TV show- "Below Deck"

I believe it's either or. Either the boats normal Captain OR the first officer stay, probably depending on the insurance and/or owners preferences.

The First Officer on the show this year, is the actual Captain of record, David Pott.

And he was the one in the pilothouse with Sandy at the time of termination and reviewing all the documentation. To my knowledge, the first time he's ever been seen on the show.

Do you suppose Sandy actually runs the boat or does the actual captain run it? I think Sandy is there just micro manage and irritate the crew.

Captains on that size yacht rarely run it, or let me rephrase that......run it less than 1/2 of the time.........the 1st officer runs the boat a lot of the times.......the Captains dock it a lot of the times. But I'd say Sandy does a lot of the time as their runs are usually fairly short from what I see.

In this case, Sandy is an actor, who is employed by Bravo to portray the captain on TV. David is employed and insured by the owner and handles the important stuff, since the owner has ultimate control and responsibility for the yacht. As olderboater mentioned, David was on the bridge checking regs during the Valium issue. Bravo would have the decision of what to do with the stewardess since she works for them. David had to deal with the legalities of the Valium onboard since that could fall on him and the owner. For what it's worth, in a conversation with a former crew member, I was told that the TV captains do not handle or control the operation of the vessel. The exception was the first year of the original Below Deck. Bravo chartered "Cuor di Leone" and Lee was the actual captain of record. Bravo planned to cast an actor with a license as the captain but the insurance company turned him down. At the last minute, they convinced Lee to go on camera and the actor became first officer. As for Lee, the rest is history.

I did not say she wasn't a captain. I said she is not the legal captain of record on THIS boat. David Pott is the permanent captain on the yacht used in the show. He remains in control, representing the owner, not Sandy.

I'm not sure what you are trying to prove but far as the show is concerned she is an actor. She was hired by Bravo to play the part of the captain on the show. I didn't imply anything other that what you may have come up with in your mind. I am well aware that she is a captain but the discussion is about who is the captain that controls the yacht and that Is David Pott on behalf of the owner. You can take offense at me refering to her as an actor if you choose, but it's a fact and she seems pretty proud of it.

I don’t think she is responsible for the designation as an “actor” in that case.

And probably would take offense to it.

I’d say she’s a captain/actor. Not an actor/captain.

I believe Sandy is the one at the controls when docking and running the boat a lot of times during the show. Perhaps David Pott is the Captain of record and #1 in command, but she is handling the boat a lot just as a first officer would.

Finally caught up with the second half of the season and watched it through to the end over the last week.

Madness. LOL

Supposedly most of them gainfully employed elsewhere after the show ended... which is surprising.

Also, I didn't even realize until the last episode that the Pete guy was still there. Whoever was in the cutting room did a pretty masterful job of eliminating him from just about every scene in the latter half of the season, from working on deck to nights out, dude was persona non grata. (Apparently he posted something online in June of this year which led to his being fired and then near total elimination from the show despite having been there for everything at the time.

Slow week eh. Contracts keep you employed even if not working, and he's under contract with the producers. Pete's future is definitely in question though. Being a vocal racist and sexist are seldom good things for one's career.

Yeah, slow indeed... aerospace industry is crawling along on life-support right now. Not a great outlook for the foreseeable, either.

Regarding Pete, the racist post he made was this year (June, I think?), while the season was filmed last summer... Bravo had to "fire" him (read: edit him out of the episodes that were to be aired after he made that post), but he was still on the boat doing his job, working, going out, collecting his tips, etc. They certainly had no trouble keeping him around, and even highlighting him, when he was being inappropriate and sexist on the boat towards the stews and Malia. In the final episode he was still there in the salon for the tip meeting and Captain Sandy's season ending kudos-meeting.

Racism seemed to be the tipping point.

Funny CC moment in the new season... someone should tell production.

Not sure what's with our SEARCH feature, but I put in Below Deck and after searching 4 pages there was no mention of the thread, even when I checked titles only, despite me knowing that there's a long thread on it. Maybe the mods can locate it and fold this into it.

Edit: Moved to existing thread.

In the mean time we watched last night. The drama is amusing, but it really puts the industry in a bad light. Three things jumped out at me from last nights episode:

1) The chef threw yet another hissy fit over the guests preference sheet and quit 16 hours before a charter rather than just telling the guest that a 10 course meal wasn't going to happen. If I were her employer I'd make sure her next gig was behind a hot dog stand if I didn't arrange for some drugs to be in her bag as she went to the airport.

2) Capt. Lee threw a hissy fit because his stern thruster wasn't working. He had a ton of space to make his spin and a double wide slip with a floating dock between his boat and the next, 2 working motors and a bow thruster. Talk about manufactured drama. I know Lee is better than that. It made him look like an under qualified amateur.

3) One of the stews doing laundry put the white shirts in a bowl of bleach and soap. The crew started complaining about the smell, claiming they were getting light-headed. The engineer got involved and said the stew created Mustard Gas, as in WW I Mustard Gas, by combining bleach and soap. Bleach and soap do not make mustard gas. If it did we'd all be dead the first time we washed our whites. Bleach and AMONIA create a gas called Chloramine which can be deadly. Soap was used in mustard gas as a bonding agent so it would stick to the skin. As for the smell, it's the clean (and harmless) smell I get every time I spray bleach in my shower to kill mold. It's not a smell you want to subject your guests to but it's not going to kill anyone.

Sure wish these shows would try for a little more reality.

Has there ever been a season of BD with a chef that is both skilled and mentally stable? I think Adam in the Med would be the closest to filling those two criteria... but none of them ever ticked both boxes entirely.

That was the previous episode I think, or the one before? One thing I'll say is that the editing of the show is far from seamless or linear... what they show for an outside shot, overhead, etc. often does not match from one second to the next. More than once I've seen the drone shot of a docking maneuver show them slipping between two other boats, and then when you see the crew throwing the lines the closeups of the boats on either side don't match what we just saw overhead 15 seconds earlier.

That could have been the case with the clip you're talking about... or yeah, 100% manufactured drama. LOL After all, it's a Bravo TV show, not Discovery channel or NatGeo.

Maybe to be a skilled chef you have to be mentally unstable.

I've known a few chefs, and in general found them to be abusive alcoholics. Seems they think they're Gordon Ramsey and have a right to act that way. But quitting right before a charter? She'd pay a big price with me.