Wanted: crew for luxury yacht
Posted by Yachting Intelligence in News, tags: Crew, Superyacht« Wanted: crew for luxury yacht ». This announcement may soon be seen all too frequently in the pages of specialist magazines.
It is estimated that there are about 4,000 large yachts sailing in the world, of which 2,000 are over 36 metres in length. And it is assumed there are 200,000 thousand people in the world that can afford to buy a superyacht. This gives us an idea of the potential growth of this super-premium sector, a growth that is being confirmed year after year. Just look at the expansive figures of the world’s boat shows dedicated to large yachts, such as the Monaco Yacht Show (the only one in the world that concentrates around a hundred mega-yachts in the same place) or the ones in Genoa, Barcelona or Fort Lauderdale, dedicating increasingly more space to these units every year. Not to mention the new marinas that are being built, both in Spain and in the rest of the world.
The result is that the mega-yacht industry is growing pace, but boat owners and their captains are encountering real difficulties in finding the right crew that meet the requirements of these luxury boats. Captains, mates, deckhands, engineers, chefs and their assistants, interior staff…. If we take into account the fact that a boat over 24 metres usually provides space for at least four crew members, and above this size the crew can easily reach 12, or 16 for more than 50 metres, it’s easy to see why boat owners are becoming concerned. In fact, the recently established Flagship Superyacht Academy in Southampton estimates that the demand for jobs of this kind will soon exceed 3,000. Crew rotation is also high, as many hands are only hired for a season and seasonal chartering is also on the rise.
Hence schools to train crews are starting to proliferate. This is as yet unexplored territory for us, as the basic knowledge supposedly held by the « ordinary » sailor or steward is no longer enough. The size and sophistication of these boats demand a lot or at least a certain degree of specialisation in areas such as safety and security, communications and yacht handling, as well as a lot of etiquette, presence, language skills and discretion.Things that are not learned by just working at a workshop, a retailer or a fashionable restaurant.
http://www.superyachtsreview.com/crew-crisis_id29707/editorial_id986685
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