How to Get Into Superyacht Crew: What You Actually Need to Know

September 2021. I landed in Palma de Mallorca with a printed CV, a freshly completed STCW, and basically nothing else. South Africa was still on the red list for COVID, so the fact I could even get to Europe felt like a win. I didn’t know anything about Antibes or Fort Lauderdale or any of the other yachting hubs. Friends had told me about Palma, so that’s where I went. I also went in September, which is the tail end of the season. Not exactly ideal timing for a greenie trying to land his first gig.

If you’re reading this and Googling how to get into superyacht crew, here’s what I wish someone had actually told me.

Get your tickets sorted first

Before I flew over, I did my courses at PYT in South Africa. STCW basic safety training, RIB Master, and a Yacht Rating course. Kind of an all-rounder package but nothing specialised. The STCW and an ENG1 medical are the two non-negotiables. Without them, nobody is going to look at your CV twice. Beyond that, it depends on which department you want to go into. Deck? A powerboat licence or RIB Master helps. Interior? Food safety, wine courses. But honestly, stacking qualifications before your first boat only gets you so far. Captains care far less about certificates than greenies think. What they actually want to know is whether you’re going to be tolerable to live with for months on end in a space the size of a shoebox.

Finding the job is a job

I did a day or two of dock walking. Went to the agencies. Natalie from Blue Water was incredibly lovely and genuinely wanted to help, but with zero experience she couldn’t exactly push me forward for anything. That’s the reality for greenies. Agencies want to place you, but they need something to work with.

So I did what everyone told me to do. Network. I went to the yachtie bars. Corner Bar was the old spot. Ventura was the new one. I stayed at crew houses, showed up to everything, made sure I was as social as possible. I just asked questions, got curious, introduced myself to anyone who’d talk to me.

Day eight. A guy I’d met in Palma, who’d been there about three months himself, got a job on one boat and received a call about another that he couldn’t take. He forwarded the opportunity to me. I phoned the recruiter, sent my CV through, and it turned out I actually knew him from Cape Town. Small world. That’s how I got my first job. Not from a dock walk. Not from an agency. From a conversation in a bar that turned into a forwarded phone number that turned into a connection I already had without realising it.

That’s the thing nobody really tells you. The job finds you through people. Stay genuine, keep showing up, and don’t be shy about putting yourself out there. And accept that sometimes you need to kiss a couple of frogs before you find your prince or princess, whichever way that saying goes.

The part nobody prepares you for

Every course I did before yachting taught me something practical. None of them prepared me for the emotional side. Nobody mentioned what it feels like to work eighteen-hour days for weeks and then get two days off alongside in a port where you don’t know anyone. Nobody told me that after long stretches of high stress and broken sleep, the smallest things start annoying everyone. That the pressure compounds quietly until someone snaps over something that wouldn’t normally bother them at all.

In an ISWAN survey of over 400 superyacht crew, 82% reported experiencing low morale onboard. That number didn’t surprise me when I first saw it. What surprised me is that the industry treated it like background noise for so long.

The people who thrive in yachting aren’t necessarily the most qualified. They’re the ones who figure out how to manage themselves mentally. How to communicate when something’s bothering them instead of letting it turn into a crew mess argument. How to switch off after a brutal charter. How to set a boundary without getting labelled difficult.

I worked across three vessels over four years. I saw brilliant crew burn out and leave because nobody gave them tools to deal with what they were feeling. That experience, combined with studying hypnotherapy during my leave rotations, is exactly why I built Haven. The STCW, the CV, the dock walk — that’s the entry ticket. But the thing that determines whether yachting becomes a career or a one-season experiment is the stuff going on between your ears. Early is on time, on time is late, and nobody is coming to manage your headspace for you. Not yet, anyway.