We'll be looking for an engineer (with some Spanish skills) later this year and I'm wondering about the salaries. It seems to me yacht crew generally is paid a premium and I don't quite understand why. Except on charter yachts, from personal observation I've noticed the crew is not too busy. Sure, when the owner is on board with guests, they'll make long days, but, compared with crew on merchant marine vessels, ro/ro vessels doing the caribbean, they hours are long for months in a row and the pays is a lot less.
Are they just paid a premium because the owners are millionaires so what do they care? What if you're not a millionaire owner or running a small charter business?
In the case of an engineer, we'd be looking at an engineer who can actually work on a main engine (a Deutz 628 in our case), change a cilinder liner, adjust the vales and has a thorough understanding of trouble shooting electrical systems. Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that on mega yachts, engineers are busier trouble shooting auxiliary systems and keep the engineroom spotless and never open the main engines.
I'd also love to hear from engineers what kind of trouble shooting they encounter most common. I've heard vacuum toilets can be nasty :-).
Looking forward to your comments and I hope I didnt' offend anybody
Saludos,
Thorwald