A Saturday when the boats cannot leave
Sometimes the weather on changeover day means your base decides boats will not leave until the next morning, or that returning boats will come back early. That decision belongs to the base and the skippers, and it is the right one to make. What happens next is the admin problem.
A dozen parties are waiting for check-out. Several have transfers booked from the airport. Some have provisioning arriving at a set time. Agents want to tell their clients. Returning boats are coming in early and will need somewhere to go. Guests want to know if they can sleep aboard, whether the week will be extended, and what happens to their return flights.
The base manager and the office spend the day on the phone. Each call gets a slightly different answer, depending on who takes it and what they know at that moment. Later, a guest says they were told something that nobody remembers saying.
Why one decision creates so much work
A delay is a single decision, but it touches every piece of the changeover.
| What changes | Who needs to know |
|---|---|
| Check-out and briefing times | Guests and base team |
| Returning boats' arrival | Guests on board and base team |
| Airport transfers | Guests and transfer company |
| Provisioning deliveries | Supplier and base |
| Agent bookings | Agents and their clients |
| Sleep-aboard or alternative arrangements | Guests |
None of these links is recorded in one place. The office has to remember which guests booked a transfer through you, which have provisioning, and which came through which agent.
What a disorganised delay costs
- A day of phone calls for the base and office at the busiest time.
- Inconsistent answers that turn into complaints later.
- Transfers and deliveries arriving at the wrong time.
- Agents annoyed at hearing about changes from their clients.
- No record of what was offered, which matters when a guest later asks for compensation under your terms.
What you offer in a delay, and what your terms say, are your decisions and your advisers'. The tool helps you communicate them clearly and consistently.
One place to record the decision and tell everyone
What we build turns the base's decision into coordinated updates, with a person approving what goes out.
- The base records the decision in a simple screen: which boats or departures are affected, the new expected times, and any arrangements such as sleeping aboard.
- The tool finds everyone linked to those charters from your booking data: lead guests, crew members, agents, transfers, provisioning orders and returning parties.
- Messages are drafted from templates you have written in advance, adjusted for each group, for example guests arriving by transfer, guests arriving independently, and agents.
- A person checks and sends them by text and email through a service such as Twilio, and each message is logged against the booking.
- Linked arrangements are updated: new check-out and briefing times, provisioning delivery times sent to the supplier, and transfer changes sent to your transfer partner.
- Guests can reply or confirm through a link, and questions come back into one inbox for the office.
- When the base updates the forecast decision, a new round of messages goes out, and everyone sees the latest position.
A difficult day, handled calmly
The base can concentrate on the boats and the guests in front of them. Guests get clear, consistent updates, and fewer ring because they already know the plan. Agents hear from you before their clients call them.
Afterwards, you have a record of what was decided, when, and what each guest was told, which makes later questions easy to answer fairly.
Does this sound like your weather days?
- A delay means a day of phone calls.
- Guests get different answers from different staff.
- Transfers and provisioning arrive at the wrong time.
- Agents hear about delays from their clients.
- There is no record of what each guest was told.