Day 2- Tuesday, June 10th, 2008  

Confrontation!

The Titi Nui should have set sail today. But repairs and improvements to her have gone excrutiatingly slow to date. Captain Sutton hired Project Engineer Grant Griffin to oversee the process of returning the Titinui to her former glory with new functional improvements and amenities lacking on the boat. Grant had gone back to the States for 8 days, and returned to St. Martin on the same plane as I had arrived on. The lack of progress had been reported to Grant, and he was arriving with great concern over what had been going on while he was in the states. The repairs he specified should have taken 5 days, but he gave the crew 8 to accomplish the work.

Backtracking a little, Captain Sutton had grave concerns over the crews work habits. The island culture is steeped in the consumption of alcohol, and she was appalled to learn that the crew insisted in drinking while working. When told they couldn't drink on the job, they threatened to quit en masse. The inability at that time to find qualified workers on a short timetable meant the captain had to choose between a drunk work crew or none. To be clear this type of un-professional work ethic is not tolerated  in the maritime industry anywhere.

Not firing the crew led to the project being lengthened by new problems created by an intoxicated crew. The rudder assembly had been dropped during assembly, the whole weight put on a thin blade and it snapped. Sensitive electronics had been removed with wire cutters. The long list of inexcusable mistakes and damage was making the Captain wonder if the project was being sabotaged. 

When Grant arrived back on the worksite, it was after hours. The site was a mess, with tools and components lying about. New electonic items were open and had been left laying about. They had even been rained on.

It was clear that the actions of the work crew was jepoardizing the project and the safety all involved. It was  clear the crew had to be replaced. After meeting with the boatyard's owner, JC, Grant and Sutton set upon the task of firing the crew.

It did not go well. That was expected, as the work crew had been insolent all along. With all the problems at hand, the stymied project, and personel problems and even threats from the terminated crew, Captain Sutton was so disgusted, angry, and overwhelmed that she confided that she was ready to pull the plug on the whole project, take huge losses financially, and get on a plane to New Zealand.

There was a respite from the bad news at day's end, however. Grant had located a painter, and two fiberglass technicians who would work at the same time, one fore and one aft. And one of the work crew was to have been  a crew member on the sail to NZ. But when work crew was terminated, she took their side, and became verbally abusive. Now she quit and removed her gear from the sailing crew's quarters. Her sailing would have led to questions of her true loyalties to Captain Sutton, a compromised situation at best. So her leaving was a real relief to the captain.