let it out hun), it’s on with the work day and time to just focus on getting through it without dying…
It’s kind of funny when you’re with your crew mates and you’re all equally hanging out of your backsides; taking bets on who feels worse, and laughing at the fact that one person is incapable of getting out of their bunk and will most likely get a warning from the captain. Unless it’s him (or her) of course. Laughing at the chef who’s trying not to vom on the hot plate whilst frying up emergency bacon sarnies for everyone (even the vegan stew is all over that one and wants a runny yolk on her egg too). Comparing UBIs (Unidentified Beer Injuries), reporting lost credit cards and phones… and stewardesses actually, where’s the junior? Dammit Chief, you had ONE job… oh hang on look at the pasarelle camera! Here she comes – WALK OF SHAAAAAME! Awesome. And hang on is that the engineer puking off the starboard aft? Let’s face it, we’re pretty much all still hammered from last night. Yes, we’ve all been there. And oh look, the captain’s laughing and telling everyone to get the necessary done and we can all take the rest of the day off to recover. Harmless fun right? This is just yachting! We work hard, we play hard! Lighten up it’s just a laugh… right?
Sure! Until these occurrences become less once or twice a season and more frequent. Weekly. Now with guests on. Daily. Yeh just a laugh, until you realise the ringleaders in these events are the ones who are, directly or indirectly, responsible for the health and safety of everyone on board. Not so much fun
bringing hard liquor on board and drinking throughout the working day, plus dipping into the boss’s alcohol supplies when it suited them. So, Anonymous asked, what do I do?
Somewhat unsurprisingly, the response was pretty negative. But, somewhat surprisingly, it was targeted at Anonymous, not at the captain and chief engineer. “lighten up” “you must be fun at parties” “get over
not entered the industry yet. No wonder we don’t have enough greenies. And no wonder people keep leaving!
Anonymous approached me, so after consoling them that no, in fact, this behaviour is neither normal nor tolerated on professionally run superyachts, I decided to do a little social (media) experiment. Three minutes and a tiktok later (hey I’m not here to put socks on caterpillars, time is
Booze affects our judgement (look at who you woke up with after that big night) reaction time, our coordination and also our vision, which is why drink limits are based on Blood Alcohol Concentration.
it, this is yachting” to quote just a few of the keyboard cowboys who were out to troll that day. Others asked Anonymous “do you have proof?” or said “Two sides to every story” and accused them of lying or making the story up. Incredible to see this was the attitude and response to a genuine cry for advice in what was once regarded as a safe space for yacht crew to avoid judgement.
How is working with drunk people acceptable “because yachting”?! Would you get in a car with a drunk driver? Nah. Would you put your family and friends in a car with a drunk driver? Your nan? Again, hard nah from me so why is it ok to be on a big powerful boat and absolutely carparked on the boss’s best whisky then? Oh and someone else then started banging on about
Where’s the junior? Dammit Chief, you had ONE job… oh hang on look at the pasarelle
camera! Here she comes – WALK OF SHAAAAAME! Awesome! Or not?
now is it? A recent post on a Facebook forum asking for advice on this subject showed just how divisive drinking and drug use in the yachting industry truly is. Anonymous posted her question. They’d joined a yacht in a relatively small crew (Captain, Engineer, Mate, Stew) with themselves as the chef. Shortly after joining, they discovered that the Captain and Engineer were not just drinking buddies out of hours. They were
the fact that smoking weed is far better than drinking on board and off they went on a tangent about working stoned instead. Because dulling your senses and lowering your reaction time is always good when you’re working in a dangerous environment isn’t it? Honestly, I despair. And this, this is the impression we’re giving to brand new crew, crew who are looking for people to look up to, and potential crew who’ve
money), I uploaded a reel to various platforms asking for feedback from my network. I was banking on them being more professional and thankfully, they did not let me down! We’ll come to that in a minute. But first let’s talk a bit about the facts.
Truth: whether you like it or not, alcohol does hamper your ability to do your job (as does weed but let’s stick to one subject at a time or this will take three days to read). It’s one thing if your duties for the day happen to be a bit of paperwork or cleaning, but if it’s driving the yacht, or being responsible for others safety (as well as your own) then it’s not actually all that funny is it?
Booze affects our judgement (look at who you woke up with after that big night out for proof), reaction time, our coordination and also our vision, which is why drink limits are based on Blood Alcohol Concentration.
This can be measured by breathalysers or blood samples. We all know that drinking seriously hampers our ability to react quickly to hazards, and that the more we drink the slower we become and the worse our coordination becomes. Need an example? Let’s watch a drunken sailor fall over on a perfectly level floor in the bar after a few too many when the boat’s hit land post crossing, and then let’s compare that to never seeing them lose their footing even once on a 30m sail yacht heeling in high seas for the past few weeks. Which leads me to ask, what can’t you do with a drunken sailor? But no, I digress….
ONBOARD | WINTER 2024 | 35
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