Sunsail offers to compensate customer who almost ended up in Thai jail
Sailing holidays specialist Sunsail has offered compensation to a customer who almost ended up in jail for unknowingly anchoring on protected coral in Thailand.
The company has also updated its guidance to customers after the client complained its manual wasn’t clear enough.
Hubert Egloff, a 68-year-old retired doctor and an experienced sailor, was on a Sunsail holiday in October with his wife and friends but ended up being arrested, his passport confiscated, and forced to pay a heavy fine.
He claims to have followed guidelines in a Sunsail manual, but had been arrested after police divers filmed his chain touching an isolated piece of coral some distance away from the coral reef off Racha Yai, an island south of Phuket.
His family say support from Sunsail was ‘minimal to nonexistent’ and accused the operator of putting customers at risk of being arrested.
They also say Sunsail failed to provide any legal advice during the process nor contact the local Embassy.
"There are strong laws in place to punish those that spoil coral and no responsible holidaymaker wants to destroy the coral," said Dr Egloff’s daughter Gwen Hustwit.
“But Sunsail gives no mention of the danger to tourists, either on their website, or in any of their literature. This means that unsuspecting tourists can find themselves put in jail and fined for no good reason for breaking the law. Sunsail is acting thoroughly irresponsibly and is in derogation of its duty as a holiday provider."
But Simon Cross, managing director of Yachts for Sunsail, said today: "We can completely understand what a distressing experience this has been for everyone involved and whilst we believe Sunsail’s guidance to be clear, we acknowledge the experience Mr Egloff had and as a gesture of goodwill we decided to make Mr Egloff an offer of compensation. This offer was made earlier this week.
"Thailand is a beautiful holiday destination with fantastic sailing opportunities and we give all our customers who visit a comprehensive briefing that stresses the importance of not anchoring on coral, indicating which islands have anchoring regulations and the importance of protecting the environment. In all our sailing destinations, we take the safety and experience of our customers as well as our environmental responsibilities, very seriously.
"We have further reviewed the sailing guidance we give customers since Mr Egloff’s recent experience and updated it to provide even greater emphasis to the importance of anchoring in appropriate areas."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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