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General Hiring Conditions

1. APTITUDE

The cap­tain must be of legal age and must have the nec­es­sary skills to use the boat in opti­mum safe­ty con­di­tions.
He under­takes to ensure that in all cir­cum­stances the per­son named on the tem­po­rary boat­ing license is always in charge of the boat.

He declares to have been informed :
- of for­fei­tures and exclu­sions of war­ranties enforce­able under the insur­ance pol­i­cy applic­a­ble to the boat.
- to ensure that nav­i­ga­tion is adapt­ed to the weath­er con­di­tions and the capa­bil­i­ties of the crew.
- to respond to any request from the rental com­pa­ny con­cern­ing his skills, notwith­stand­ing any titles, patents or cer­tifi­cates he may men­tion, before or at the time of tak­ing the boat.
- that under no cir­cum­stances shall the renter be held liable for nav­i­ga­tion­al errors, clum­si­ness and care­less­ness by the cap­tain or his crew.
- that if, upon tak­ing the boat, it turned out that the cap­tain was not apt and could not take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the boat, the con­tract would be auto­mat­i­cal­ly ter­mi­nat­ed to the exclu­sive dis­ad­van­tage of the tenant.

The rental com­pa­ny reserves the right to refuse to make the boat avail­able, if the per­son intend­ed to be cap­tain and the crew do not appear to him to have suf­fi­cient skills, notwith­stand­ing any ref­er­ences, cer­tifi­cates or titles pre­sent­ed. If the rental com­pa­ny exer­cis­es his right to refuse to make the boat avail­able, the ten­ant will be offered a dock­side stay, or a lim­it­ed sail­ing area or the reim­burse­ment of the amount of the cruise.

2 — REGISTRATION /​BOOKING /​PAYMENT

The book­ing is effec­tive as of con­fir­ma­tion by the rental com­pa­ny, upon receipt of the book­ing form togeth­er with a deposit of 40 % of the total rental amount. Pay­ment by install­ments can be con­sid­ered on demand. THE BALANCE MUST BE PAID 4 WEEKS BEFORE DEPARTURE. All bank charges will be borne by the tenan

3 — CHANGES TO RESERVATIONS

More than 8 weeks before depar­ture : charge of 100€, for all changes of price peri­od or of boat (to a low­er val­ue) from the same hire com­pa­ny after their agree­ment. All oth­er change is sub­ject to the can­cel­la­tion plan here­un­der (includ­ing for a boat at a high­er cost with a dif­fer­ent hire com­pa­ny than the one reserved initially)

4 — SECURITY DEPOSIT

A deposit of 1400 € to 3000 € (insur­ance excess): in cash, cheques, cur­ren­cy or by cred­it card (depend­ing on the depar­ture base ) must be made on the day of depar­ture before board­ing. This will be returned at the end of the cruise if the boat and its equip­ment are returned in prop­er work­ing order, and undam­aged at the agreed time and place. This deposit is the amount of the insur­ance excess in case of acci­dent and is used to cov­er the costs of the equip­ment fail­ure or improp­er main­te­nance of the boat dur­ing the cruise. This deposit is to be paid even if the cruise plus insur­ance is tak­en out.

5 — TRIP CANCELLATION

  • Noti­fied by the ten­ant.
    If you are forced to can­cel your reser­va­tion, please send a writ­ten noti­fi­ca­tion to the rental com­pa­ny imme­di­ate­ly.
    The costs are as fol­lows :
    More than 8 weeks before depar­ture : 150 € fee
    Between 8 and 4 weeks pri­or to depar­ture : 40% of rental price
    Less than 4 weeks before depar­ture : 100% of rental price
    These costs may be reim­bursed if the rental com­pa­ny has been able to rent the boat again dur­ing the period.
  • Noti­fied by the rental com­pa­ny.
    Apart from what is stat­ed in the arti­cle ‘APTITUDE’ of the present doc­u­ment, it is pos­si­ble for the rental com­pa­ny to rescind the con­tract in the fol­low­ing cases :
    • If, because of dam­age or delay, the rent­ed boat can­not be made avail­able to the ten­ant, the rental com­pa­ny may pro­pose to extend the rental for the dura­tion of the delay, with­in the lim­its of avail­abil­i­ty. The rental com­pa­ny may also pro­vide the oth­er par­ty, with­in the lim­its of the avail­abil­i­ty of its fleet, with an equiv­a­lent or supe­ri­or boat with the same num­ber of berths, for all or part of the remain­ing rental peri­od to be covered.
    • If it proves impos­si­ble to extend the rental peri­od or to replace with an equiv­a­lent boat for the entire dura­tion, the oth­er par­ty will be reim­bursed in pro­por­tion to the sums paid, cor­re­spond­ing to the days of loss of use.
      In the case of a flotil­la, it is manda­to­ry to deter­mine a dif­fer­ent cap­tain and crew per boat at the time of book­ing. If cus­tomers take out can­cel­la­tion insur­ance, the can­cel­la­tion of one boat does not in any way jus­ti­fy the can­cel­la­tion of the oth­er boats. The insur­ance will han­dle can­cel­la­tion cas­es indi­vid­u­al­ly by boat.

6 — CANCELLATION INSURANCE

This insur­ance must be tak­en out at the time of book­ing. Option­al prod­uct offered by our insur­ance part­ner Gritchen. Cruise cancellation/​interruption insur­ance is valid if you can­cel your hol­i­day before depar­ture, sub­ject to the con­di­tions set out in the insur­ance notice. This cov­er extends to all crew mem­bers declared at the time of book­ing. Its pur­pose is to guar­an­tee the insured per­sons reim­burse­ment of costs incurred.

In the event of can­cel­la­tion for any rea­son what­so­ev­er, the costs are €150 + the amount of the can­cel­la­tion insur­ance. Group insur­ance contract.

7 — DAMAGE WAIVER INSURANCE

The price of the hol­i­day includes insur­ance cov­er­ing the boat and the ten­an­t’s lia­bil­i­ty towards third par­ties in the event of dam­age caused by the boat. The ten­ants, their per­son­al belong­ings and their own civ­il lia­bil­i­ty are not insured. Bicy­cles are the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the ten­ant. In the event of theft, the ten­ant is oblig­ed to report the theft to the local police author­i­ties and to pro­vide the hire com­pa­ny with the orig­i­nal report of the theft. The co-con­trac­tor or any per­son using one of the hired bicy­cles with his or her agree­ment remains sole­ly respon­si­ble for any acci­dents or dam­age caused or suf­fered as a result of the use of the said bicy­cles, which are entrust­ed to him or her. These will be invoiced to the tenant.

Nev­er­the­less, the ten­ant can take out a dam­age waiv­er insur­ance pol­i­cy with our insur­er : this cov­ers the secu­ri­ty deposit (the deposit) in the event of an acci­dent with the boat.

EXCLUSIONS : claims result­ing from : the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the ten­ant in a race, cruise or regat­ta ; a break­down (mechan­i­cal inci­dent); it being spec­i­fied that the acci­den­tal con­se­quences of a break­down fall with­in the scope of cov­er ; the theft or loss of equip­ment and fit­tings ; dam­age to the boat’s ancil­lary equip­ment or any oth­er mechan­i­cal or elec­tri­cal instru­ment when this is not relat­ed to a Claim ; dam­age attrib­ut­able to a delib­er­ate act by the ten­ant ; use of the boat in con­tra­ven­tion of the law or the rules of the rental con­tract as well as the ten­an­t’s instruc­tions for use ; dam­age in the event of the absence of an inven­to­ry of fix­tures on depar­ture and arrival ; dam­age caused to a third par­ty or suf­fered by a respon­si­ble third par­ty, as well as the costs inher­ent in a res­cue or assis­tance oper­a­tion ; dam­age result­ing from a sub­let ; dam­age result­ing from nav­i­ga­tion in an area for­bid­den to the pub­lic (mil­i­tarised, etc.). )

8 — ACCIDENTS

The ten­ant must report any acci­dent of dam­age imme­di­ate­ly by tele­phone to the rental com­pa­ny, who will explain the pro­ce­dure to fol­low. The ten­ant should refrain from any action that is not dic­tat­ed by an emer­gency. The ten­ant and any oth­er per­son on board, whether the author or co-author of an acci­dent, may not claim com­pen­sa­tion from the rental com­pa­ny, even in the event that the cruise is com­pro­mised. If he is the vic­tim, a pro rata tem­po­ris refund will be made, sub­ject to a 24-hour exemp­tion.

9 — DISEMBARKATION /​RETURN OF THE BOAT

The ten­ant is required to return to the place, at the date and time that have been con­trac­tu­al­ly fixed and to report his pres­ence as soon as he returns for the pur­pose of inven­to­ry and inspec­tion of the boat, the lat­ter being emp­tied in advance of all lug­gage and occu­pants. The clean­ing times car­ried out by the ten­ant are an inte­gral part of the rental. A con­tra­dic­to­ry check will be car­ried out to ver­i­fy that the boat is returned in good work­ing order and clean­li­ness, except for nor­mal wear and tear of the boat. If the return con­di­tion is not sat­is­fac­to­ry, the clean­ing costs will be at the expense of the tenant.

If for any rea­son, the con­tra­dic­to­ry exam­i­na­tion can­not be car­ried out, the rental com­pa­ny alone will draw up a return inven­to­ry.

If the state of return is sat­is­fac­to­ry, the secu­ri­ty deposit will be returned to the ten­ant imme­di­ate­ly in the event of a con­tra­dic­to­ry vis­it, at the lat­est with­in a peri­od of fif­teen days from the date of deliv­ery of the boat, any addi­tion­al costs (clean­ing, con­sum­ables, engine hours) being deduct­ed. If dam­age or loss is not­ed, whether to the boat or any incor­po­rat­ed acces­so­ry what­so­ev­er, or to any item includ­ed in the inven­to­ry, the ten­ant is required to pay for the repair or replace­ment in the same way. To this end, a deduc­tion may be made from the secu­ri­ty deposit. For any dam­age or loss that may be cov­ered by the insur­ance, the secu­ri­ty deposit will be retained until pay­ment is made by the company.

Reim­burse­ment will be made after deduc­tion of the insur­ance excess and any expens­es and acces­sories that may have been incurred because of the inci­dent (tele­phone, admin­is­tra­tive and tech­ni­cal fol­low-up, reports, etc.).

Delay in return /​Aban­don­ment of cruise : If for any rea­son the boat can­not be returned at the agreed date, time and place, the cap­tain must imme­di­ate­ly inform the rental com­pa­ny, who will give their instruc­tions. Any day start­ed will be con­sid­ered as a full day of delay and will be invoiced as such. Except in the case of sud­den and pro­longed imprac­ti­ca­bil­i­ty of the water­way, the rental com­pa­ny shall invoice the ten­ant for the cost of repa­tri­at­ing the boat to its return base, in addi­tion to the cost of the hourly nav­i­ga­tion rate and the clean­ing, (500 € + a dai­ly rate of : 380 €)

10 — BOARDING

The boat is avail­able after com­ple­tion of the fol­low­ing for­mal­i­ties : pay­ment of the bal­ance due, of deposits (secu­ri­ty deposit + boat clean­ing deposit), inven­to­ry of equip­ment on board. Accept­ing the boat is recog­ni­tion by the ten­ant of being well informed, of the good work­ing con­di­tion and clean­li­ness of the boat.

The ten­ant may legit­i­mate­ly refuse a boat that is pre­sent­ed to him if it does not match the one shown in the con­trac­tu­al doc­u­ments, if the nec­es­sary equip­ment for the smooth run­ning of the cruise is not work­ing or if the clean­li­ness and tidi­ness of the boat is not con­sis­tent with what he is enti­tled to expect in terms of fair and pro­fes­sion­al usage. The place of embarka­tion may be anoth­er base in case of clo­sure of the canal, flood or oth­er event mak­ing board­ing impos­si­ble in the place con­trac­tu­al­ly agreed.

11 — ARRIVAL

Unless oth­er­wise agreed in writ­ing in advance, cruis­es start and end on the day and in the place indi­cat­ed on the con­fir­ma­tion. The place of board­ing may be from a base oth­er than the reserved one, in par­tic­u­lar in the event of the water­way being closed, flood­ing or any oth­er event mak­ing it impos­si­ble to board at the place ini­tial­ly reserved.

Sim­i­lar­ly, a round trip may be mod­i­fied to a one-way or a one-way to a round trip, with­out addi­tion­al cost, in par­tic­u­lar in the event of the water­way being closed, flood­ing or any oth­er event of force majeure that would make one-way or a round trip nav­i­ga­tion impos­si­ble. It is essen­tial to con­tact the depar­ture base 48 hours before board­ing for confirmation.

The plans are in accor­dance with the boat descrip­tions but may have minor speci­fici­ties depend­ing on the region. The tenant’s tak­ing charge of the boat is effec­tive when the bal­ance of the agreed price as well as the deposits (boat + clean­ing) have been paid), the tem­po­rary license made out and the inven­to­ry — inven­to­ry of fix­tures (con­di­tion of the inte­ri­or and exte­ri­or of boat) acknowl­edged and signed (any reser­va­tion or report of an appar­ent defect may be not­ed in Part 16. Remarks of the ini­ti­a­tion check list). The boat is placed at the dis­pos­al of the ten­ant in per­fect work­ing order, notwith­stand­ing hid­den defects.

When the boat is tak­en, the rental com­pa­ny will give the cap­tain, after his train­ing, the manda­to­ry nau­ti­cal documents :

- The tem­po­rary license

- The log­book includ­ing : An admin­is­tra­tive chap­ter — Copy of the charterer’s approval — Copy of the per­mit — Cer­tifi­cate
of road­wor­thi­ness and dry inspec­tion — Copy of the insur­ance cer­tifi­cate. A gen­er­al chap­ter — Safe­ty infor­ma­tion (gas, elec­tric­i­ty, com­bus­tion appli­ances, lock pas­sage, water­way con­trol, depar­ture and return checks).

- Infor­ma­tion on preser­va­tion of the envi­ron­ment, infor­ma­tion on the water­way, infor­ma­tion about the main sig­nals of inland nav­i­ga­tion and absolute bans. A spe­cif­ic chap­ter — a mass plan of the ves­sel with indi­ca­tions of the exact loca­tion of per­son­al safe­ty equip­ment, fire-fight­ing equip­ment, con­signed fuel and gas valves for fire-fight­ing and bilge pumping.

- An extract from the spe­cif­ic police reg­u­la­tions for water­ways (restric­tions, pro­hi­bi­tions) — A detailed map of routes, includ­ing the loca­tions of rub­bish dis­pos­al and for emp­ty­ing waste water tanks. The ten­ant should keep a copy of the rental con­tract, which he under­takes to sub­mit at the request of the pub­lic author­i­ties. The rental com­pa­ny must pro­vide the oth­er par­ty with a boat in per­fect sail­ing con­di­tion, equipped in accor­dance with the applic­a­ble regulations.

The ten­ant may legit­i­mate­ly refuse the boat pre­sent­ed to him if it does not cor­re­spond to that pre­sent­ed in the con­trac­tu­al doc­u­ments, if the equip­ment essen­tial for the smooth run­ning of the cruise is not in work­ing order or if the state of clean­li­ness and stor­age of the boat is not in con­for­mi­ty with that which he is enti­tled to expect in view of the fair and con­stant prac­tices of the pro­fes­sion.
Any per­son requir­ing the use of elec­tri­cal breath­ing appa­ra­tus must inform the Com­pa­ny at the time of book­ing and must be aware that the nec­es­sary pow­er sup­ply is not always avail­able to oper­ate such equipment.

12 — USE OF THE BOAT BY THE TENANT

The ten­ant must com­ply with the reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing inland water­way or mar­itime nav­i­ga­tion, as well as with the instruc­tions giv­en by the rental com­pa­ny and the inland water­way or mar­itime author­i­ties. He is pro­hib­it­ed from sail­ing after dark, as well as tow­ing, sub­let­ting and lend­ing the boat. The cap­tain must refrain from embark­ing any crew mem­bers not pro­vid­ed for at the time of embarka­tion. The boat may only be oper­at­ed by the per­sons who have com­plet­ed the required train­ing and are there­fore men­tioned on the tem­po­rary license. The tem­po­rary license does not give access to cer­tain large water­ways : Rhine, Rhône, Seine, Loire etc. It is strict­ly for­bid­den to use these waterways.

Any fail­ure to com­ply with this instruc­tion will result in the imme­di­ate dis­em­barka­tion of the cus­tomer, with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of refund. In addi­tion, the cost of repa­tri­at­ing the boat will be borne by the cus­tomer. The boats doc­u­ments will describe it and its equip­ment. In addi­tion, the rental com­pa­ny shall pro­vide the ten­ant and/​or dri­ver with all nec­es­sary and indis­pens­able expla­na­tions for the prop­er func­tion­ing of the boat’s equip­ment and appli­ances. The sig­na­ture of this form will pro­hib­it the ten­ant and/​or the oper­a­tor from sub­se­quent­ly claim­ing non-com­pli­ance with the require­ments and stip­u­la­tions of the con­tract as well as a lack of advice relat­ing to the oper­a­tion of the ves­sel in the light of the planned sail­ing program.

13 — NAVIGABILITY OF THE WATERWAY

In case of flood, low water lev­el, lim­it­ed access to water­ways (due to flood or drought), dam­age to the water­way or any oth­er event mak­ing it impos­si­ble or dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate, the rental com­pa­ny may, in strict pro­por­tion to the oblig­a­tions gen­er­at­ed by these events, change the loca­tion and /​or depar­ture date of the cruise. If these events make the trip impos­si­ble, the sums paid by the ten­ant may be put towards a future cruise accord­ing to avail­abil­i­ties of the rental company.

These pro­vi­sions apply when these events occur dur­ing the trip and when the boat is immo­bi­lized more than 48 hours.

14 — BREAKDOWN

The rental price includes assis­tance in the event of a break­down, which the rental com­pa­ny under­takes to pro­vide as soon as pos­si­ble, fair­ly and in accor­dance with the rules of the art. It under­takes to main­tain a tech­ni­cal assis­tance ser­vice dur­ing work­ing hours 7 days a week, dur­ing the sea­son. This ser­vice is free of charge, unless the cap­tain or crew are at fault.

- Break­down not attrib­ut­able to the rental com­pa­ny : If the immo­bil­i­sa­tion, due to dam­age not caused by the dri­ver, and not attrib­ut­able to him, exceeds a peri­od of twen­ty-four con­sec­u­tive hours, the rental com­pa­ny will reim­burse the ten­ant the sums paid by the lat­ter, in pro­por­tion to the time not used. The peri­od of immo­bil­i­sa­tion is cal­cu­lat­ed from the time when the ten­ant informs the rental com­pa­ny of the exis­tence of the break­down. The ten­ant shall refrain from any ini­tia­tive that is not required by neces­si­ty or urgency.

- Break­downs attrib­ut­able to the ten­ant : If it is duly estab­lished that the break­down is attrib­ut­able to the ten­ant, the lat­ter is not enti­tled to any com­pen­sa­tion for the loss of use of the rental. The rental com­pa­ny may with­hold the sums paid as secu­ri­ty deposit up to the costs incurred for the repairs.

- Etang de Thau : In the event of an inci­dent not attrib­ut­able to the rental com­pa­ny (a net in the pro­peller, get­ting stuck, strand­ed, etc.), on the Etang de Thau or any oth­er water­way, and requir­ing the inter­ven­tion and/​or tow­ing of the boat via the rental com­pa­ny, the SNSM, or anoth­er tow­ing com­pa­ny, the costs due for this inter­ven­tion will be invoiced direct­ly to the customer.

15 — BOAT EQUIPMENT /​PERSONAL EFFECTS

The ten­ant agrees to noti­fy the rental com­pa­ny of any equip­ment lost, bro­ken, stolen or dam­aged, and is required to reim­burse it. The com­pa­ny is not respon­si­ble for loss or dam­age in any man­ner what­so­ev­er to the objects belong­ing to the tenant.

16 — PETS

Pets are wel­come on board. How­ev­er, the ten­ant shall not in any case use the equip­ment on board (bed­ding, dish­es) for the ani­mal, and will come with all acces­sories need­ed for his ani­mal on the boat.

17 — OTHER COSTS

Fuel, oil, gas for cook­ing, elec­tric bat­ter­ies, and, in gen­er­al, any con­sum­able mate­r­i­al nec­es­sary for the smooth run­ning and main­te­nance of the boat dur­ing the rental peri­od are charged to the ten­ant. The rates for these items are indi­cat­ed in the rental company’s prices lists and are sub­ject to changes in mar­ket prices. Any moor­ing fees or park­ing charges are also the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the oth­er par­ty and depend on the choice of stopovers made.

18 — FEES, FINES AND PROSECUTION

The ten­ant and/​or the dri­ver shall be sole­ly liable to the author­i­ties of any kind for any pro­ceed­ings, fines and con­fis­ca­tions, if it is estab­lished that he is respon­si­ble for them. Also, in the event of seizure of the rent­ed boat, the ten­ant will be required to pay the rental com­pa­ny a con­trac­tu­al com­pen­sa­tion cor­re­spond­ing to the cur­rent rental rate increased by 30%.

19 — DISPUTES AND APPLICABLE LAW

This con­tract is gov­erned by French law. All dis­putes to which this con­tract may give rise, con­cern­ing its valid­i­ty, inter­pre­ta­tion, exe­cu­tion, ter­mi­na­tion, and con­se­quences shall be sub­mit­ted to the com­pe­tent courts under the con­di­tions of ordi­nary law. After hav­ing con­tact­ed the agency’s Cus­tomer Ser­vice Depart­ment and if there is no sat­is­fac­to­ry response with­in 2 months, the cus­tomer may refer the mat­ter to the Tourism and Trav­el Ombuds­man, whose con­tact details and refer­ral pro­ce­dures are avail­able on his web­site : www​.mtv​.trav​el

20 — PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA

In accor­dance with Euro­pean Reg­u­la­tion 2016/​679 (GDPR), LES CANALOUS’ pri­va­cy pol­i­cy is acces­si­ble on the web­site https://​www​.house​boat​-hire​.com/ in the legal notices.
* Non offi­cial trans­la­tion. Only the orig­i­nal text in French is con­sid­ered as valid.