Sitting on stage at the Yacht Club de Monaco for their Captains Forum with Captain Chris Andreason, now head of management at Edmiston, and Captain Brendan O’Brien of Bardo Maritime, we debated a range of topics from mental health, team development and leadership all the way through to mentoring and so much more.

It was a lively discussion, but also a frustrating one, as we have been having these conversations for too long, with fingers often being pointed at crew by shipyards for accidents and incidents. We need to seriously take stock of what’s happening on board and how much pressure is put on our human capital.

It’s a call to action for the regulators and the administrators to set new standards and remove the word ‘minimum’ in everything we do, especially when it comes to soft skills in yachting. We invest more money in the asset from a design and lifestyle perspective, but when it comes to the human element, managers are asked to cut budgets for recruitment, training and leadership. Yet the high turnover, burnout or jumping ship that follows leads to frustration, broken teams and expensive recruitment costs.

I often wonder if the owners are ever given the advice by their management teams or advisers that they should invest more in their crew, create better working hours and rest periods, mentoring programmes, CPD (continuous professional development) and other HR and training models that I’m sure they invest in their best people in their own business lives.

At the end of the day, the best experience on a yacht is not just how beautiful the interior is or how wonderful the location is, it’s how engaged, energised and exceptional the team is, the very people who are making everything happen on board.

Recently, there was an advertisement in the FT Weekend Magazine for FlexJet, with an image of a set of shoulder stripes, with the copy line “Commanders of the Sky, Serving Captains of Industry”, followed by a clear statement that really resonated with me: “A FlexJet owner knows what excellence looks like, A FlexJet pilot knows what it takes to deliver it. Our crew are amongst the most meticulously trained in aviation, so you can fly at the top of your game.” In all my years of yachting, I have never seen a charter brochure or marketing campaign champion the people who are running these assets, telling the market that the crew on board are the best at what they do, meticulously trained and of the highest standards of skills and quality.

We all recognise that the current state of affairs is a set of training standards that are essentially the basic levels of STCW and which meet minimum safety requirements. We also know that with guests on board, the job is intense and high pressured, with huge demands physically and mentally, but I am yet to see any rules or regulations that take this into consideration. Stress and mental health is a global topic and with myriad accident reports and the fact that yachts can still operate back to back charters with less than 24 hours for change over, things will break – first the people and then the yachts due to fatigue and lack of focus.

It’s time for the Flag administrations, the training groups and other regulators to get a better picture of what actually happens on board and remove the word ‘minimum’ from all narratives when it comes to superyachts. There is nothing minimum about our industry.

Profile links

Monaco Yacht Show

Edmiston & Company - Crew

Yacht Club de Monaco

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