During the seven months I was having work done by Caribbean Yacht Works, several boats came and went with different projects having been done.  NOT A SINGLE BOAT LEFT HAPPY WITH THE QUALITY OF WORK DONE at Crews Inn Caribbean Yacht Works, myself included. 

Under no circumstances would I suggest that anyone have any work done by them.  While their painting department seems to have a good reputation and the carpentry department did reasonably good work, their metal work on my solar panel mountings is of extremely poor quality and they damaged my existing stainless steel work.  Their fiberglass shop is just plain horrible.

A week before leaving Crews Inn, the management of Crews Inn changed and I had the opportunity to discuss the quality of work done with the new management.  The new CEO, a Mr. Lewis, had the new Boat Yard Manager come look at the quality of work done and the mess left by the workmen including stains on the deck, stains on the original fiberglass cabin top, a floor grate that was missing, and the general condition of the boat.  He spent 15 minutes looking over Quietly and said that clearly the work was not to a standard that he would want.  He continued, "As I was not employed by the boat yard while the work was done I cannot take any responsibility for the poor workmanship." When I asked if he would at least have a crew spend a day or two to properly clean up the boat, he wished me a good trip ! !

Update: March 2005

The picture below was taken in the spring of 2005 while having the Hard Dodger/Bimini made by Caribbean Yacht works removed from Quietly.  This is a section of the bimini top and shows the extremely poor workmanship of Caribbean Yacht Works fiberglass shop.  The structure when removed weighed in excess of 4,000 pounds and after being removed, Quietly's water line rose by 9".

Please read the story of the construction of a Hard Dodger/Bimini for Quietly here and draw your own conclusions.

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Caribbean Marine Electrical, Trinidad, May 2004

A word about Caribbean Electrical.  Brian and David own the business and they have a young man from Trinidad who does excellent work,  but he is very slow and methodical.  I could have done the work in 1/2 the time, but I was trying to manage the other projects on the boat.  Caution should be exercised when relying on their quotations.  Caribbean Marine Electrical's  rates are extremely high and you should not rely on their  estimated time of the work as they will bill you the full rate for what ever time it takes.  In my case the original estimate was for slightly less than 4,000TT and the bill came to over 16,000TT.  When I complained about the bill, David threatened to have my boat held unless I paid the bill in full.  When I left, they said they would look over the bill and would decide on a credit to be applied to my credit card.  But three weeks later, there has been no credit and they did not even offer to cover the cost of repairing the windless motor that their technician damaged. 

Update November 2004: 

I started having numerous intermittent electrical problems and pulled the electrical panel face off to find most of the ground wires of the AC system not connected.  Also there was a huge wad of wire balled up behind the panel. It appears that when I complained about the bill the day before the work was completed, that the technician was instructed to finish quickly.  I spent two weeks cleaning up this wiring including finding where the 00 wire from the Engine Alternator was hot wired directly to the Batteries with no fuse protection. There was fuse protection for the 00 wire to the electrical panel, but there was also a separate #6 wire from the alternator  to the electrical panel.  If their had been a short any where in the high amperage DC wiring, the #6 wire would have certainly started a fire and it was wire tied to the fuel line for the generator.  That sort of a mistake could have resulted in the loss of the boat! 

If you have had electrical work done by Caribbean Marine Electrical, I suggest you closely check your electrical system.