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The Tahiti Cruisers Guide is brought to you by Julien Desmont from Xperimental and Chuck Houlihan from Jacaranda. Starting as an idea based on the very successful Panama City Cruisers guide, it has evolved into 200+ pages of information on vendors and services throughout French Polynesia. In January 2018, we added GPS coordinates and links to Google Maps to assist in locating businesses.

Downloading the guide and GPS map coordinates will facilitate using the guide offline. The coordinates will work for either Maps.me (best for Papeete) or Google Maps.

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Last update: 10 Dec 2024

Haulout

Raiatea Carenage

2022-02-12 20:03:04 UTC

Island: Raiatea

GPS Coordinates (Latitude/Longitude in decimal degrees):

Latitude: -16.735995

Longitude: -151.485035

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Raiatea Carenage

+ 689 40 60 05 45, VHF 68,

raiateacarenage@mail.pf,

https://www.raiateacarenage.com.

Hours: Mon-Thur: 0730-1200 and 1300-1630. Fri: 0730-1200 & 1300-1530.

Mgr: Dominic

Contact Hinamo or Dominique directly. Hinamoe PARAUE <assistante.direction@raiateacarenage.com>

They have a travel lift, travel trailer, and railway platform. They can lift monohulls and multihulls (cats and trimarans) and general facilities.

In November 2020 they will receive a new 50-ton travel lift and a new 50-ton trailer. Dominque is the manager and fiberglass expert and is fluent in English.

Carenage has 3 ways to haul vessels: Travel lift, Trailer, Platform. They can haul cats as well as monohulls. They also perform most of the haul outs on the charter fleet in Raiatea. Haulout & long term dry storage

7-2021 SV Capall Mara

We have just finished a haulout at Raiatea Carenage. On the whole it went well. The staff and workers were good and helpful. Our Only complaint was that they were constantly called away to other jobs. As the time dragged on this became frustrating. I voiced my frustration in the office. The owner came in and became verbally abusive and quite aggressive. He slammed the door in my face then threatened to throw us out and blacklist us!

The next day he apologized to John. His behavior was extraordinary.

I will also add that from the outset Dominic did not like me having an opinion on a matter of dispute. I kept out of his way as much as possible. It is not the way we do things on our boat.

7-2021 SV Tintamarre Raiatea Carenage Services – the best service we have experienced in 5 years cruising

We were very lucky to be offered a place at this excellent full service boat yard in November 2020 for cyclone season storage. When we were hauled out they only had a 20 tonne lift but now they have a 50 tonne lift for Monohulls (width 5 metres) and a new self-propelled lift/tractor for hauling Cats (width 7.56 metres). They also have a railway system for short term stays for Cats (70 Tonnes, 11 metres) and motorboats that allows for very wide vessels.

On arrival we were concerned about how we would fit in the 20 Tonne lift as we have a high wind vane. We need not have been concerned, the yard staff and Dominique knew exactly what they were doing and took great care to haul us out, taking full responsibility for the extra work required to fit us into the lift. Tintamarre was stored on a full frame, not just individual supports, for the cyclone season. The yard installed the boat covers after we left as we had to leave earlier than expected to ensure we could travel ahead of an impending lockdown in Europe. We had regular reports while we were away, with photographs where appropriate. The boat was in good condition on our return. It is worth noting that the water provided is high quality drinking water and safe to store in water tanks. They support 110v and 220V power.

We had agreed a schedule of work with the yard for a planned arrival in March but Covid delayed our return until June. We had excellent support sourcing parts and working with the yard so that anything that could be done would be ready for us on our return. The rest of the work was planned for the few days between our return and when we splashed. They also took delivery of some critical components shipped from Europe ahead of our return.

All the work we had done, which included servicing the hydraulic auto-pilot, anti-fouling, full engine service including cooling system, outboard engine repair and service and a short notice request to fibre glass in a bulk head was carried out on time and to a high standard and for a reasonable cost. For the first time ever we splashed on the day we had requested with all work completed. The new 50 tonne lift making the process much easier.

After splashing we had a few problems relating to work done in the past. All our requests have been dealt with in a friendly and professional manner. We found Dominique to be very knowledgeable and helpful. Without exception we have found the staff to be friendly and always willing to go the extra mile to support us. A particular shout out to the office staff for sourcing parts for us at short notice and to the engineers for the high quality of work.

9-2020 SV Sugar Shack

We had an amazing experience at RC specifically because of Dominique. He was extremely helpful, courteous, professional and beyond fair with us. I handled all of the communications directly with Dominique and was super pleased with his management skills. He worked hard and operated almost all the equipment himself at any given time. Never asking his staff to do anything he wouldn’t do himself.

2-2020 s/v Alia Vita

We hauled out there in early 2020 and had the audacity to question something. The Boss (Dominique?) became extremely aggressive and dismissive. The biggest issue at that yard is that all the staff are terrified of him. We certainly wouldn’t haul there again.

12-2019 SV Leonara

We had a reservation for hauling out our boat in December 2019. We arrived 2 weeks earlier in Raiatea and confirmed if everything was okay with the reservation. We didn’t want to live to long in the Carenage (they have terrible bathrooms and showers there) so we planned around 4 days between the hauling out and our flights. Surprise surprise… the hauling out day came and they decided to tell us that they don’t have the cradles for us. Dominique promised us the cradles will be done before our flights. Until now we had a good relationship with him and we trusted him. We left Raiatea when SY Leonora was out in the belts of the lift. We didn’t complain and still good relationship. We came back 3 months later… we had an appointment to splash again. The Carenage had a smaller travel lift than now and we had to take off the forestay. When the boat was splashing in the locker again we had some problems to put the forestay back (and some others small issues). All that took us like one hour. We told them “we won’t leave until we are done and we probably need like 30 minutes”. Dominique came very aggressive, rude and disrespectful. He said he will cut our lines if we don’t leave now. I was scared and terrified with the situation. We almost lost our flights because his delay with the cradles but then we needed one hour and he wanted to cut our lines. Not very fair. He has a toxic behavior with the clients and his employees as well.

2017 SV Rumpus
Our boat has been at Raiatea carenage since 2017 and we have hauled out and splashed several times. We intended to sail west and then home to NZ in 2020, but… now it’s on the hard and we are stuck in NZ (Covid19- no passenger

). We have found Dominique and his team to be courteous, reliable, friendly and generally excellent. We have done our own antifouling work and they are helpful. Both my husband and I deal with the management. I find it easier to speak French with them than English and they are tolerant of my bêtises (silly mistakes). Dominique can be flirty but that’s easy to cope with; a few well-chosen words. There are many times they have gone above and beyond to help us