"Abandon all hope
"Abandon all hope, you who enter". The injunction is well-known: Dante placed it at the entrance to his Inferno.
Had he known Rumbo Norte / Mediterranean Zest (RN / MZ), he could have used it as an epigraph to introduce the company. Perhaps with a slight change: Abandon all hopes, you who enter. Abandon the hope of being paid correctly and on time, if you are crew members or suppliers; abandon the hope of finding boats in good condition, if you are clients; abandon all hope of having your vessels well maintained, if you are owners; abandon all hope of being respected, whatever your status and the reason for your interaction with the company.
RN/MZ is a mixture of disorganization, incompetence, and dishonesty. In varying proportions depending on the issues and moments. Disorganization and incompetence are structural; dishonesty is circumstantial, a consequence of that old saying that those who have no money have no word. The company is bankrupt. It makes you think of a captain caught in the middle of a terrible storm who, instead of telling the crew, "Men, we're in a difficult situation, we have to unite and work together to save ourselves," would prefer to assault them, lie to them, tell them they'll have to pay for the damages and that only with a lot of luck will they be paid. There's a certain dignity in silence, but not in cowardice and evasion, which is how RN/MZ manages dialogue with the crew. "I'll pay you tomorrow" is a phrase that can be heard for days on end. "We'll review your accounts"—accounts that were sent to the company daily—and after two weeks they "discover" that they don't owe us any money after all. We owe them. Of course, they could have told us that right away—but it wouldn't have worked so well because the amount in "error" would be much smaller.
The only way to get paid is by resorting to threats, the courts, or force, believing those two old Portuguese sayings: "For a bastard, a bastard and a half"; and "A thief who steals from a thief has a hundred years of forgiveness."
Want to work for that company? Want to charter their boats? Good luck. Don't be fooled. Rumbo Norte is now called Mediterranean Zest? It's like a snake shedding its skin: the venom is the same.