Just before we sailed from Nuku Hiva to Raroia we heard from an accountant at Viking, the company that sold us our life raft in February 2019. During an audit they seemed to discover they had shipped us a raft but failed to charge our credit card, or at least couldn’t find evidence of the transaction in their records. We spent something like $40,000 on a major refit November 2018 – March 2019, and the life raft cost $3070. As the credit card statements rolled in we checked for fraudulent charges then paid the bill. We bled money for months, using a couple of credit cards, Transferwise and bank wire transfers to pay for stuff including a new mainsail from Sri Lanka and new rudders from Vietnam. So when the folks at Viking contacted me to request a receipt for our purchase, I forwarded them the email they sent me that stated the raft would be shipped after the payment was received. That didn’t seem to satisfy them, and for the last 6 weeks we’ve been either on passage or in self-isolation with absolutely no way to get online and research all our transactions for early 2019.
Theoretically we’ve had a loaner life raft on board for over a year! In any case, Viking decided to go ahead and charge us (maybe again?) for the raft before I had a chance to thoroughly examine all our records online – no space on JollyDogs to keep paper statements, and we don’t download digital statements each month. I found Viking’s business practices a bit sloppy and deplorable; nevertheless I finally got the silly VINI hotspot total crap internet to work for a couple of hours yesterday and satisfied myself that Viking had really screwed up and we weren’t going to pay twice.
During the back and forth email discussion Viking actually noted that regardless of their screw up I wasn’t “entitled” to a free life raft. That comment kind of heated me up, but it also got me thinking about the concept of faith. Not religious stuff, I’m not into that. Faith in the quality of the stuff we buy for the boat. Just because I can be cranky, in my last reply to Viking where I noted I’d finally had the opportunity to do my due diligence in researching all our 2019 financial transactions, I also noted that there was no assurance that the big valise Viking shipped to us contained anything more than someone’s dirty laundry. Ever the wise guy, I further added that should we make that unfortunate discovery, we’d likely not be around to express our displeasure to Viking. Sure hope we never find out what’s in that valise.
Everywhere I look around JollyDogs there are devices, structures and systems that we take on faith were built to the manufacturer’s specification. Something as simple as an anchoring system consists of the anchor, swivel, shackles, chain, chain hook with more shackles and bridle, all attaching to “hard points” up on the bows. We take it on faith that the quality control applied during the manufacture of these various bits and bobs guarantees our safety. I think it was the anchor manufacturer Rocna who some years back moved production to China, then ended up selling a batch of anchors made of inferior steel. Didn’t do their reputation any favors and perhaps contributed to loss of a vessel. Anchor chain is also something to be wary of, as are shackles. Don’t buy cheap, buy good steel from reputable manufacturers that implement strong quality control measures.
We’ve got solar panels and chargers and controllers and relays and batteries that could catch fire if a device malfunctions. We could run aground in turbid water if a depth finder is faulty or if the chart plotter fails to flag a GPS navigation failure. The list of potential equipment or systems failures is endless. What if a standing rigging component fails catastrophically and the mast falls? That could easily kill someone.
We have to put our trust in the design engineers, the manufacturing folks and their quality control processes. That’s the kind of faith I’m talkin’ about.
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