So you have watched a season of Below Deck, worked out that people get paid to do this, and now you want in.
Good. It is a genuinely brilliant industry, and it changed my life. But almost everything written about getting into it is either an advert for a training course or someone who did it once in 2014. So here is the honest version, from thirty years of doing the job and then hiring for it.
Some of this you will not want to hear. Read it anyway — the people who get hired are the ones who arrived knowing what they were walking into.
Be honest with yourself first
Before you spend a penny on training, work out whether you actually want this job rather than the photographs of it.
You will live at work. Your bedroom is fifteen steps from your workplace and you share it with someone you did not choose. There is no going home after a bad day, no closing your front door, and no getting away from a colleague you have fallen out with. For a lot of people that is the hardest part of yachting, and it has nothing to do with the work itself.
What you get in return is real. No rent, no bills, no food costs, so most of your salary is genuinely saved. You will see places most people never reach. And you will be handed responsibility far earlier than you would ashore — I have watched twenty-four-year-olds run departments that would take fifteen years to reach in a shore career.
If you are practical, you get on with people easily, and you do not need much personal space, you will probably love it. If you need routine, privacy, or a clear line between work and home, be honest with yourself now rather than after you have paid for the courses.
What you need before you start
Two things are mandatory and non-negotiable. Everything else is optional at first.
- STCW Basic Safety Training — a five-day course covering sea survival, fire fighting, first aid and personal safety. No yacht can legally employ you without it. It is not difficult, but it is physical, and there is a pool.
- ENG1 medical — a medical certificate from an approved doctor. Book it early; availability gets tight in season and it is the thing most likely to hold you up.
Beyond those two, Powerboat Level 2 is close to essential for deck work — almost every deck role involves driving tenders, and it is the single highest-value course a new deckhand can add. For interior and galley, a food safety certificate helps. Neither is required to be hired, but both remove a reason to say no, and when a captain is choosing between two people who both seem fine, that is exactly what decides it.
What you do not need is an expensive package deal bundling six courses together. Do STCW and ENG1, get out there, and add tickets once you know which department you are actually in.
What it costs to get started
Nobody tells you this part clearly, so here it is. You are looking at roughly £1,200 to £1,800 for STCW, a few hundred for the ENG1, and then flights and living costs while you look. Budget for eight to ten weeks of accommodation and food before you earn anything.
Crew houses in Antibes and Palma are the standard answer, and they cost a fraction of a hotel. They are also where you will hear about day work before it is advertised anywhere, which makes them worth it even if the bunk beds are grim.
Plan for the whole runway, not just the courses. The people who fail are almost never the ones who lacked qualifications. They are the ones who ran out of money three weeks before the season started.
One thing you should never pay for: a crew agency finding you work. Under MLC 2006 it is illegal for us to charge you a fee for placement, and it always will be. If an agency asks you for money to be put forward for a job, walk away.
Where to be, and when
Being in the right place at the right time matters more than any qualification you can buy. Yachts crew up before the season, not during it, and you cannot do this from your sofa.
- Mediterranean season: be in Antibes or Palma between March and May. Antibes suits deck and is walkable; Palma has more yards and refit work.
- Caribbean season: be in Fort Lauderdale or Antigua between October and November. Check visa requirements early — this catches people out every single year.
Arriving after the rush means competing for the roles nobody else wanted. Arriving early means day work, and day work is how most people find their first permanent job.
If your timing is wrong, wait for the next window rather than turning up in July. A season is only a few months long, and arriving mid-way means everyone has already crewed up.
Dock walking and day work
Dock walking means presenting yourself at yachts in person, early in the morning, with a printed CV, dressed as you would for work. Polo shirt, shorts, deck shoes. Not a suit, and not last night's clothes.
It is uncomfortable. Everybody hates it. It also still works, because it demonstrates the three things a CV cannot: that you turn up, that you present well, and that you are actually there when a boat suddenly needs somebody.
Go early — before eight. Be polite, be brief, and leave when you are told they have nothing. The crew you are interrupting are busy, and being remembered as the person who was pleasant about being turned away is worth more than you think. Yachting is a very small industry and everybody talks.
Day work is casual paid work, usually washdowns, detailing or helping through a busy turnaround. Take all of it. It puts you in front of a crew who can recommend you, it teaches you the rhythm of a boat, and captains hire people they have already watched working far more often than they hire from a database.
Which entry role suits you
There are two realistic ways in, and picking the right one matters more than people realise.
- Deckhand — exterior work. Washdowns, teak, paint, varnish, tenders and watersports. Physical, outdoors, early starts. Powerboat Level 2 makes a real difference here.
- Steward or stewardess — interior. Housekeeping, service, laundry, guest care. Detail-driven and relentless during guest trips. Previous high-end hospitality transfers well.
On smaller yachts the two blur, and you will be asked to help across departments during busy weeks. That is normal, and being willing to do it is one of the fastest ways to build a reputation.
Galley and engineering are generally not entry points. Chefs arrive from shore kitchens and engineers from shore trades or the Y-ticket route, rather than working up from deck.
What you will actually earn
Entry-level pay is usually somewhere around €2,500 to €3,500 a month for a first-season deckhand or junior stew, and it climbs quickly with experience and vessel size. Because you are not paying rent, bills or food, most crew save the large majority of it.
Do not choose your first boat on salary alone. A slightly lower-paying job on a yacht that cruises hard is worth far more than a well-paid one that sits in the marina, because sea time is the currency everything after this is priced in. Detailed figures by role are in the yacht crew salary guide.
Getting registered properly
Register with agencies — but do not treat registration as a strategy. A CV sitting in a database does nothing on its own. It works when it is combined with being physically present in a hub, doing day work, and following up like a human being rather than sending the same email every fortnight.
Make sure your CV is in yachting format. It is genuinely different from a shore CV, and getting it wrong is the single most common reason perfectly good candidates get passed over. Photograph at the top, vessel details on every role, and one page. The yachting CV format guide walks through exactly what that looks like, and there is a template you can work from.
The mistakes I see most
- Turning up too late in the season. The most common and the most expensive. March to May for the Med, not July.
- Spending everything on courses and nothing on runway. You need to be able to live while you look.
- Treating day work as beneath you. It is the interview.
- A shore CV with no vessel details. "Deckhand, 2024" tells a captain nothing at all.
- Sending the same message to fifty agencies. We can tell, and it is the fastest way to be ignored.
- Going quiet after one rejection. Most first jobs come from somebody who said no in April remembering you in May.
Where to start today
Book your STCW and your ENG1. Get your CV into yachting format. Work out your season and buy the flight. Then get yourself into a crew house and start walking docks.
That is genuinely it. It is not complicated — it is just uncomfortable, and most people never get past the uncomfortable part. The ones who do are working by June.
When you are ready, register with us. Your CV is read by one person rather than filtered by software, and if you are not ready yet you will be told what to fix rather than hearing nothing at all.