How to get Started in Yachting

Before leaving home

There are quite a few things that you must consider before embarking in a career in yachting. You must be very prepared in ways which at first might not seem that important but later can cause you some aggravation. Listed below are some suggestions on what you should do before leaving home.

-Set up a post address for all your mail to go. It is a good idea to use someone you can trust such as your parents, close family or very close friend. This way they can email you if anything important comes in and forward it to you. Once you are over seas you can set up something different but at first this works best. Some yachts will give you an address you can use.

-email address, this is practically essential for obvious reasons. It is very important to use a good address which does not include strange punctuation, rude names, and suggestive aurums. The use of these items will come across as being unprofessional. The next thing is to pay for your email account. With Hotmail or Yahoo you can pay around $10usd a year and get a large in box. Therefore your account will not be cancelled for not logging on in regular intervals.

-Organizing your banking for obvious reasons is important. First set up an account with internet access. This is very important! Next try and get at least one Visa card, I recommend two. You need these cards for backup but also you will find yourself shopping online more than ever e.g. If you were based in Spain on a yacht, English books and English software is hard to get hold of and online shops can be a god send. If possible set up an offshore back account is very helpful. This keeps your money away from your country if residence and you then can control how much and how often it enters your home back accounts. For example Lloyds or HSBC offshore they can set up accounts in usd, pound and euro

-It is very important to have a home address. When you apply for an American B1 B2 visa (a visa used in yachting for going in and out the USA) you must have a real address in you home country for the forms. (Never lie to US immigration this could destroy your yachting carrier).

-Health cover is vital especially if you travel to the USA. (The price of health care in the US is phenomenal) Allot of people use BUPA international but there are a numbers of different providers out there.

-Try and get as much boating experience as you can get. You could go to local sailing clubs and crew for racing. Possibly there is a local cruise boat that might do dinner or booze cruises. Offer to do a little work experience aboard. This is a good way to see if you get sea sick. If so yachting may not be the career for you.

-If you are considering working interior get experience in good restaurants for silver service practice. Even a cleaning job in a hotel can be helpful.

-With engineering diversity is the name of the game you may have fix everything from the toilets to the Gen sets to the Air conditioning. Any experience in refrigeration, electronics, navigation equipment, computers/computer networking, hydraulics, welding, and general household machinery etc will be of great benefit

-Have a resume ready but keep this either on your laptop or a disk, don’t carry a hard copy especially if you’re going to America to find work on a boat! For obvious reasons.

Where to go

This is a bit of a dilemma for a lot of crew. There are advantages and disadvantages to all areas where most yachting jobs are found.

-Palma Mallorca Spain. This is my favorite location. As it is for many other crews. This results in many people competing for the same jobs.

-Antibes France. This is a great place it has a lot of crew agencies and a lot of day work. It also has a lot of training organizations for crew. The big disadvantage is the price of accommodation is very high. If you don’t get work quickly and the season moves on the price of accommodation can double or triple as summer warms up.

- Ft Lauderdale USA. Is one of the biggest places to go. It has different systems in place from Europe when it comes to day work. There are a lot of crew agencies and lots of boats. The downside is usually you should have a B1 B2 visa before you look for work and it is a lot easer to get this visa when you already have a job. It’s a bit of a catch 22.

Other crew hot spots

-St Maarten in the Caribbean has a large marina for a number of yachts. It has become a lot more difficult find day work due to some restrictions on getting into the marinas and local laws.

-Antigua also in the Caribbean. Can be a great place. Day work should be no problem and there are two crew agencies to help find you work.

So you are on the way

You have just arrived in the country of your choice to start you yachting career. Now What?
After a good nights sleep clean yourself up a get all your resume and related paper work ready. When you present yourself to the crew agencies; YOU MUST BE WELL DRESSED BE CLEAN SHAVEN SHORTISH HAIRCUT (for men) AND KNOW WHAT POSSITION YOU ARE LOOKING FOR!. After this spend some time finding out where the marinas are and ask a few boats where the crews “hangouts” are.
The next morning before 8am Walk the docks looking for day work. You should ask for the person such as the first mate of chief stew, not for the captains (unless the boat is fairly small). With the use of the crew agencies, Crew “hangouts” and Day work hopefully, some good will come of it all and you may land yourself a season job or even a permanent one.

Good Luck