Interesting. Couple questions. Let's take a modest sized 150 motoryacht (vs sail or sport fisher). What would roles would the 9 crew have? At what point is there a dedicated engineer? Does it follow the Below Decks model where much of the crew are sourced through an agency? I assume one of the crew is cook - are they retained full time or contract for a passage or period when owners are aboard?
I remember being side-tied in Panama waiting for a canal transit. There was a 80-foot sport fisher next to me with a pair of crew stringing bait for when the owner arrived. Sure was a beautiful boat. Had mammoth A/C ducts blowing on the fighting chair in the cockpit.
Peter
Typical crew of 9 would be the following: Captain, Officer (also Captain), Deckhand, Junior Deckhand, Chief Engineer, Chief Stew, Second Stew, Junior Stew, Chef.
Dedicated engineer around 115' or so.
Now, most boats in that size range have some sort of management team or group. Often it's people who work for the owner and often somehow involved in the owner's other businesses. Other times it's a private yacht management group. There are yacht management groups that focus on maintenance of smaller yachts, but these groups for this size focus on all aspects from payroll to accounting to shore support services to documentation to staffing. These companies also serve as crew agencies.
The employment nature of the crews varies widely by the amount of owner usage and whether chartered or not. At a minimum, the Captain, Chief Engineer and Chief Stew are full time. On average, of the nine crew members, 4 to 6 are full time. In boats that are in high use, the part time positions would typically be the 2nd deckhand and the 2nd and 3rd stews. Now think about this for a moment. Boat with a $2 million annual budget and they save perhaps $40k by not having full time employees in the three lowest paid positions. Smarter owners and managers rotate crew more when boat isn't in use and provides decent time off.
On boats in heavy usage, Chef's are full time. On light usage boats, it varies. Owners are often very picky about chef's and after experience find that not having full time is a problem. You bring up Below Deck so I'll make a few comments as to how it compares. These are largely based on discussions with our crew and staff who have long careers and have spent considerable time on larger boats before entering semi-retirement. The positions you have on Below Deck are typical, just there you have some crew never seen. The Engineering department on those boats it typically 2 persons and there is another Captain or Officer who actually does most of the helm work. So you might have visible Captain, Chef, 3 deckhands, 3 stews and another 3 not visible for the crew of 11.
Nearly everything you see happen on Below Deck has and does happen, but like all television, never compacted into one cruise or even months of cruises. The crew behavior you observe would never be tolerated by most captains, Bosuns, or Chief Stews. Now, while I would never tolerate it, heavy drinking and sex among crew members is common on many boats. You do see a couple of captains on the show who admit to prior alcohol problems. Now, the crews are chosen for the show and the lack of continuity is more extreme. Addressing deckhands and stews, you've typically have full time Bosuns and Chief Stews so not all new. In the worst situations where there are 5 or 6 positions between the two departments and only 2 are full time, then you'd expect to see most of the problems seen on the show due to both lack of experience and poor quality employees. The best would typically have full time jobs and finding that quality for a few weeks is challenging. That brings us to chefs.
The level of work required of chefs on Below Deck is challenging. You see problems cooking for the crew but many boats that size would have a crew chef or an assistant cook of some type. For charter, they might have temporary chefs, but can't imagine owners who use a boat a lot going that route. Are chefs as problematic as on the show? Of course not. Yes, they may tend to be more emotional than other employees, but there are many very rational, excellent chefs available. On the other hand, most of those would choose being personal chefs in homes to yachts, which is what at least one former Below Deck chef is now doing. In a home, they have space, equipment, and can get help when needed. Being chef with owners on a yacht isn't bad, but for charters it is a very difficult job. Also, some of the galleys on Below Deck are subpar for boats their size.
