I have been asking myself the same question these last couple of weeks, but then I came to the realisation that I may as well do no maintenance than have it done by amateurs ?
In the yard where I am now the majority of the workers have no formal education at all. They are learning on the job and their bosses charge me a Western European hourly fee eventhough these workers have zero knowledge or experience.
I came here with a small leakage on the depth meter, company came in to make the repair, charged a nice sum or money, boat goes into the water and guess what ? Leaks even harder, so haul out again (1100 USD) and in the end I sent all the workers away, did it myself.
Same is for the steering pumps. Small job which was turned into a 12.000 USD damage by one company through sheer incompetence of the workers.
So what am I supposed to do now ? I have epoxy work that needs to be done on the port deck, but should I trust anyone with that ? Why would I pay 30.000 USD to find out they messed it up ?
In the mean time my stance towards maintenance companies has become a lot tougher. Every company that agrees to work on my boat will have to sign a contract in which is clearly stated they will pay for any damage they cause and that is without any delay or need to go to a court. Also they will pay me the berthing fees for every day they are late. If they tell me they will be finished on the 10th then every day after that is on their tab, I am not paying that anymore, basta with that.
Knowing that Dutch ship building is top level I have now come to the point where I am willing to fly in mechanics from the Netherlands to repair my boat in Greece, Croatia or Montenegro. In the end that is cheaper than having amateurs ruin my boat. Plus, if I can do it myself.........I will do so. But, as we all know, we get older, are not so flexible anymore, so crawling in the ER is more or less a thing of the past. I can do it, but then I need 3 days to recover