Wages and Benefits

On most of the boats I have delivered or run, they have never and I mean EVER been cooked on, nor do the owners want meals cooked on their boat. If I'm delivering a yacht, running it 8-12 hours a day, then fueling, rinsing/chamoising it etc, the last thing I'm going to do is cook myself a meal to save the owners money. I have never had an owner complain about the price of meals at a good restaurant or the restaurant at the marina while on a delivery. The majority of the time I eat with them at a restaurant of their choosing anyways. If you were a business executive on a business trip, do you think any company would expect you to cook in your hotel room? I think not.

I'm the same way on transports, dinner is the high point, but it's different when you're running one yacht on a regular basis. I leave it to the boss. Dinners are generally on shore, but if his wife is on board they'll often go their way and I go mine. Those nights I'd generally be happier just making something light on board, get some work done and maybe watch some TV. When the boss and I go out we'll often alternate who chooses the restaurant. He generally picks some really nice place and I generally choose like Frank's Hot Dogs. He says I'm a cheap date.

I agree mostly- however when I go up and down the coast I spend a good bit on supplies so we can eat and cook aboard- but dinner is usually at a restaurant. I don't see that as parallel with day workers who live in the same town as the yard or marina the boat is in. Why should the boat provide lunch for a varnish guy or anyone else when they could pack a lunch from home? That's what I do when I go to the boat every weekday. If the owners are in town then it's a bit different and I play it by ear. I think there is difference that starts around 90 feet- and I'm under that; I think that's where we differ. My boat won't ever have a dedicated "chef" aboard. I knew a delivery captain who seemed to think more about where he was going to eat that night than about anything else. He wanted to eat steak or local delicacies and price did not matter. I can't do that- I spend my owner's money as if it was my money, but I'm not the owner so I don't spend it like the owner may for food. This might be a reason I'm with my people for nearly a decade.

A) Because they do a better job for people they like. B) After lunch productivity drops. I'd rather make a sandwich or even bring one in than have the workers leave for an hour + in the middle of a job, and break their momentum (if they're willing). It's a $3 sandwich vs; $85 or $100 an hour. Easy math.

Must not be eating at Katz's; but your point is still well taken.

Katz's Deli: Beyond the Pastrami | Serious Eats : New York

Hi,

The OP was asking about a Day Worker not a Contractor, if you are paying your day workers $100 an hour you must be on a good whack yourself.

Day workers are not just boat washers. They often include mechanics, carpenters, electronic techs, etc. Some are people who start charging when they leave their office and don't come off the clock until they walk back into their offices.

Hi,

Your definition of a day worker must be very local as elsewhere in the world those taken on to wash down, sand , varnish or whatever other temporary work is on offer are universally known as dayworkers.

Those who come to service your engines or washing machine or whatever else needs specialist intervention are usually known as mechanics or other trade related description.

Semantics. But even if you're talking about a guy making $10 an hour it saves my boss money if I make him a sandwich and get him back to work in a half-hour rather than him breaking momentum and leaving the boat for an hour and 20. I know that even for myself I'm not the same worker when I return to a job after lunch than I was earlier, but if I just grab a sandwich and keep working I'm still at 100%. But we're getting off track. Direct to the OP's question, If workers are OTJ during meal time it's often cheaper and more productive to feed them, however there are several factors to consider. You can't require someone to brown-bag it. So if your boat is a half block to the deli it's one thing, but if it's 20 minutes away it's another.

I once questioned an outrageous bill from Thomas marine air con in Miami...

Labor just didn't quite add up even including the drive to and from the boat. First it turned out that thy started the clock when the guy clocked in so I was paying for the time it took him to restock his van. But the best part was when they admitted that he had stopped 1/2 an hour for breakfast along the way. At $90 an hour... Expensive Bfast!

I used to work some boats out in East Hampton and our jobbers often came from up-Island, 2 hours of travel time each way (probably including a breakfast stop). The last thing I wanted to do was have a job carry over to a 2nd day.

I don't buy that- if it were true for a varnish person then it's true for every worker at a boat yard- yet you don't see the yard owner buying lunch for the workers do you? I agree eating while at a job is and always will be a "problem"- but the solution is not always to spend more of the owners money.
The real question is why don't "day workers" have a lunch pail/cooler in the van?

That's your job as captain to question the charges. I don't know anyone that will say it's okay to pay a worker $90 an hour to eat; and going over the invoiced figure with the business owner before coming to a final amount is SOP- then you approve the amount and submit it to the boat owner. He/She then asks questions about it and you'd better be able to back up why this and that charge is approved.

The yard owner is required by law to give his worker (2) 15 minute and (1) 30 minute break during an 8 hour shift. For him to serve lunch on a regular basis would have the Dept. of Labor down there in a hot second claiming that he's trying to force his employees to stay on premise. However, when I've been asked to work overtime I've had many employers send out for pizza, etc.
Granted that the solution is not always to spend more of the owner's money. Every situation is different. That's why owners hire captains with the ability to think.

I used to run an LCM cleaning up oil spills in NY harbor. Could you imagine if we broke off, went to shore and released our crew to go have lunch on shore? We'd get 2 hours work done in a 15 hour shift.