Living on a "megayacht"

There are those who use their yachts for business purposes and have business meetings on them as well as use them for entertainment. Typically they have megayachts which we don't have. However, many with boats our size do some on their boats. We don't, with one exception. We don't conduct business meetings by bringing employees or others aboard and we don't entertain and call it business. But we don't do that at home either. Our key employees are at our home and on our boats regularly but that's pleasure. If they come to our home and want to talk business they must ask if we can go to our home office for a few minutes. There is an appeal to a business person if he can have people come to his boat and doesn't have to get off it and go to the office. We just are scared soon you start losing the pleasure boat part of it.

Now the exception. We do check mail and we do participate remotely in occasional meetings plus call the office when necessary. The only business expense we claim regarding the boat is a portion of the satellite cost. We schedule our time too. Unless it's an emergency we don't take business calls on the boat. If you need to discuss something of a non-emergency type then email us and ask us to call tomorrow and we will. We do read all emails every night.

PR of China is the worst! I would rather enter the harbours of Wladiwostock or Murmansk without prior permission with my yacht, than taking my yacht to the PR of China. If one harbour seems to be safe and sticks to the rules (about private boats), they publish, this particular rule may not be valid in the next province or district. Local governers or commanders (who knows the difference) sometimes act like autocratic royals from the 17th century. And corruption and bribing is not just common, its mandatory.

I would only take a large private yacht into the PR of China, if entitled to full diplomatic immunity and this for me and all of my crew, period. Commercial shipping in this part of the world is difficult enough, no thanks.

Spain for example has just implemented a new rule. If the owner of a foreign flagged yacht (even if EU and VAT paid) owns (fully or partially, personally or owned by one of his companies or even only as a shareholder) a property in Spain, has to reflag his yacht to Spain and has to pay the luxury tax for this yacht and all follow on taxes in Spain. This rule is in violation of EU regs but they do not care.

And OB, I pay my yacht crews more than my commercial crews because I want to get some of my commercial crews over to the yacht side from time to time and second, being a yacht crew requires more positive attitude, higher motivation, cleaner and sharper appearance and a far better behaviour. The manner amongst commercial male crews is sometimes pretty rough. This would not fit for a beautifull yacht with family guests and my grand children on board. Or would you accept deckhands to whistle a lady on your yacht .

A commercial or military Captain is a master and a commander whereas a captain of a large yacht is not only a master, he is a manager and THE service provider. Even if his ship might be a bit smaller than a 1000 ft box carrier, his skills are required to be higher. The same counts for the engineer and the chef. Onboard a commercial ship, the chef is just a cook, on a larger megayacht your chef might as well hold a michelin star. If you want to keep him longer than one dinner, you better pay him accordingly.

Here is a link to the accident on the Abeking yacht KIBO in Mallorca. This site has has been set up by the sister of the injured deckhand. Her published opinion is not the result of the final report jet but still very interesting and annoying even if only a part of it would be true. Things like this should not happen at all.

http://www.gofundme.com/justiceforjacob

You're right about the statement that even if it's partly true it's still not only very tragic but could very easily have been avoided. As a manager, owner, captain, any or all the above, you just have to be diligent in making safety the absolute and by far first priority.

HTM09,

Thank you very much for your info on the crews. Pretty fascinating to me.

Some will try this which really is just a job share, rotation should and does pay approx 80% of what you would get if you were full time in most cases.

In yachting at the moment I would say there are more rotational engineers than deck officers.

I am aware of a yacht where there are 10 Crew on full rotation and the rest are on a 4:1 or 5:1 leave ratio.

I do not want to give the impression, that I personally own a whole fleet of (large) megayachts. Not at all. But due to my business setup as a commercial ship operator and logistic company owner, I am managing the larger boats of most of my family members (my own children, my siblings and cousins and their children and the yachts of a few very close friends) under my flag and through my management office in the Med. Plus our private aircrafts through my office (FBO) in northern Germany.

This procedure is very effective. The ships management software is run and maintained from the office server. The supply, the maintenance and upkeeping of all boats is done and supervised from this office. All crews are managed by one "fleet captain" or what the British call him, a Commodore. Crews can be swapped, can be taken as additional resource for filling up crew on the larger sail boats for races. For example my sailboat normally has a crew of 8 to 10 but during a race it has a crew of up to 32. We get better rates for bunker and provisions because of the amount of fuel and goods ordered. And we can swap moorings and berthes in several yacht harbours in the Med. But we do not manage charter boats and aircraft and never will!!

This setup keeps the working hours of all ship and air crews under control, ensures their correct payment (both in time and quantity) and if neccessary, disciplinary acts have not to be taken by the first mate or skipper of that boat, they have to report to the desk of the senior captain or pilot, as we call them (only for dressing-downs, the cat o' nine tails we leave to the British Navy and some Russian yachts ). The land based appartements are also managed by this office, so if a crew swaps between Mallorca and southern France for example, they can swap their appartements also.

All of this would not work out without an land based management office in the Mediterranean (for the larger yachts, it is mandatory anyhow). As we say, a happy crew means a happy ship!

As far as nationality of our crews are concerned, the very smallest amount of all crews are German, despite the fact, that all owners are of German or Swiss nationality.
May be Germans do not like to serve or being away from home. Most crews are from english speaking countries like England, Ireland, South Africa and from Australia and New Zealand. We have no crew members from eastern countries or Asia. I forgot, 2 chefs are from Austria, great cooks!! We have one US Citizen, a first mate. He will stay with us, because he is destined for the skipper position of one yacht, as soon as the old skipper will retire next year. So, ships language is mostly English.

Except for my second oldest grand son (5 years old). When he comes on board and takes over command, the crews should better understand what he says, because he always and immediately does what he says .

How do we get hold of our crews. Mostly through personal recommendation of our networking crews and skippers. Some come from my merchant ships (mostly engineers), one first mate actually came through YF! One or the other deckhand managed to be hired by dock walking. It still works. But crews have to be aware, that skippers and mates know each other (networking). The present ship most of the time gets to know, that one of its crew is dockwalking for a new job.

Just my 2 (Euro) cents

If one is on a full rotation such as 28 on, 28 off, they are still working 182 days a year. Probably working 1800-2000 hours. That's very nearly the same as most full time jobs, so paying at least 80-90% of a full time job is quite logical, if not 100%. It sounds like a lot of time off.

The real disparity is paying a normal salary for those people working more traditional patterns. Let's be generous and say one works a 5:1 ratio. That is 10 months work, often 6 or 7 days a week and definitely away from home 7 days a week. That is 300 days a year on the job. That's the equivalent of someone working five days a week having to work 60 weeks a year. Shore leave in exotic places sounds great at first, but it's really not the same as time off, time at home, time with friends and family. That's why so many young people, especially stews and deckhands, are excited about working on a yacht and sailing the world, but grow tired of it very quickly. Partying on their days of shore leave in exciting new cities sounds great until exhaustion sets in.

I'm going to toss one other monkey wrench into the equation and this applies to US crew only and to the non managerial levels of crew. These employees have traditionally been treated as salaried and not as hourly employees. There is an exemption from the overtime sections of the Fair Labor Standards Act for "Seamen." That is only for those who are 80% or more engaged in operation of vessels. There are also exemptions for various carefully defined seasonal jobs. For instance, amusement parks do not pay overtime. Often, neither do movie theaters through some quirks and careful manipulation.

Well, some of the not paying overtime on yachts is already very questionable but regulations are being tightened in all industries now. However, the main exception used has been that there was a salary threshold of $23,660 over which you could make employees exempt from overtime requirements. Now this wasn't automatic as they still needed to meet the requirements for exemption. Major changes are being proposed and discussed very seriously that would raise the threshold to somewhere between $42,000 and $52,000.

A bit of the history. In 1975, 65% of all US workers were eligible for overtime. Today it is 12%. As a result there are a lot of people working 50 and 60 hours a week and getting paid for 40. $23,660 is $455 per week and for a 60 hour week that is $7.60 per hour and if you consider 20 of those hours should be at time and a half then it's really $6.50 per hour.

What does all this mean to yachting? It means yacht owners need to get ready to pay deck hands, stews and perhaps others on an hourly basis and 12 hours a day, 7 days a week could become very problematic for them. The negative side is that it also may put US flagged ships at a bit more of a wage disadvantage and could lead to more foreign flagged and foreign crews.

Yacht careers can be great, but often it's a lousy profession to go into. Ultimately, the ones who can change that are yacht owners and others who have influence over yacht owners.

Having no knowledge of your business and ship management, what you do really interests us. We essentially have the equivalent of your "fleet captain" without knowing I guess. We have a married couple of captains who we hired before even owning a boat and they're our "Managing Captains." Now obviously our "enterprise" to be managed is much much smaller than what you're talking about. Still the concept works. They manage plus train plus do some captaining but over time they'll do less actual captaining. They also allow us to give less experienced captains an opportunity to develop. We do use "fleet" software (Idea) as well. Even if it was just two boats it would be beneficial to have consistent information. Our chief engineer did the real work to get it all set up properly. For finances and financial arrangement we use regular accounting software and our management captains are responsible for managing the finances. What fleet software do you use? I'd guess one from the commercial sector.

I think many come in with preconceived reservations that may or may not turn out to be valid. One is switching crew between boats and on a given boat. Many say crews will not like that. In an operation the size of yours what is their reaction to it? We have a small group who all work so well together that it's not an issue. The captains have their primary responsibilities but they are all very much a part of a team. I would think Captains would have the greatest reluctance. Still hopefully they can realize the benefit to them and the others. It can give them work when otherwise they wouldn't have it plus it can give them time off they otherwise couldn't get.

This is all so new to us and we are the furthest thing from experts but we did see some things going on in yachting that we just were not going to do as we were witnessing. We did very much listen to yacht crew we talked to about what they liked most and least about the profession. We chartered many times the first year or so and got a lot of different exposure.

You are so accurate about everyone knowing everything going on. That's how we found our managing captains by asking around. Just eat lunch and hang around a little in a shipyard/marina restaurant and you'll learn a lot. And if you're looking for entry level, building a relationship with some of the schools and/or the crew house managers can get you some good insight. Reputations can be built in this industry very rapidly, good or bad. It's a lot easier to get information on potential employees than in the business world.

Sorry to K1W1 that I was inaccurate and not paying attention to my posts. As I found out later on the posts on the investigation I was talking apples while everyone was talking oranges. My protege' explained the information I asked for and used here came from 2 years ago not the more recent news which I had confused with the prior I thought they had reopened it not was something different. I did not need to get defensive here. Enough said.

Very very interesting discussions... from all.
The live aboard thread is perhaps for me the ultimate passion.

A couple comments, first I would never ever be involved with a yacht that being chartered. As really is it a yacht, and I am too possessive, picky and perhaps obsessive compulsive on perfection to tolerate someone I did not know touching my baby... I once said to a new crew member while he was washing down, and of course toweling off the boat... "To me consider it like you allowing someone to bath and towel down your girl friend so be careful... it is exactly like that". His girl friend had got him the job... real nice sweet innocent but very smart and serious kid who also worked for me as a business interim during her college, I know her father well and was later invited to her wedding... to some lame idiot!

Second, I don't say own as both the boat and I are liabilities. The boat is a floating liability and accident waiting to happen, and I am a walking talking liability. My attorneys explained this to me some years ago... . It is better to control than own. Operations and management are extremely complex in today's world.

Any attempt now-a-days to skirt VAT tax is simply a scheme to eventually draw attention and have to pay under less than ideal circumstance. The operation or hiring of a management company for the yacht is mandatory. HTM09 your situation sounds familiar, and is better than simply a hired management agency.

I really have been coming to the conclusion relief crews are a good idea. I have toyed with the idea of a service or support boat to house the crew independently and only have a watch on the main boat being used by the family. I this idea solves the problems. Also, having a shore housing for the crew when not using the boat is a good idea. I really think HTM09 situation is ideal with the commercial shipping business in some way supporting or providing the knowledge base for a yacht and doing it properly

Personally I would live on the boat... even work on the boat. However, this is not possible due to family and business obligations.

I am sharing a personal and rather disturbing comment given to me... this last week my beloved elderly mother who suffers from a degenerative nervous system disorder said, after all these years I will try to relate her words, "I consider your boating interest my fault as I supported you in building that boat as a child and even later gave you one for a birthday present a little later. That provided the family much enjoyment as did your grandfather's... (her father). But I consider the yachts, and have kept quiet for too long, as an obscene waste of time and money. I don't like it, I don't like the crew hovering around and never have. You used to be so picky and spoiled about the smallest thing I was often ashamed. I have humored this interest and said nothing. Your wife feels exactly as I do to even a greater extent. And, she is afraid of the water yet humors you in this obsession. She is too polite to say anything. I am ashamed of you, you have so much more to do with your time and can do so much good with the money you spend and God has given you a special path and important work to accomplish in your life, yet you persist. Hard working people with good paying jobs in their entire lifetimes do not earn the money you spend in hardly a year, and raise families which you have not. "
Of course this was disturbing to me... as I had been thinking bigger lately. And, was actually working on a plan and had it in place to make enough to afford easily something quite grand. Perhaps this boating hobby has probably gone too far, and she was right.

She said this as I was leaving for America again for a couple important projects. I hesitated before I left and went into Paris to my wife's favorite lunch spot, this time of year located outdoors in a secluded garden... I got there... she was not there... it was quiet. I sat down in at one of the tables on a chair... chairs that they were upholstered in her favorite color for her favor. I was the only one there... and looked at the chairs and garden and remember all the times she enjoyed that place. Perhaps considered too expensive, too traditional too old fashioned for modern French taste but persisted on in it grander as it would beyond my time. Had a glass of wine and thought on it all. And, thought of all the times she did not enjoy the boat. Got up and left to do my business and think on more serious matters and I had too often neglected them... and the words of the song echoed in my mind J'ai peur d'aimer un souvenir.

There is one or the other large megayacht in the Med, where the owner is a true liveaboard.

There is one very large and famous yacht mostly located in southern France , where the owners family lives full time on board and him traveling for business all over the world but returning to his floating residence. This floating palace has all amenities one could think of. But it is still a problem for the crew, having an ownership permanently present on board. They are restricted in free movement on board, especially using deckspaces, when on duty like cleaning or even more for personal use.

One of our helicopter pilots and one of his engineers used to work on this yacht. Any time, the owners wife and daughters prefered to sojourn on deck, all male crew were restricted to below deck spaces. That hampers work a lot and does not make crews feel being accepted very well.

Privacy for both ownership / guests and crew is very important and it is wanted from both sides. This can be done by means of procedures (SOP) and briefings for guests, for smaller yachts and/or by an practical layout for bigger yachts, where the crew can walk trough and towards all spaces on board necessary for their duties (discrete crew corridors and staircases/lifts) without infringing the privacy of their ownership and guests. And owners and guests should never, I say again, never enter crew spaces without prior permission, notice and invitation of the crew.

Administrative supervision is part of the duty of the ships officers and not a privilege of the owner. If I want to show a visitor the whole ship, including the crew quarters, I will ask the skipper for permission, he will inform the crew and will give them the time for cleanup, if necessary.

On our powered yachts, any time the yacht is not on voyage and during preset periods, if the yacht is on voyage, the complete foredeck including the seating arrangements on this spaces, belongs to the crew. By this, crew not on duty can relax in the open. Their is always enough open deck space for the ownership and guests on the aft decks.

On sail boats, even on larger sailboats, keeping privacy for crews and ownership is not so easy. A sailboat never has the internal volume of a powerboat, especially as a full displacement yacht. Plus, due to the old British maritime tradition, on almost all larger crewed sailboats, the crew lives in front of the mast. Means, they live in the bow. And that means tight spaces and when med mooring, they have to pass by the cockpit/aft deck, down the main entrance through the salon towards their quarters. On some larger boats, they can (or have to) enter the the crew spaces via hatches on the foredeck. Crews comming "home" from shore will always be infring on the privacy of the ownership, celebrating or chilling on deck.

During races its different. On races there are no passengers, only crew !!

To break this tradition, on my present sailboat, the crew quarters are in the aft part of the hull (below and behind the cockpit) and my humble person and guests live in front of the semi recessed salon. The crew has its own cockpit at the stern and its own entrance into the crew spaces. Works perfect, I must say.

It depends on the nationality and the cultural background of the ownership but some owners (or management companies) do not treat their crews very well. And I am not talking about Middle East owners.

Most of them are very well educated and have European or Anglo crew for the ships part and only their personal servants are from their cultural background or from Asia.

The problematic ownership (being not very nice to their crews ) mostly comes from those countries where owners are being very wealthy but fairly new to megayachting and from (only) one very old sea going nation in southern Europe. From what the drums are telling in the Med, slavery would be sometimes a very friendly euphemism. This type of crew treatment causes some high flow rate among crews and can easily lead into those accidents, we are hearing about at the moment.

I know of an European owned yacht, where the skipper collects and retains the passports, visa and all maritime paperwork from his crew, in order to prevent them from "deserting".

Having two complete crews for a large yacht is sometimes not only very expensive, it can also be very problematic. The European and international laws governing labour and working hours versus free time are sometimes hard to track for the management. The crew members on the longer break have the tendency to have annother job during their standby phase, notwithstanding their full payment in their primary job. If one of those double working/paid crew members has an accident on his active phase on your boat due to fatigue, for the authorities its your fault, period.

For this reason, all of our air and ship/yacht and truck driving crews have to sign an agreement, that we are tracking and controlling their working hours and sea-/flying time, even if they are having a second job.

Will say, my personal opinion and my approach about living permanently on a crewed (mega) yacht and operating those vessels is, try not to be present to much (always) on your yacht. Your crew will appreciate it . And treat your crews as you would like to be treated in their position.

Second, using all kinds of tricks and work around procedures in order to save the last cent and to avoid taxes are not worse it. The easiest way of operation (for your peace of mind) is always the legal way. If the enviroment of your area of operation is not suitable for being legal, just leave this area, do not break the local laws. One day, you or one of your loved ones will get caught doing so.

Just my 2 (Euro) cents

About the tradition of having crew forward of the mast, I once made a design like yours, with two crew cabins and a crew mess aft. On larger boats it is the best for many reasons.

Many more rules we break. Our crew are our friends. They have use of the entire boat. Part of the crew uses guest cabins and part uses crew cabins but single, not shared. They eat at the table with us. They socialize with us. We can't imagine not being good friends with those you're living 8 months a year with. In ports, sometimes one or more of them will accompany us as we explore. Others will head out on their own. When we want privacy or to do something by ourselves, that's no problem. But many of our best restaurant visits are with the entire crew.

OB your setup will not work on a bigger yacht or ship. I am for sure the last person in this world, which is insisting on class destinction or pride of place but on larger boats, a close relation or personal friendship between owners and crew and even between captains/officers and crews will not work in the long run. And you are making things more difficult for your skipper.

And crews of larger yachts do not want that close relation neither with their officers nor with their owners and guests. A larger crew consisting of individuals of different gender, age, educational level and cultural background work best and most efficient (of course treated well) with functional discipline. And they feel most comfortable working that way.
On a ship, procedures, orders and SOPs have to adheared to, emergency drills have to be practised and orders have to be obeyed without questioning them.

To much personal contact and relation with your crew will undermine your captains, your first mates and your bosuns authority and it will be taken by your yacht officers as micro management, means they might believe, you do not trust them or their abilities.

Will say, with a bigger yacht or ship you have to accept the necessary hierarchy on board and let your officers on deck and in the machinery do their job.

We also have crew parties on land or on board and I have joined them on invitation by the crew but not on regular bases.

That is the way big yachting and merchant shipping works on this globe.
Romantic philanthropy can otherwise be counterproductive .

Just my 2 (Euro) cents

I never suggested it for larger boats or any other than hours. For ours it works wonderfully. You forget this isn't a business to us, it's just life. I do things I never would have done working for others. Our business we own, the CEO and CFO are our best friends and regular companions.

As to our crew and relationship there are only 9 1/2. We're all friends and it all works. We're not a ship. We don't care about ships. And no one's authority is usurped as the reporting relationships are very well understood and followed. Our organizational chart is clear. As to Bosuns and first mates and all those layers we don't have them. Our total crew for all boats is Two Managing Captains, Two Captains, A Chief Engineer and an Engineer, A Chief Stew and 2 1/2 other stews. We aren't in your world of megayachts or of commercial ships. And rest assured our Managing Captains as well as all the others know they have our trust. They are also the ones who trained us. They are all very disciplined when it comes to doing their job.

Bored in the USA... have so much to do I have been spending a lot of time here...but Sundays and away from home is hurting a little... as I try not to engage in my work at the office... but this is good for posting on the internet.

Anyway, a couple comments on the posts between HTM09 and Olderboater. I think you may be talking apples and oranges. My grandfather was of the old school and had attended the merchant marine academy and was a ship master for his earlier career at the of WW1 and his career ran through WW2 to the late 1940s. My mother intended that I should be a Naval Officer and attend the U.S. Naval Academy (primarily her dream). I did not get an appointment right away so joined/enlisted the USN while the second try was in process. Grandfather (Scottish) a few days before I left gave me advice and a present.

The present was a money belt... that looked like a dress belt. It later proved invaluable.

The advice was basically what HTM09 said... along with some 'command advice' with examples from his early days starting as a deck officer and cargo officer.... that was basically if you are in charge you will be expected to do it or get it done whether you did that yourself or had those under you do it did not matter to the Master but you would go no-where if you did not enforce 'them' getting it done and did it yourself. Certainly it was important they understood you could do it. He explained, if I was just a seaman I would have to know my place. His last piece of advice was not to go into engineering. His point it is key in a ship or boat to have a defined hierarchy and isolation that was inviolate. This is the only way things work. I discovered that in those days of enlisted service. I did get assigned to engineering... and learned why of his advice on that score too. I had never as enlisted man been on the bridge of the ship until I had a Mast with the Captain at the end of that time in enlisted service (not a penalty discipline issue a promoting without pay). That one time I went on the bridge at sea while I waited for 15-20 minutes for the Captain to finish some operations, I learned and understood my grandfather and gained insight to that advice he gave me... and fully understood the need for the separation... it is what HTM09 explained.

Now when my grandfather operated his yacht when I was a child it was not so big to provide complete isolation but he maintained command separation with the couple crew needed. I as remember it was around 26-28m long, a significant boat for its day, but now-a-days not much so... perhaps insignificant. It was a very friendly familiar place for both crew and guests/owner. But he maintained separation in subtle ways. Like crew never ate with he guests... they might eat at the same time but it was not at the same table. Crew did not engage in idle conversation with guests or him. They would talk with you if spoken to and invited but it was something they did not originate. They did not hang around or out with the guests or him. Often my grandmother or mother or her sisters would help out in the kitchen or when the crew was working with a family member doing something there would be friendly talk... but that ended when the work ended... and was not solicited or desired by either crew or guest. The smaller the boat the more familiar... things are... but some social isolation must be maintained. Perhaps that was now 50 years and more ago. But it is how I manage my affairs to this day with anyone that works for me. Later in my education I learned the history behind this.

This is not hard to do or being unfair or snobbish... just the way it must be. We have employed some family friends children at times. I might know them well but they find no problem with maintaining that separation from that working relationship its part of the job.

You keep using the word "must." Maybe that's the way it must be for you and that's fine and I have no problem with it. That's not the way it must be with us or is with us or is ever going to be with us. We live to the beat of a different drummer and enjoy doing it our way. At no point do I say what anyone else should do other than they should do what works for them.

I've never been military and never been big on rank. When I ran a very large company every employee there called me by my first name. I was as likely to walk in a manufacturing facility and as likely to talk to a long time sewing operator as I was the manager. We're not in the Navy, we're not in the commercial world, we're not even yachters. You'll never hear us refer to our boat as a yacht. We're just plain boaters who need some help from crew to fully enjoy our lifestyle. We live our lives today with very little formality. We had nearly 40 people at home today for my wife's birthday and our wedding anniversary (both actually tomorrow). An incredible lunch was prepared and when we finished everyone took their own dishes to the kitchen, clearing the table, and while doing so our guests personally thanked those who prepared the meal. And right now while everyone is still here, if someone wants a snack or drink, it's not complicated. They all know where the kitchen is and can help themselves.

We're open up front and we only hire those who are comfortable and can fit in with the culture we've created.

I'm sure you would be quite uncomfortable in our world and environment, but we'd be equally so in yours.

Ordering male crews below deck or having a dicrete ladies deck is mostly a Middle East thing. Owners from Eastern countries do not care that much.

But closing a sun deck (and switching off cameras) for male crews during certain times (when the ladies decide for topless sunbathing for example) is very common. And with some of those ladies it is for the protection of the young male crews (to keep them on the Hetero side of life ) and not for the privacy of the ladies.

The slavery thing was neither a Middle East nor a boat from an Easter country. The owner is from a well known and one of oldest seafaring nations in southern Europe. One of those nations, where paying taxes is not very common either .