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Just sailed away from what in the end totaled 3 months in Zeke’s yard in Carmen. I had the topsides painted, antifouling, new headliner, some new carpentry projects and lots of varnishing – and I’m super happy!
The workers are great guys, they work really hard and the quality of what they do is fantastic. Of course, it’s better to keep an eye on what they are doing but that’s the same anywhere in Asia. I highly recommend it.
We just left Zeke’s boatyard, Port Carmen, after the worst experience of my cruising since 1990. We had the deck of Jubilee repainted in April 2013 at Zeke’s. Jubilee is 30 years old and the deck has been repainted twice before. Zeke’s crew removed all hatches and most of the fittings stripped the paint back to fiberglass gel coat primed and painted.
I was given an estimate of 3 weeks to accomplish this. The first two paint jobs done on Jubilee took 4 days and 8 days respectively. Zeke’s yard finished painting in just over three weeks then took another week to replace all the fittings. We left the yard and then returned five weeks later with paint coming off in patches and very low abrasion resistance and numerous water leaks from the fittings.
Zeke would not come to look at the work even though I asked repeatedly. After a month of his delaying, I sent him an email which did bring a response. His paint foreman came on board and lifted a large section of paint with his fingernail. Zeke’s offer was to repaint the boat at his cost. I pointed out this was a warranty issue, Philippines has a consumer protection law. Over the next three months we were toyed with,” no paint crew available”, “you have to wait in line” etc.
Although various offers were made and rescinded, none were made in front of witnesses.A t this point we stopped paying dockage fees, hoping that it would give us some ’leverage’. We offered to place money in an escrow account, to be released after paint job finished, no escrow done by him. I wanted a contract to repaint, his response was ”we never do contracts”.
Roxane Stefanski came on board to negotiate, she agreed to repaint the boat with no cost to us, however, when Zeke was told, he refused to honor this agreement. That day we were issued with a summons to appear before the local Barangay court.
We attended twice to attempt mediation, both times the court told Zeke’s wife ( Zeke would not appear) that her company had an obligation to fulfill the warranty. Here the response was “we don’t do warranties”. We have finally, after five months, left the yard with decks that we repainted ourselves.
If you are considering stopping in Carmen to get some work done on your boat, I would recommend Pepe over Zeke anytime. We had a stressful time at Zeke’s, one I would not want to repeat. For woodwork, simple fibreglass jobs, or a paint job, Pepe is a good choice. He is honest and softly spoken and does a good job.
Go to Kudat for all mechanical issues, electrical work. If you need to take the boat out of the water, then Subic Bay is your only option. For more details about why I would not recommend Zeke, or for contact with other cruisers who have had a bad a time as I did, please contact me at dhooghedanny@hotmail.com
Danny D’Hooghe, Belgium
Yacht: Never Better