January 25, 2011
If yacht captains could choose their bosses, they would pick yacht owners who trust them, respect their skills, and are willing to listen and participate.
“Trust is at the top of the list,” a captain said at this month’s From the Bridge luncheon in Ft. Lauderdale.
“He trusts me to manage his boat,” another captain said. “Really, he trusts me to manage his money.”
As usual, individual comments are not attributed to any one person in particular so as to encourage frank and open discussion. The attending captains are identified in a photograph above.
“I make the decisions because he doesn’t have time to hear about cutlass bearings,” a captain said. “He’s very smart in his business world, but he doesn’t know boating.”
“Mine knows how to boat, but he hired me for a reason,” another captain said. “He trusts me and gives me the authority.”
Most captains agreed that without trust, captains can find themselves, like one captain did, where he was called in to work while the regular captain was working.
“The owner didn’t trust his captain,” this captain said.
Several captains in attendance had worked for more than a decade with one owner, but they’ve all had many bosses and agreed on attributes that make a good employer.
“I think respect is big,” a captain said. “It’s important for the owner to respect the captain for the knowledge he brings.”
“Yes, we’re an asset, not a liability,” another captain said.
The captains said they prefer to work for an owner who listens to them in the same way he listens to the other experts, employees and managers he has hired in his business.
“It’s really important that they have the ability to listen,” a captain said. “Most of these guys are used to charging through in their arena. That’s how a lot of them got to where they are.
“But this is a new element they don’t have a clear understanding of and they need to educate themselves,” he said.
“Some confuse wealth with wisdom,” another captain said.
Several captains consider their work on the yacht as part of the owner’s business.
“I’m here to run your multimillion-dollar business,” one captain said. “I’m not just here to run your boat.”
“I like to say I run his Florida operations,” another captain said. “We really do more than just the boat. We do the cars, the motorcycles, everything else. They need to listen to us.”
Most captains in attendance said their relationship with the owner is better when the owner is interested in the yacht’s program. Uninterested owners often, eventually, sell their boats.
“I love when the owner is involved,” one captain said. “If he’s involved, then he uses the boat. I like when they want to do it all, go fishing, diving, put the scooters on the ground, everything.”
Involvement means the owner is more available and most of the captains said they prefer to know the owner well, that it helps understand his personality and how he wants his boat run.
“It’s good to spend time together with the owner,” a captain said. “It’s OK to be part of his family.”
But there are two sides to that equation, this captain said: the business side of the yacht and the entertainment side. Captains must make a distinction between the two.
“I had an owner who said, ‘I want to get in shape, I want to use my boat,”” a captain said of light-hearted times. “I said, ‘do I have the program for you ... squeegee’.”
“But when he’s in business mode, I just give him the facts,” another captain said.
One captain said he encourages owners’ involvement by sharing a progressive maintenance calendar.
“I show them the year, the filter changes, the maintenance, and they feel a part of it,” he said.
The captains said they draw the line at the owner being too involved in handling crew.
“Personal relationships with the owner and interior crew are inevitable,” one captain said. “It will happen. Those relationships can get close. But the captain has to protect the asset, the boat.”
“It ultimately needs to be the captain’s decision about the crew,” another captain said. “But you don’t want any power play between anybody.”
“As long as I have a seat at the table for hiring and firing,” said a third. “If someone has done something so egregious they have to be let go, I need to be able to get rid of them.”
One captain said it is vital for him to assign tasks to prevent crew being pulled in separate directions, but that owners will still give orders to crew.
“Owners like to do that, so they can be in charge,” another captain said. “But I need to know what’s going on. He can’t send the crew off on an errand when I have them slated for something else.”
“I prefer to know everything and then let me delegate,” a captain said, “But I know that’s not really how it is.”
The captains all agreed they prefer that the owner give them a budget for the boat and then let them do their job.
“It’s great if we don’t have to talk about every transaction,” a captain said.
One captain said he only tells the owner about transactions more than $5,000.
“It wastes so much time if you’re waiting for money to be OK’d,” he said.
Another captain pointed out that the privilege is earned by respecting that everything has to be done in the owner’s best interest.
“You have to remember, it’s his money,” this captain said.
Several of the captains who have worked with yacht management companies said they would rather the owner not use them.
“As far as a management company, I prefer to be in charge,” a captain said. “I don’t need any more management.”
“Definitely no to management,” another captain said. “It’s just another layer of bureaucracy, plus they need to justify their fees.”
One captain said his choices become limited with a management company because it often chooses contractors for their own purposes.
“They use their own companies to do work, painters and whatever, and they get it on that end too,” this captain said.
Another captain said he was required to run decisions through an owner’s assistant who knew nothing about yachts. A lot of time is spent educating them on what is needed to keep a vessel well maintained and operational.
On the other hand, another captain said that if a yacht charters back-to-back, the captain and crew do need support.
“But you can contract that out yourself,” a second said.
“Management companies get paid to do our job,” said a third. “I see no advantage to have a management company except it insulates the owner from the captain.”
The entire yacht program can hinge on the working relationship between the captain and the boss. It can make or break a job, said a captain, and that’s why it is so important for the owner to have most of the traits considered desirable by the group.
“When I’m being interviewed by an owner, I interview him, too.”
If you make your living working as a yacht captain, e-mail dorie@the-triton.com for an invitation to our next monthly Bridge luncheon.
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