Welcome

Welcome to Working on Yachts and Superyachts

Are you looking for a life out of the ordinary? Do you like travel, challenge and adventure? Would you like to earn lots of money? It may sound like a string of cliches when you list the good points about working on a superyacht or a mega yacht but, setting aside sun, sea and travel, the life still has a great deal to offer. In fact the life can be so good that it is said that yacht crew coined the phrase 'The Golden Handcuffs' because leaving the life behind was so hard. To put it simply working on a yacht can offer you a very good lifestyle indeed.

• - A good to phenomenal yacht crew salary
• - Excellent tips /gratuities
• - All found living (accommodation, food, clothing/uniform, toiletries etc)
• - Six weeks or more annual crew leave with at least one repatriation thrown in
• - Worldwide travel to some of the most fashionable places on earth
• - Meeting Celebrities and their friends and family
• - Adventures ranging from the mini day to day adventure experieces like:
  • Waterskiing and Wave boarding
  • Wind Surfing and Kite sailing
  • Jet Skis and Paragliding
  • Snorkeling and Scuba Diving to name just a few...
• To cruising far flung islands in faraway seas -

A superyacht (also known as a megayacht or a luxury yacht or even a giga yacht for those over 300 feet) can be found on any ocean, on any sea in the world. Superyachts can be motor or sail and range from 24m up to mini cruiseships.
Guest sizes vary and essentially a crew member is taken on board to care for the guests and the boat. The work can be very demanding but that said there are times when you will have nothing to do but laze around on sunny decks, cruising turquoise seas... earning lots of money.

Jobs

Jobs on Yachts

On the average Superyacht / Megayacht you will find six main categories of jobs on board:

• Captain: the officer in charge of the yacht and all who sail in her.
• Engineer: The world’s fleet of big boats and superyachts, typically over 23 metres in length, has more than doubled in the last ten years, with nearly 6000 large luxury vessels afloat on the world’s oceans. The continuing worldwide boom in the superyacht market, together with changes to the manning requirements of large commercial and leisure yachts demanded by the international convention, has led to a substantial rise in the number of job opportunities to work on board these luxurious sail and motor yachts. Indeed, there is now a global shortage of qualified engineers able to work on superyachts.
  Engineers are very much in demand and the potential earning reflect that with some engineers able to command salaries higher than those of their captains. However engineers cannot legally hold the position with approved qualifications. There are a variety of training courses for Marine Engineers.
  
• Mate / First Officer: Just a step or two away from the position of captain an officer has to be qualified and hold relevant papers to hold the position. salary good, in charge of exterior crew, reports to captain.
• Deckhand: gener al exterior duties on board. Working as a deckhand is entry level for almost every captain in the industry, your apprentice position. Deckhands have risen to Captain in very short periods of time and have seen equivalent returns on training investment.
  The minimum requirements for deckhand training is the STCW but there are many other sailing courses that will enable you to climb the career ladder quickly and easily.
• Steward and Stewardess: interior crew in charge of the interior and caring for guests. Working as a stewardess can be a very rewarding experience. More than almost any other member of crew you get to meet owners and guests. The service you provide is vital to the quality of the guests stay.
  As a steward or stewardess your duties will include everything from Silver Service to bedmaking, from ironing to PR.
• Chef and crew chef: provisions yacht and prepares and cooks for guests and crew.

Today most crew are expected to have, at the very least, the minimum STCW95 recognised qualifications. These qualifications include the B.S.T. (Basic Safety Training) which covers four modules, namely basic firefighting, elementary first aid, personal survival, and personal safety & social responsibility.

The STCW has been put in place to protect both crew and passengers/guests. STCW (S.T.C.W.) stands for Standards of Training, Certification & Watchkeeping

There are many people who would wish to work as yacht crew. The lifestyle is fabulous and the pay package is great.

In view of this high level of competition for yacht crew positions there is significantly more to finding a job on yacht, working as professional paid crew, besides sending the odd email and/or cv's and sitting back and hoping for the best.

Working as yacht crew can be one of the most rewarding experiences offering travel, a good to excellent salary and a wonderful opportunity to explore far flung corners of the globe. But finding the right crew or the right job can sometimes be a battle.

How

How to Find Work

There are four main factors when it comes to finding work on a yacht.

. What . When . Where . How .

What's

What is a Superyacht?

A Superyacht is essentially a very expensive, privately owned yacht which is professionally crewed.

They are also known as luxury yachts or megayachts and now you get the giga yacht. They are found on every ocean and every sea all over the world but they are concentrated in some parts more than others.

A superyacht is the same thing as a mega yacht or a luxury yacht but is NOT the same as a cruiseliner. The largest Superyacht in the world is the Dubai at 160 metres but she is not privately owned. The largest privately owned yacht is the Eclipse at 147 metres (owned by, rumour has it, Roman Abramovich) but she may well soon be 'eclipsed' (!) by the mysterious Sunflower or even Crystal Ball.

With an increasing demand for bigger, better, smarter yachts, more and more superyachts have been built since the late 80's but there is an ongoing crew shortage which is a major problem within the industry.

After 9/11 things cooled rapidly for a little while and then it seemed that caution was thrown to the wind by a lot of the very rich. An attitude of 'if my days are numbered I am going to make them count' seems to be the prevailing one at the moment. Cheque books are out and builders yards have full order books.

With the increased demand for superyachts there has been an increase custom boat building yards and there are some key players in boat building at the moment. Some of the top names are Blohm + Voss, Lurssen, Pershwing, Wally, Feadship, Azimut-Bennetti, Abeking & Rasmussen, Codecasa, Baglietto, Royal Huisman Shipyard, C Van Lent en Zonen BV, to name but a few.

Some yachts are used exclusively by their private owners, many Arab owned yachts tend to be reserved exclusively for their owners private use but not all. Some yachts are operated all year round as charter businesses, others are used for both.

Charter fees vary from the tens of thousands of dollars a week to getting on to a million dollars a week. This covers the wages of the crew, but not fuel, food and drink, or other expenses. It also doesn't include tips which can be 10% to 15% of the charter fee.

Yachts from 23 metres (75 feet) and up qualify for design awards from the Superyacht Society, but at the bottom end of that scale yachts will not necessarily be crewed and many set the minimum length for a superyacht considerably higher. In fact gone are the days when a yacht under 35 metres was considered super.

From around 30 metres and up yachts are almost always crewed with a full time crew, dropping to skeleton crew over winters and quiet periods.

A 45 to 50 metre yacht will always have a full time crew and usually has three decks with cabins for 12 guests and for a crew of around 12 to 14.

Superyatchs cost anything from one or two million up to tens of millions of dollars and now you are getting to the stage where you are looking at a couple of 100 million... for a new build

Super yachts is not correct. It should be written as one word as in superyachts.

A superyacht can be a sailing yacht as well as motor yacht, classic or ultramodern, displacement or fast planning. There aren't as many sailing superyachts as motoryachts. Although rare some motoryachts are called powerboats

You can find these yachts all over the world but they have a tendency to travel in herds with their main cruising grounds being in just 10% of the worlds oceans. They also tend to follow similar migrational routes year in, year out. Autumns and springs will find them flocking to the favoured cruising grounds.

Crew working on these yachts live on board, in crew quarters which can be luxurious or pretty crummy. They travel with the yacht most of the time, on occassions like a crossing, sometimes the interior crew are allowed 'off' the boat and they can fly the crossing and have some well earned time off. Sometimes the boss will fly the chef and steward/ess to his home or villa where they will be asked to look after himself and his guests. Crew are usually extremely well paid and cared for.

Some of these mega yachts are available for charter (these fees are anything from around $40,000 a week to half a million. Yes, a week.) Crew may expect to get gratuities / tips which are about 10 to 15% of the charter fee. Tips are usually divided fairly between the crew.

What

What they say about working on yachts

So what is working as yacht crew really like? Is it really sunning yourself on the fordeck of a multi million dollar yacht, occassionally stirring yourself to get the boss a drink if you have to? Is cheffing on a yacht popping a pot of pot noodle for the crew and telling them to get on with it?

The Captain is the boss, what does the job really involve from a personal point of view?

After 16 years of being involved in one way or another with the yachting industry we like to think we know a little about the business. But we enjoyed working onboard so much and are still involved to a big extent therefore we consider ourselves biased!

Ugly

The Grotty Yachtie

Simon: Engineer A lot of people think my job is really jetset and I supose it is but it seems I am always away from my family (wife and 2 kids) and while I can pay to buy them a great house and a good education at the end of the day the job is a professional job, just like being a doctor or banker.
My advice to would be crew is don't let yourself over glamourise the job. If it is going to be a career make sure you are aware of the pitfalls beforehand. A professional crewman lives away from his family and misses out on a lot of things that most families take for granted.

Jean Claude: Captain To all crew wanting to work on a yacht I would ask them to remember that special word...'work'. Don't come onboard expecting a cruise with a salary on the end. I must also advise crew to stay well away from drugs.

Nicky Freeman: Chef I have been a cook on yacht for six years. In those six years I have had eight jobs. I can find the job stressful. Not so much cooking for the guests but the crew! One won't eat garlic, the other is a vegetarian, one hates pasta, the other wont eat vegetables, one is gluten free, one loves curry the other loathes it.... They can be hard work ;-)
My advice to chefs wanting to get on board is be sure you can cope on your own. There are no kitchen porters to help clean up. Prima donna's don't cut it so if you like throwing your toys out of your pram, stay at home. You must be able to cope with the fact that if you run out of smething, you can be two weeks away from the nearest shop. On the other hand putting $5000 in your pocket every month does make the hard times more bearable! On the whole I do enjoy the job and I have had some incredible experiences all over the world because of it.

John: Captain Having worked in the field since the early nineties I can say, hand on heart, that while I have a lot of money in the bank, the industry as a whole, is self serving and very money orientated. While this has suited me in the past I am more than ready to get out but the problem is 'What does someone who qualified to work on the sea do when he is fed up with it? I would say the field is limiting, superficial but lucrative but burn out can be a problem.

Olaf Mortenssen: Deck I am a deckhand on a new yacht. I have been working onboard for three months now. I don't enjoy it as much as I had hoped as I get very seasick (and that is before we have left port!) and I also find the other crew very materialistic. It all comes down to money. How much this cost, how much that cost, what drugs to buy and where. I am going to hang on for the season if I can, I know the fact that I don't enjoy it is partly fault but it is also the fact that I get so sick. I think you have to be lucky with the rest of the crew too. I haven't really found anyone I like to muck around with. My advice to new crew check out those sea legs and if your boat is not much fin, think about shifting to another, sometimes it is just the crew that you mix with that makes your time fun or not.

Good

The good stuff

Micheal Cameron: Mate Working on yachts is a wonderful experience. I have worked on board for five years and traveled around the Med, Caribbean and up the west coast of the states to Alaska. During my time on board I have worked on five boats, the first lasted the season and then it took me three months and a lot of money to find the next one which only lasted a week then another two weeks without work and then a temp job covering for someone who was ill and finally my last job which lasted nearly two and a half years. My second last job was great, nice crew, cool owner and lovely boat even though she was fairly old and needed constant maintenance, it was better than polishing already clean windows on a new boat to kill time. My current job is good too.
I am now a 'first officer' and like my crew and boss. I am doing my captaincy exams and hope to be qualified by the end of the year. My advice to those wanting to get on a boat is to hold out for the right job and then be prepared to work real hard once you are on board. If you want to do something stop thinking about and talking about it, just do it!

Grant Hughes: Captain I really enjoy my job. I have just gone up a rung in the ladder to my first placement as a captain on 35m yacht. I am working with my long term girlfriend who is the chief stew. I love my career but I am not sure what is going to happen once children come along, if they do at all.
My advice to new crew is when you are looking for a job as a couple don't cut your nose off to spite your face. If you can't find a job together, split up for a bit, something will almost always crop up further down the line. If you think your relationship couldn't hack the strain of being apart then it is not much of a relationship.

Susannah Duggan: Stew I used to be a stew on a yacht. I left the industry around ten years ago to have children. My husband continued working on board for the next five years. The boats were very very good to us. They have enabled us to travel and see and experience so many things that people can only dream of. Or if they do do it, it has taken them three years to save up for it and it lasts a week.
We were very lucky with our yacht, the crew were really nice and we hardly ever saw the owner so the boat was almost our own. When the owner came onboard he was a real gentleman and liked his own company so was a pleasure to work for. My advice for new yachties, get the right boat, don't leap at the first job. Also get some experience before you decide that you want to make a career out of it.

Amanda Garrett: Stew I am a Chief Stewardess on a very large yacht that travels extensively. I have four stews who work under my direction. I have been in the field for ten years. I became involved in yachting by default as my boyfriend was an Officer on a motoryacht. I joined the vessel in France and subsequently, when we split up, I continued working onbaord.

I find the job to be demanding at times although it is rewarding in it's own way. I have many friends around the world, I have travelled extensively, not just on the yacht but also on my own as the excellent salary has enabled me to explore more of the world.
I have been careful in my expenditure and after eight months on the first yacht I visited a financial advisor who has seen to it that my money has been wisely invested.
I have bought seven properties.A three bedroom home in the UK which is let out through agents and a second home in France which I use as a base. I have an additional five properties four more in the UK and another apartment in France. My advice to anyone considering entering into the industry is be careful with the money you earn but don't be a scrooge. I would also tell newcomers that the job is a lot more demanding than most anticipate. You may well be sitting on a yacht with a value of $45 000 000 but a lavatory is still a lavatory, it still has to be cleaned and sh*t is still sh*it no matter who shat it!

Want

Want to work onboard?

They say that knowledge is power and they are right. Finding a job on board is a lot of fun, the action of finding itself is fun. Exciting while you wait for emails to be returned, exciting when you jump on to easy jet and nip down to Nice, your heart in your mouth because you are following the dream.

A great jump of sheer excitement inside when you walk down the quayside for the first time, looking up at these truly magnificent boats with their bright white and gleaming chrome, their crew fluttering about her like little bees aropund a massive honeypot.

Popping into agents with your cv, networking in the local grotty yachty pubs, it's all great fun and you don't need to buy a book to tell you how to go about finding a job. But it certainly helps!

I wrote the book after spending my years in the industry. That many people, when they asked what I did, gasped with envy and wanted to know how to go about finding work themselves. I tried to tell them but there was so much to tell. (There is a limit to how long you want to stand on a street corner hearing someone burble on and on!!!) So I decided not to allienate people but put the info down in the BEST way I could.

When I started writing I was writing to sell an ebook only and I quickly realised, having bought a few ebooks to find out what it was all about, that you get the rubbish ebooks (90%) and the mediocre (8%) and the final 2% were really worth the money.

Having paid money for a sheaf of rubbish once to often I made a vow that my book would be the definitive guide. It would be the best. And, it is. I have received some very powerful and flattering accolades from many different branches of the industry and I am delighted to know that the incredible amount of energy that went into producing the book was worth every sleepless night.

In 2003 the book was officially published in paperback. The fourth edition was released in 2011 and is now available on download. This company, with an excellent reputation, would never have published the book without fully assessing the content and realising it's value. The download is a mirror of the paperback but obviously much cheaper and contains many colour photos and also contains the critical MGN and MSN notes for your reference.

While I have been doing research for the new version I am absolutely delighted to say that I have recieved some absolutely brilliant endorsements from some really big, professional yachting companies. Ciaran of UKSA training on the Isle of Wight, UK, said he recommended ALL his students read the book and that he thought it was the best book for crew in the industry.

Mandy from Professional Yachtmaster Training South Africa said 'We bought your book two years ago and recommend it to all our students as it gives a personal account of the yachting industry - congrats on an awesome book!'

Deb Brown Director of Club Sail Australia said 'All the best with the book, it’s great reference and we recommend it to all out students.'

Norma Trease from The Yacht Report/Crew Report

Kristen Cavallini-Soothill from the American Yacht Institute

Angela Arthurs, Senior Crew Agent of Elite Crew International

have all contributed to the new edition offering clear and clever insights to the industry.