Premium Technical Standards

roatia is often on top of people’s list for sailing, and with good reasons.

Most recent one happened on January 1^st 2023, when the Country entered Schengen & euro on the same day. Our geographical location, island diversity, and proximity combined with rich cultural heritage make it an ideal sailing destination.

On the other hand, the charter industry has experienced a tremendous expansion both worldwide & in Croatia, which is still the world’s no.1 market by the volume of available vessels for charter. During this growth phase, the demand for sailing holidays has been flattering, to say the least. On the other hand, as with all things, during long growth phases, I also witnessed a lot of industry newcomers as well as those who grew fast. 

It is not unknown that continuous market growth impacts overall product quality. Also, recent worldwide events (COVID, supply chain, inflation) still provide higher stresses & rising costs in doing business which are both risks for overall quality.

The main reason I decided to (re)write this blog is to answer one of the hardest questions – how to know I am chartering a good quality sail yacht? And the answer turned out to be our Premium Technical Standards strategy.

As Ban Tours Yachting owns its complete fleet (no charter management), currently a total of 44 sail yachts, we began thinking about how to explain our quality and why we think our approach is the best possible one for our Clients. So to tackle the fact that there are now numerous, quite different, approaches to the charter market we have decided to broaden the way we inform our Clients about our sail yacht quality & how we achieve it.

In short this blog has a goal to ensure a quality Croatian Yacht Charter Holiday by explaining our Premium Technical Standards.

How to know you are booking a quality sail yacht?

All of us at Ban Tours Yachting put a lot of effort to educate our clients & partners. We want to provide them with a transparent view of how we approach work, what standards we adopted, and how it all reflects to the quality of their sailing vacation (in Croatia).

Over the past few years we introduced quite a few things that I believe promote transparency & quality of our Fleet. We launched a brand-new website, introduced the service book for each individual sail yacht, enabled yacht 3D virtual walks which give us a bigger responsibility to provide exactly what you already see online, have 3 years of regular posts on social media where we promote our winter service work through various everyday details and so on.

The individual yacht page on our website showcases these efforts well. It is a one pager which holds the virtual 3D walk, original images, technical specifications, live availability, complete equipment and new parts installed on the yacht as well as all specific service areas & tasks.

This enables our clients to view every single information for our sail yacht models from the comfort of their home.

So how do you know you are booking a quality sail yacht in Croatia?

My first advice is to ask for proof of service, to simply ask about the things I will straightforwardly mention in this article. The company you are in contact with should provide you with a good answer on the current state & what is being done to prepare the Sail Yacht for the upcoming season. If by any chance this answer is unavailable or not satisfying it is also an important thing to now.

The second advice is to research the company, how & where it communicates. Use the above mentioned examples of communication where Ban Tours Yachting tries to be open & transparent. If a company communicates & provides such things it surely vibrates more confidence. 

How we ensure top quality sail yachts?

People do not have a chance to see and read about how well a certain sail yacht is maintained. This is a problem that exists beyond the charter industry.

Croatia, like all other transition countries, has often fallen short on strategies and guidelines that determine how a certain industry behaves. I am sorry to say this, but we do not have adequate rules and laws which communicate the minimum condition of sail yachts in the charter business.

Based on my experience I can tell you that if the country doesn’t have a strategy the (open) market usually takes care of itself (often more brutal, but it gets the job done).

Since Ban Tours Yachting operates within the highest possible standards the next step in the education of our clients is to show what we do with our sail yachts before the season starts. In short, we cut no corners. But this alone is not enough for our Clients to understand that some of them have sailed on yachts that were possibly not at all serviced in the off season! It doesn’t sound possible, but rest assured it is the case.

Thus, we would like to welcome you to our “Premium Technical Standards”. A transparent list of each part of work we do to give the best possible sailing experience. Our promise of quality.

Premium Technical Standards

When the sailing season comes to its end our maintenance season starts. It includes more than 30 people in the process of bringing the sail yacht to its desired condition.

We have our technical team, with electricians, divers and other experts in various yacht segments. Apart from them we work with a bunch of other companies / partners. These include;

1. professional yacht cleaner companies
2. professional yacht linen dry cleaning company
3. official North Sails sail maintenance company
4. professional naturals gas & stove maintenance company
5. official Volvo Penta dealers & mechanics
6. other specialized partners

With these partners we successfully ensure maintenance of some critical & specific parts of our sail yachts (like sails and parts that operate with natural gas) as well as those that are large in volume (we have huge number of linens for each boat, multiplied by 44+spares).

This is our first postulate of our Premium Technical Standards;

“We work with partners that are heavily specialized in maintenance of specific sail yachts.”

Next on the list is replacement parts management. Ban Tours Yachting does not buy alternative replacement parts. We always order original parts directly from companies who manufacture them.

A good example would be Volvo Penta where we acquire numerous items such as the Impeller (The impeller is the vital component in the water pump which pumps the coolant through the cooling system.).

You can easily find a cheaper substitute on the market, but we claim it is not as good and thus subject to default at a higher rate or earlier than the original.

Sometimes we buy replacement parts, but they have to fit into the following claim; “the replacement part exceeds the performance of the original or is being built by better (longer lasting) materials.”

The second postulate of our Premium Technical Standards;

“We purchase only original replacement parts.”

The third and final part of our Premium Technical Standards is something we call the service zone.

How we assembled the Yacht Service Zone 

Everything mentioned above fits into the third postulate of our Premium Technical Standards;

“Each sail yacht in our fleet goes through yearly service zone without exemption.”

When all is set and done each sail yacht goes anywhere between 80 and 160 maintenance work hours, depending on the model size. Numerous processes go through multiple hands, often between 4-8 workers with different specialization (both in house and our partners). On average, each sail yacht receives an investment of aprox. 7.500,00 – 9.500,00 euro in new parts.

In addition, each step is followed by work orders and data collection which end up in different spreadsheets. This ensures better parts management as well as a chance to constantly do better.

Which brings us to our fourth and final Premium Technical Standards postulate;

“Work is finished only when all of the generated service data enters our spreadsheets and can be viewed upon request!”

I hope that the explanation of our Premium Technical Standards gave you a possibility to learn what to ask and look out for when you are considering a sail yacht charter in Croatia.

There are always pricier and cheaper sail yachts, I just do not want you to get a rabbit in a hat.

Should you have any further questions do not hesitate to ask me.

Cheers everyone!

BAN TOURS YACHTING PREMIUM TECHNICAL STANDARDS POSTULATES

“We work with partners that are heavily specialized in maintenance of specific sail yachts.”

“We purchase only original replacement parts.”

“Each sail yacht in our fleet goes through yearly service zone without exemption.”

“Work is finished only when all of the generated service data enters our spreadsheets and can be viewed upon request!”