Imagine waking up each morning on a $50-million megayacht, looking out the window and seeing a different exotic destination: St. Barths, Monaco, perhaps Tahiti. Your cabin is paid for, your clothing and toiletries are provided, your meals are prepared by a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. You have no mortgage or car payments. Every dollar you earn is yours to invest – or to blow on drinks and trinkets in the next port.
That's both the reality and the fantasy of working as a crewmember on a luxury yacht. While yacht crew do travel the world, and while the setting may be opulent – many megayachts have custom-designed interiors featuring marble and hand-crafted joinery, along with a hot tub and a fleet of water toys – the crew is not there to enjoy it all.
Luxury-yacht crew often get to visit exotic locales they ordinarily would not see, but there is a price.
Rather, they provide five-star service to the yacht's owners and guests, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, when they are on board. And while most yacht owners and captains try to give the crewmembers a day off each week, during busy cruising seasons, back-to-back trips mean the view of the exotic port out the cabin window is often the closest they get to venturing ashore.
"It is fun, but it's not easy. The lifestyle is tough," says Ann Aylesworth, crewing consultant at The Crew Network, a crew-placement agency in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. "Those with no ties to home or relationships do the best."
The demands of the job do nothing to dissuade dozens of would-be yacht crew from all walks of life who descend on Fort Lauderdale each autumn. They're looking for work on the boats that stop there en route to the Caribbean for the winter. The same thing happens in Newport, Rhode Island, and Antibes, France, in the spring as the big boats prepare for summer in New England and the Mediterranean, respectively. Many grew up on or around the water. Captains sometimes come from the commercial side of the business, learning about jobs in the private sector through word of mouth. "It's a grapevine situation," Aylesworth says.
DIANE M. BYRNEHard work on a range of important jobs is part of the job of being a yacht crewmember.
It's not so much a job as it is a way of life.
POSITIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Capt. Nash Jimenez is a good example. Born in Panama and currently master of a 105-foot Azimut, he got his start in the merchant marine, but made the switch after reading about the yachting lifestyle in magazines. "I saw people on the big ships who were married to the sea," he says. "You can rise in rank faster in yachts." Jimenez has served on a variety of luxury yachts, including a 130-foot Horizon.
Crew positions correspond to the amount of experience and training a person has, as well as the size of the yacht. Megayachts start at about 80 feet and range in excess of 200 feet, staffed by anywhere from two to 20 people or more. (The largest privately owned yacht, which is currently software entrepreneur Larry Ellison's Rising Sun at 452 feet, 8 inches, is said to have 50 crewmembers.)
The entry-level positions are deckhand and stewardess – that's right, unlike the airline industry, the latter are still called stews. A deckhand maintains the yacht's exterior, including washing and chamoising the decks and superstructure, handles lines, and looks after the tenders and water toys. Stews, meanwhile, clean the interior, make up staterooms and serve meals to the guests. But on many yachts, particularly ones to about 120 feet or so, everyone pitches in equally when required. So it's not unusual to see a stewardess handling lines, for example.
Standing watch and keeping the safety of everyone onboard in mind is another important role of crew.Higher-level crew positions include the chef, who typically has professional culinary training and cooks not just for the owner and guests but also for all of the crewmembers. It's also the duty of the chef to create each day's menu, tailored to everyone's tastes (and allergies), and shop for provisions for all meals.
Rounding out other positions onboard, there's the first mate, chief stewardess and engineer. The first mate is often considered the captain's right-hand man, assisting with navigation, overseeing the deckhands and, depending on the yacht, even maintaining equipment not falling under the jurisdiction of the engineer. The chief stewardess, as the name suggests, oversees the stewardesses, working with them to ensure staterooms are serviced and meals and drinks are served when wanted. And the engineer maintains the yacht's mechanical and electrical systems, including everything from the powerplants and generators to plumbing systems and even the navigation equipment. Yachts on the smaller end of the megayacht scale sometimes have the captain perform the engineer's duties.
Even with their different responsibilities, the first mate, chief stew and engineer all have something in common: They require documented sea time (which varies according to position) and professional training, including STCW 95 certification. In a nutshell, an STCW certificate confirms that a crewmember has completed instruction in fire fighting, sea survival, first aid and other safety measures as well as teamwork.
The captain is the highest-ranked individual onboard. It's his job not only to oversee the rest of the crew, but also to manage the expenses related to the yacht, such as dockage fees, fuel, and refit and repair. He serves as the owner's eyes and ears, and he's usually the person the owner or charter guests speak with each day during a cruise, to review the itinerary and desires for land excursions or water-toy use. There are different levels for captain's licenses, sometimes called "tickets," permitting them to operate a vessel up to a certain tonnage.
