SIR WINSTON Yacht Charters
4441 Collins Ave
Miami Beach, FL 33140
Office of Technical and Information Services
Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board
1331 F Street NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20004-1111
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Sir Winston Yacht Charters, a member of the Passenger Vessel Association, submits these comments regarding your efforts to develop accessibility guidelines for passenger vessels, as published in the Federal Register of November 26, 2004. Please include those comments in the official record of both of your dockets as well as the corresponding U.S. Department of Transportation Docket.
Sir Winston Luxury Yacht Charters is a privately owned business. We operate one vessel which is certified for 400 passengers. We offer a four hour charter serving hot and cold hors d'oeuvres, dinner, beverages, dancing and karaoke is available upon request. Most of our charters are from conventions in Florida. About 5% of our charters are picked up at our home dock. We travel to pick up the groups at a specific hotel depending where their main event is being held. We work all year-round and have 4 employees. Two are full time and 2 are part time. We hire subcontractors for each charter as our parties vary in size from 100 to 400.
Seldom do we have the need for handicapped assistance but we are equipped with a 3 ft. x 5 ft. elevator to all decks. Our restrooms are not ADA approved but have high toilets and are easily accessible for the handicapped. If we have the need for the elevator one of the crew accompanies the guest to the desired deck. We feel it would be a mistake to have any further restrictions and would like to he exempted with boats with under 3,000 sq. ft, since the vessel has 2.900 sq. ft of deck area per deck.
Captain Winston Knauss, Owner & builder of Sir Winston boats