[world citizen]

Originally Posted by airship

The "Crewagency view"

There's so much in Crewagency's post which I find ignominious (or should that be igneous?) that I simply had to register immediately in order to respond...

Well, you literally said it: no amount of certificates or papers truly prepares someone for working aboard a luxury yacht. But that was already known 20 years ago when some professional crewing agencies began recruiting officers and ratings from the merchant marine. These new skippers may have been master mariners but, boy oh boy, could they scratch up a yacht no end when berthing (no tugs in attendance, you see)...?! But I'm not attacking these guys, in time, (once they'd mastered the art of manoeuvering smaller vessels) they became a welcome addition to large yacht crews. But let's not forget: the reason for these insufficiently-experienced newcomers was a combination of owners who wanted a cheaper crew and some agencies' cravings to satisfy that demand...

...and you should have stopped there in order to preserve your credibility IMHO. Because you might as well have extended to your list of verbotten items of not using the owner's jetski, tender etc., to other stuff like dive gear, water-skiing and other misc. water-toys; ensuring that the stewards and stewardesses are not allowed to play with all the electronic gadgets in the salon and guest cabins?! After all, properly-trained yacht crews have already received all necessary skills in order to operate the fun stuff that owners like to have aboard in order to amuse themselves as well as their guests... The owner automatically knows which button to press in order to watch his favourite satTV station right - the deckhand taking out a group of kids on a banana obviously received the necessary training before being recommended by the crew agency?! In my view, there is a huge difference between the use and abuse of facilities and equipment by the crew. In the example of the abuse of the swimming pool aboard M/Y ICE suggested by Teenna, the photos show 2 (out of how many crew aboard) using the swimming pool. As far as I'm aware, the crew are allowed use of the pool when the owner is not aboard that particular yacht. And much as some people would have you believe, I don't believe that most owners have to fear that whilst they're away, that their crews are using the master stateroom for wild orgies or anything remotely similar. And let's just hope that these sorts of events mainly reside in the far-flung wildest fantasies of those responsible for crew recruitment...?!

Be sure that the banker has the bank holiday as a day off, as well as every weekend...?! As far as the backhander situation is concerned, it was undoubtedly widely prevalent 10 to 20 years ago, when perhaps the majority of skippers demanded them (though some of these skippers tended to use them in order to pay for all the unaccountable services required by a large yacht in foreign ports. Tell me, Crewagency, how do you account for the quite illegal practice of employing dayworkers in order to ensure the fast-turnaround of a busy charter yacht? Or paying off the port official to ensure a berth at the required time and place? Could a (European) crew agency ever be held responsible for paying (or at least ensuring) that social security charges are deducted for EU crews? If an engineer is employed on an older yacht, one day has to fix a leak in the exhaust which might entail digging out all sorts of obnoxious materials to get at the leak, then 25 years later starts suffering from asbestosis, just who is going to be responsible - the offshore company owner, the yacht broker or perhaps the crew agency?! Guess who might still be operating and...hope you've got good insurance cover?!

What I won't dispute is that they are definitely cheaper. And, let me guess...they're probably more likely than some other crews, to think twice about giving anyone a "bit of lip" in the face of authority...or consider complaining to anyone about any injustices?! And a big "NO": I don't think that they always smile or that their on-board accommodations are "better than what they have at home"...in fact, what an outrageous generalisation?! "YES", I know firsthand of some simply outstanding Ukranian, Filipino and Indian / Pakistani crew in various positions who would put to shame 2/3rds of their more traditional Anglo-Saxon yacht crew counterparts...! And I can readily believe that their sacrifices for working so far away from home and family (BTW, whichever crew agency that came up with contracts that ensured the ex. Gurkhas who were engaged on one 55m motor yacht only went home once every 3 years, deserves a special award...?! ), do afford them a substantially better lifestyle "back home" even (or especially) when compared to their 1st World brethren...

You're obviously someone relatively new to yachting Crewagency?! Because otherwise, you would already have known that the bulk of those who worked aboard yachts until a few years ago did so precisely because it offered them the means to see a bit of the world and earn some pocket-money whilst doing so. In those days of course, owners (there weren't too many crew agencies or yacht managers back then) and their families actually appeared to appreciate having "free spirits" including well-educated guys and gals taking a break from more serious stuff joining them on their vacations. In those days, the only way to convince anyone to stay on was to promise them the skipper's job for the next year after having been the deckie for just one season...

I do not like you provoking and underestimate my profession.
You think that a Master maneuvering a 200 meters 25 years old passenger ship in ports 190 meters width and with force 6 carrying 2000 passenger is not good enough to maneuver a 80 meters yacht with bow , stern even a DP system? or that managing 160 or 200 crew members from all nationalities is easier than having 20 or maybe 25 crew. Do you think a Master coming out of a VLCC (Very large Crude Carrier), in case you are not familiar with the term, who has to deal with the authorities of dictatorship regimes jeopardizing every time his freedom, is not competent enough to deal with suppliers or port authorities in Nice.

I am very sorry to see that you are so prejudice; attitudes like yours real have a negative effect in the industry.

[K1W1]

Hi,

I don't want to offend you World Citizen but have to say that if you have the command experience of the large vessels you talk about in your post you must have truely unique experience during your tenure aboard these vessels.

Dealing with Port Authorities anywhere is something I would expect based upon my own experience and the experience of other ex Merchant Guys to be something that was in 99% of cases done through the shipping companies home office and preferred agent.

You can't expect anyone to believe that you are going to turn up off a port in a Passenger Vessel or VLCC and call up asking if there is a berth available( Force Majure excepted).

Similarly I do not know many ex Merchant Captains who have had the hands on face to face dealings with suppliers/ trades people you will encounter on a yacht when they first enter the yachting trade.

How many times have you been on a Merchant Ship about to enter port and had the charterer ask you to steam somehwere else, book a table at a restaurant that has been booked out for months and make sure that all his guestS who were to be collected at the friat place the next morning are ferried to the new destination ASAP?

[world citizen]

Originally Posted by K1W1

Hi,

I don't want to offend you World Citizen but have to say that if you have the command experience of the large vessels you talk about in your post you must have truely unique experience during your tenure aboard these vessels.

Dealing with Port Authorities anywhere is something I would expect based upon my own experience and the experience of other ex Merchant Guys to be something that was in 99% of cases done through the shipping companies home office and preferred agent.

You can't expect anyone to believe that you are going to turn up off a port in a Passenger Vessel or VLCC and call up asking if there is a berth available( Force Majure excepted).

Similarly I do not know many ex Merchant Captains who have had the hands on face to face dealings with suppliers/ trades people you will encounter on a yacht when they first enter the yachting trade.

How many times have you been on a Merchant Ship about to enter port and had the charterer ask you to steam somehwere else, book a table at a restaurant that has been booked out for months and make sure that all his guestS who were to be collected at the friat place the next morning are ferried to the new destination ASAP?

Most likely you have not read or you have not understood my reply. I cannot remember anywhere making comparisons between yachting and merchant navy or implying that somebody is superior from the other as you did. My only objection was the feeling i received that we are not suitable for the job, and honestly I posted my opinion. I am in the yachting industry and believe me I know quite well what a demanding owner means and what it takes trying to explain that the Saint Martin Bridge opens in regular hours or with one hour notice, while your guests wants to go to the lagoon in 5 minutes.

Regarding your other points I would rather not answer, whoever is familiar with the subject can understand and make its own conclusions.

Best Regards,

[airship]

world citizen, I would recommend that you read again my previous contributions to this thread. You might correctly accuse me of some provocation, you cannot really accuse me of disrespecting your profession (or the "industry") especially as you haven't been considerate enough to inform me (or the others reading this forum) of what it is you actually do, so that I can properly show my disrespect, if any was indeed forthcoming...

On the other hand, I would never ever envisage taking someone off a Very Large Crude Carrier and installing them directly as skipper onto any motor yacht. Though I can confirm that this is exactly what some Greek companies (who had their feet both in the merchant marine and private yachting sectors) attempted to do in recent times with somewhat mixed results to say the least.

Firstly, any yachts around today that are equipped with DP systems must be as rare as VLCCs with double-hulls and possessed of Ice Class 1A classification...

Secondly, I write having personally watched an experienced Greek master mariner on his first-ever outing after "transfer" from the command after many years aboard a large container ship to a modest 30m displacement motor yacht at the behest of the shipping company. This was in the Larnaca Marina. Having 2 motors each producing in excess of 450HP is small cheese to what you'd find on a large commercial vessel. The difference is in how you use it. For this particular master mariner, his experience lead him to believe that it was entirely in order that he engage the throttles "ahead" whilst leaving his stern-to berth and rely solely on the rudders for steerage and control...?! Needless to say, it was by sheer luck and wits that he managed to come to an "emergency stop" in the best tradition of the term, literally 2-3 metres away from the very solid breakwater surrounding the marina... Like far too many ex. MM officers with little experience of "small-boat" handling...?! Ask any deckie off a large yacht with fresh MM officers where it simply has to be one of these officers who drives the tenders - everytime they drive the tender for 10 minutes, it takes us half a day to fix the dents?!

Lastly, I personally deal with a number of Greek-run yachts and have done so for very many years. All of them are invariably headed by experienced and competent master mariners. That is to say, competent for yacht service. In the same way as you wouldn't expect a yacht skipper to just jump aboard a VLCC and conduct the ship from the Gulf into say Southampton (though when you think about it, why couldn't they - with tugs in assistance at each end - if a yacht can stop on a dime, the VLCC would just need several hundred's of thousands of dimes worth. Unfortunetly, yacht skippers wouldn't do it for the money some of these MMs accept... ), you can't expect everyone to simply walk off a commercial ship and assume that they have the necessary competence in all the facets required to running a private yacht successfully just like that.

But what you do have in the yachting industry today is a huge polarisation in earnings. On the one side, you have competent yachties and ex. MMs earning quite generous wages. On the other, there are equally competent mariners from developing nations where the skipper is lucky to earn what a deckie with 2 years' experience earns on another yacht. The difference often depends on who "sold" the yacht (or the idea of one) in the first place...

[K1W1]

Hi,

Worldcitizen I suggest you re read your own post before going off course.

I was simply trying to point out to you that there are differences between the two industries that go further than the tonnage and cargo.

There are many fine yacht crew who are ex Merchant Navy from a variety of nationalities. There are also a number who did not make the grade.

[world citizen]

Dear Airship,

Thanks for your reply. It is really difficult for me as well to understand your profile. Regarding mine obviously and as is explicitly stated in my profile is a MM currently a building captain for a quite two big project.
In my opinion by judging a bad manoeuvre of one individual, which can happen to any of us who are entitled to hold throttles, is not prudent. If, as you say, have worked with Greek Captains, and by any change you will visit Greece please check how some captains manoeuvre the coastal ships to the islands.
Overall, we do say the same think but with different words. As you can see in my thread I myself denote that the two industries have nothing in common but sea.
Closing the post because I think that we are drifting of the original thread off Teena I want to mention that you are touching a huge subject regarding “opportunity crews” who have an immediate effect in safety, operation, and development of both industries.

P.S in case that you missed the detail a VLCC is more than…..3000GT (Just joking )