What a place... a visit to the bazar will give you an example of how cheap Turkey can be. Don't get me wrong cheap is ok as long as quality does not suffer too much.
In a country where the average monthly salary in below 1000 lira or 500 USD you can understand why it can be cheap to get work done here.
When we left Holland back in June 2013 we had been recommended a few different people who might be able to help us get our work on Zim done for a fair price. With this in mind we started to talk with alot of painters and carpenters to get our jobs priced and done.
First we went looking for a painting company. Mavimar, a local company had been well recommend both by people who used them and on the internet, and while they were not the cheapest, their friendly service and a willing to work with us and our budget was what made us choose them.
Everything started out ok, Ercan Erkut and his team put on a good show. They showed us boats that they painted... And they seemed to do a good job... But it's a hoax !!!
Mavimar like many companies is Turkey and espically in Marmaris is a front, they have no real employees, and the ones they hire might not have worked for the company for very long, then they expected you to let them work on your boat ... We didn't know :( we had agreed that their painter whom we met would paint the boat. Ekcan mentioned he was looking to hire new painters but we told him we did not want to be the test run... We wanted their number one guy... And they agreed!
In fact, all the boats they showed to us had been painted by different painters, none were painter by the painter they planned to use on our boat. They didn't think this was important?!?
At the time we were considering to use their carpenter to do our decks also... But we got a tip that they just fired the guy and had hired a new guy with an unproven record.... Our friend on another boat was not so luckily, they had signed a contract only to find Mavimars new carpenter using steal nail yes steel not even stainless steel to attach his new teak to his fibre glass deck !!!.... This is only the first of problems and grave mistakes they made on his boat.
Before we could reconsider... They started the prep work. Honestly we did not do enough research on how to prep and paint a boat but even with out the knowledge we knew something was wrong when they started to sand the boat with too course a sand paper... They used orbital sanders and created way too many concave areas .. Something that took a lot of fixing later.
Next they moved to the top side. They were to paint the smooth deck areas. The really bad masking job resulted in them painting areas of the non skid and creating wavey edges .. It looked really bad. Something we only noticed later is that they also painted to interior of the boat as they did not mask off the windows correctly!!! My fiancé was very angry about this.
At this point we met with another captain who's boat had been painted two years earlier. He told us that he had the same issues and worse... They never finished. We were now worried that we might face the same issues... Mavimar was now two months late and driving our schedule even more off its time track. We didn't see any other option but to stick it out and hope for the best... We made a bad choice...
The first captain we had met was now having areas on his boat painted for the 10th time. Not good. In fact in one occasion they took paint from our boat to paint his... But our boat and his are two different colors!!!
And then it started, on the morning they were to paint our boat we called to see what the plan was. We were told that everything was perfect and they would be finished at about 4pm. It was 9 am so this seemed fine. At 10am we got a call from a neighboring boat to tell us they were using a painter that we did not agree upon... What a disappointment. At this point you might be starting to see a trend.. You'd be right.
Later that day when we went to see the boat the job was crap.... The whole boat looked like the skin of an orange and there were large waves running the length of the boat and paint missing on parts of the transom.
In an effort to put it right, Mavimar called the local Awlgrid account manager who came to look at the boat. From more than 20 feet away he said the job was one of the worst he had seen!!! Ercan said no problem... We will hire another painter and do it again. Ok we taught... 6 coat of paint is a good thing... But we again were wrong!!!
On the morning they were to paint the boat a second time, I decided I should be there.... Just as I arrived I found Orkan the foreman for Mavimar helping the new painter to mix Awlgrip with Awlcraft !!! These are two very different kinds of paints with different converter need for each. A quick call to Awlgrip confirmed this mixture was not possible and would result is a real bad paint mixture!!!
It took three phone calls and 20 minutes of arguing to get Orkan not to use this paint combination. Apart from the fact that we requested and agreed only Awlgrip could be used, this incorrect paint mixture would have compromised the longevity of the finish. Mavimar told us they had done this before, and I'm not a chemical engineer, but an epoxy paint mixed with acrylic just does seem to be a very cleaver idea.
At this point we were 3 months behind schedule. The other captain they were working with was now on his 20th coat in places!!! His teak looked like crap and he was now on his 4th carpenter !!!
Once our paint had dried we went to have a look. Surprise... Another crap finish... Paint runs everywhere, big streaks and waves... And again the transom looked like it was painted by a baby. We had the phone number for the painter they had hired so we gave him a call to see that had happened. He told us that Orkan had asked him to put more paint on than what was needed, he did what he was told.
Later that day Orkan told us he could fix the problem by polishing the surface with 2000 grit sand paper. I printed from the Awlgrip site that you can't sand Awlgrip as it damages the finish. At this point we had had enough.
We called a meeting with Ekcan at his office to discuss the mess. Mavimar had agreed to paint the underwater hull also, but it was clear that did not have the resources to do this job. Ekcan confirmed this at the meeting. We fired Mavimar !!!
The other captain was also having his share of issues, he had been to Mavimar's office only to be physically assaulted by Ekcan, he had the marks on his neck to prove it. After this Ekcan refused to met with him or talk to him and he was forced to talk to Orkan, whom he had barred from coming on his boat due to the fact that he only caused a mess when he was on there. Luckily this captain had a late charge clause in his contract and at the rate Mavimar were going he would not have to pay them any more money.
Not all was bad, Mehmet from Sunaparts was a really nice guy. We stayed at this apartment complex for 300 lira a month. He added extra furniture, a real stove, and large fridge. We made it home for 5 months. Eurocar rented us a new criterion for 200 euros a month.
The marine was Yates Marin, and they were not always the easiest to work with. Mavimar had charged more than 200 euro of stuff to our account, and when we complained the Marina said we still had to pay as Mavimar doesn't have account at the yard, in fact no company has, marina policy.
In the end the boat was painted by CE Marin, nice guys and they did their best to fix a bad situation.
Below is Zim showing her new paint job off.
