my big and second toe: someone else’s toenail! Finding nails and long hairs in places where they don’t belong makes me shudder and this bad boy was large, yellow and totally cinched my instant resignation. I stomped forward to the captain’s cabin (mid-sheet, mind you) and handed in my notice there and then. However, by the end of that particular trip and after a much-needed break, I decided to stay on for another season. And another one after that. It turned out the toenail-incident was the first of many leaving-yachting-forever-moments to come.
T
Other ‘last straws’ included finding a still-drunk deckhand sitting up asleep in the laundry room with a spanner in his right hand, and the captain casually asking whether I could perhaps pick up some hooha (yep, cocaine) if I was going out shopping and passing ‘the area’ anyway. Note: the above defining moments all took place on different yachts. And we all know that this is not as unusual as you might think.
he first time I decided to leave yachting indefinitely was due to a toenail. I was ironing sheets in the forepeak on a classic sailing yacht when I felt something catch between
spend time with) it’s hard to acknowledge when you’ve hit that limit. But there are pros and cons to staying onboard.
In my opinion, the most obvious sign that you need a change is how you feel about the work you’re doing every day. Do you feel unhappy, bored or even misunderstood most of the time? Maybe you’ve started to feel that the ‘real you’ can’t come out in this role, or the way you prefer to work isn’t how things are done onboard? I have, on more than one occasion wondered how I’d ended up doing what I was doing (mopping up blood-juice whilst contorting inside the (broken) meat freezer out at sea, for instance). In fact, I used to spend hours daydreaming about being somewhere else and doing something different.
Lay reckons one of the biggest issues with quitting are the industry’s ‘golden handcuffs’. “You’re used to earning a seriously good salary, not paying for anything and having an abundance of cash to spend on whatever you like.” It’s true, who could not get accustomed to being able to drop 150€ on a rose-lunch without flinching? But putting the delicious subject of squandering
SOMETIMES CREW JUST NEED A BREAK; A HOLIDAY, SOME TIME WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO REGROUP, RECHARGE AND THEN THEY’RE READY TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN, BUT SOMETIMES IT’S JUST TIME TO CALL IT QUITS
Of course, there was more to my departures than rogue toenails, inebriated deckies and party hardy captains. They were all preceded by months of fatigue and pent-up irritations. You know, demanding owners, lack of sleep, zero privacy and, well, yes, I was also just plain ‘over it’. I’d had enough of others’ eating habits, (yogurt- lid licking!), the inanity of dusting for the sake of dusting, ever- changing plans, my teeny-tiny bunk, of everything, years ago. So why the heck did I keep coming back?
Everyone working on yachts knows it’s a tough industry, one that takes its toll, regardless of your position onboard. EL CREW CO owner Erica Lay, crew agent of 11 years, agrees, “Sometimes crew just need a break; a holiday, some time with family and friends to regroup, recharge and then they’re ready to do it all over again, but sometimes it’s just time to call it quits.” But when long days and short sleeps are the order of the day (with the added edge of living in claustrophobic spaces with people who, let’s face it, are not always those you would choose to
thousands of euros aside, many crew members have purchased houses with high mortgage repayments; a commitment which means they’ll need to stay on whether they like it or not. Lay admits to having ‘seen that, time and time again’. She adds that “when everything’s going great it’s all rosy, but when people hit breaking point and want to leave the industry… they can’t.”
Palma de Mallorca-based life coach Anne Nielsen (former superyacht chef of 15 years) is of the same mind: “Senior crew get married, have children, buy their dream house and send their children to private schools. Their lives become so dependent on the income the industry can offer, that they are now trapped within a lifestyle that they themselves have created.” Nielsen herself admits, “I would jump back into the industry because of the money as yachting was always there for me to get me out of a financial fix. Although I will always be grateful, it prolonged my time in the industry and made me procrastinate about leaving for a very long time, even though I was miserable.”
ONBOARD | AUTUMN 2018 | 31
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