BURKES NAVY: The Death of Windjammer Barefoot Cruises

FULL DISCLOUSER: This reviewer worked for Windjammer Barefoot Cruise for nineteen years until the company's demise. The book covers details in Jim Carrier's book: "The Ship and The Storm" and "Barefoot Pirate: The Tall Ships and Tales of Windjammer" by: by Robert W. Schachner & Ed Crowell the book discussed the author's task to research the company he had worked for previously. Most of the books describes his trip on the M/V Amazing Grace and how he met his wife. The author discussed his conversation with Capitian Burke and his eldest son Michael better known as MDB. The company was a seat of the pants operation. From the many characters from "Offshore Eddie" to "Pappy" Gomez who reportedly had the record for the most Windjammer Barefoot Cruises to some of the more interesting office workers. Sadly, there was no oversite of what ship's revenue was to be used for. There were "fire sales" offered in order to fill coffers. Windjammer had representatives not only selling the product but they would go out in their regions and have sales demonstrations the audience (travel agents and direct customers) would then call the main office to book cutting them out of the picture. Plus with the "fire sale" rates their were no commission overrides where everyone got the same commission. When things were falling apart there were offers to buy the company until there would be last minute demands thus killing the sale and eventually the company.

We sailed on eight windjammer cruises and enjoyed them all. Unfortunately, Captain Mike passed away and his children lacked the required management skills to operate the business. For a more accurate view of the company read The Ship and The Storm.

The headline says it all.