YachtChat: The Tinder of the superyacht world

It’s here. Tinder for superyacht crew, otherwise known as YachtChat.

But it’s not quite Tinder. YachtChat is an app created by the founder of sister app YachtNeeds, a full concierge service app built around the everyday needs of superyacht crew (read our review of YachtNeeds by chief stewardess Natalie Oliviera, M/Y Shergar, here).

The tagline of the YachtChat app is simple: “Connect yachties with yachties”.

And there’s no sensationalising here. The app was deliberately made to be a Tinder equivalent for superyacht crew, showing users a network of people in your location or, depending on preferences, further afield. Whether it’s meeting up one-on-one or organising a crew party, the live chat offers superyacht crew, who we all know are notoriously difficult to get hold of, the chance to arrange those last-minute meetings with crew in your area.

“The initial thought was to call it ‘Yinder’,” Tony Ryan, founder of YachtChat and YachtNeeds tells The Crew Report. “But I wanted to make it much more than just crew connecting with crew”.

The app, Ryan continues, is both “personal and professional”, which is why it offers a ‘looking for work’ feature (view the online tutorial here). When the app shows the crew in your location, an orange box around crewmembers' profiles will let you know that crewmember is looking for daywork, a feature that expires every night at midnight, to ensure those looking to hire a dayworker aren’t looking at outdated requests from crew whose daywork from the previous week might have turned into a permanent contract.

“We wanted to create an app that, if I am in port or going to my next port of call, then you can easily organise dayworkers to be waiting on the quay and ready to start work before the boat even pulls into port."

“People are always clogging up Facebook feeds with people looking for work, so we thought, what if there was an app that connects yachties with yachties all in once place, and make it geo-localised,” explains Ryan. “We wanted to create an app that, if I am in port or going to my next port of call, then you can easily organise dayworkers to be waiting on the quay and ready to start work before the boat even pulls into port.”

Over time, the app will develop to include a bigger job-search presence, including video CVs on personal profiles. But for now, meet superyachting’s Tinder.

Download for free from the App store or Google Play.

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