’t know any of the people involved. 

Let this be a cautionary tale for all — before anyone flies off to a distant port to join an unknown boat and skipper, they should, at the very least, get recent letters of recommendation from previous crew, as well as a report from neighbors on the general condition of the boat and captain. If the skipper looking for crew isn’t willing to provide these, you’ve got to be skeptical of what kind of opportunity it really is. And no matter how glowing the report on the skipper and boat, we’d always assume that it was going to be a bust and that we’d have to pay for our trip home. Like we said, hope for the best, but you’d have to be foolish to not expect the worst.