Career Advice or Help

gary2sail

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I am looking for some career advice or help, please. My dream job would be as a skipper on a charter yacht in the UK.

I have extensive experience of sailing in the Inner and Outer Hebrides in Scotland and the Solent in the south of England. I have sailed many different types of sailing yachts (from 30ft up to 50ft, makes and models). I have sailed over 4,000 nm, over 100 days aboard and 85-night hours. I have gained a Yachtmaster Coastal Skipper certificate of competence with a commercial endorsement which expired last year.

Plus, all the RYA courses from Competent Crew to Yachtmaster Coastal Skipper and a VHF, Diesel Engine, Professional Practices and Responsibility, STCW 95 regulations V1/1, Sea Survival and Powerboat level.
To renew my commercial endorsement, I must do a First Aid course and get an ENG 1 medical certificate.

My last cruise/ training on a sailing yacht was when I did my Yachtmaster offshore practical courses, I did not take the exam because of tiredness. I am currently unemployed, so paying for courses and training would be difficult. I am looking for something like an apprenticeship etc?
If I got my commercial endorsement, what sort of career could I get?
Please, any help or advice that would get me my dream job, would be grateful.
Thank you
Gary Underwood
Email: saltyseadog10@yahoo.com
LinkedIn Profile: www.linkedin.com/in/Gary-Underwood
 

ridgy

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Are you saying that you went on a YM prep week but chose not to take the exam? In that case the school would have offered you another exam date? They often suggest (politely) to candidates who they think are not ready that they come back another time to do the exam.
If not then if you've already passed YM coastal then a school will let you take the exam with them for a modest fee?

Your LI profile says that you failed your YM exam because of tiredness. I really wouldn't advertise that, it's not a good look. Sailing often involves tiredness.

Plenty of work around as a supermarket delivery driver etc to pay for courses.

Do your YM offshore exam and some deliveries as mate to earn some money and get established.

Maybe this:
PYD - Offshore Sailing Programme | Professional Yacht Deliveries | Professional Yacht Deliveries
 

gary2sail

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Thankyou for your re
Are you saying that you went on a YM prep week but chose not to take the exam? In that case the school would have offered you another exam date? They often suggest (politely) to candidates who they think are not ready that they come back another time to do the exam.
If not then if you've already passed YM coastal then a school will let you take the exam with them for a modest fee?

Your LI profile says that you failed your YM exam because of tiredness. I really wouldn't advertise that, it's not a good look. Sailing often involves tiredness.

Plenty of work around as a supermarket delivery driver etc to pay for courses.

Do your YM offshore exam and some deliveries as mate to earn some money and get established.

Maybe this:
PYD - Offshore Sailing Programme | Professional Yacht Deliveries | Professional Yacht Deliveries
Thankyou for your reply. I have deleted the bit about tiredness. I also send a email to PYD.
 

gary2sail

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The PYD offshore program there is a fee of £4,000, which I do not have. If I have that £4,000 , I would go for my Yachtmaster offshore with a Commercial Endorsement. Then go for an Cruising instructor which wound only cost about £2,000 to get my up to a instructor.
It the money that is the biggest problem.
 

mm42

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Get yourself an ENG1, and a first aid course and get yourself on Crewseekers and see what comes up. You're probably too late for the summer season this year for working on the smaller passenger yachts but might get some commercial work to fill up the coffers towards your Yachtmaster.

When I wanted to make a career at sea I did just that, got myself commercially endorsed, and an ENG1, and took a job on a little 24m cruise ship in the inner and outer Hebrides. It was tiring work, up at 0600 and working till 2100 every day for terrible pay, but it meant that I was applying for jobs from a seagoing role, rather than my former shore based career. It showed prospective employers that I was safe and trustworthy at sea, could stand a watch without issue, and could live in crew quarters and in close proximity to other crew (not everyone is cut out for that kind of life). After a season I got a job that I absolutely love, and pays far better, but I do look back with fondness on my year on the west coast.

I had quite a few offers to crew sail training yachts, they always seemed to need paid crew, so it might be worth having a look at them too.

Good luck with it and don't give up, even a bad day at sea is better than sitting in an office ashore.
 

ylop

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My dream job would be as a skipper on a charter yacht in the UK.

I would go for my Yachtmaster offshore with a Commercial Endorsement. Then go for an Cruising instructor which wound only cost about £2,000 to get my up to a instructor.

To my mind charter skipper and sailing instructor are not the same thing - at a glance they might seem similar, you take a group of people who don't have the skills and experience to sail by themselves out on the water, but I think they are different. The former is customer service / hospitality focussed role: your guests will be on holiday, they may want to do lots of sailing or just hop from place to place and lots of eating / drinking, some might be keen to learn from you but others will expect you to do much of the real work. The other role still needs lots of customer service skills but is more about teaching/pedagogy than sailing. Has potential to become quite repetitive, structured based around syllabus etc. e.g. a day spend doing MOB and pontoon bashing might be frustrating if the weather is great sailing but you need to cover the course work. As a new instructor likely to be doing lots of people learning basics rather than more interesting stuff.
 
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Uricanejack

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Probably a bit late for this season.

We don’t hire in UK so just general comment.
A lot depends on supply and demand.

We start taking applications in the early new year and are usually in hiring mode early spring to complete training in time for the start of summer season.
Unless you bring higher level certificates and experience.

Start looking for entry level positions. Ie deckhand.
You can try going through crewing agencies but I recommend avoiding those which want to charge you money up front.
Most reputable crewing agencies we deal with charge us.
As a general rule we contact training schools while courses are in progress.
We are completing with other employer’s.

We will hire a variety of candidates who meet our minimum requirements. The training schools just provide an easy first choice for us. Or a good leg up to prospective new hires.

We hire in different locations. Popular locations we get to pick and choose from a larger pool of candidates.
Remote locations we struggle to find crew and often take who we can get.

This time of year look in remote less popular locations they probably have similar problems finding good crew.
If you can’t find any work on the water.
Find something related.
We carry passengers. Some experience in a service industry dealing with the public is a good indication someone might work out well.
Yachts tend to hire someone by recommendation. Someone knows someone.
Quite a few of our crew go work on yachts for a while then come back later.

As a basic minimum your certificate has to valid or we just can’t use you. so get it sorted ASAP.
 

ashtead

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Plenty of jobs at Carnivall and Royal Carribean to get you afloat and earn some money -Carnival in Soton and Royal at Weybridge so check out their vacancies for jobs (other lines exist)
 

Obi

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Again, a question about the tiredness. If you did not sit the practical exam, then you are almost certainly going to need to address that. I do not want to be a neersayer, but part of the point of the RYA YM exam is that is lasts up to 24 hours and you can end up doing consecutive exams for more than one student so it can be longer. This is part of the assessment - can you handle a crew and a yacht, when everyone is ill, sea sick, wounded, bits are falling off the boat, the weather is awful and you had no sleep for days. OK, maybe I threw in the kitchen sink there, but with all sincerity you would have failed it if you were not able to cope with a yacht and crew due to tiredness. That is part of the practical exam.

What were you thinking to go so far and then let a lack of sleep stop you taking the exam? All that work towards a goal and to not chase it to the end seems a bit odd to me. Sure, I can understand that if you suffer seriously from tiredness (some kind of medical condition) then you might have been dangerous, but any YM examiner would not have let you get into trouble, they do not want candidates to kill anyone least of all themselves.

I am not really aware of any professional organisation that employs day skippers as skippers, but you might find a crew position. However, yet another caveat, Halcyon deliveries only employ qualified YM as far as I know even for crew.

Like any career, you need to start at the bottom and work up. Trying to get a skipper position early on in a career with a YM cert is possible, but usually only via one or two routes.

A YM whether commercially endorsed or not is just a ticket to get through the first gate. Most commercial positions require some significant experience on top. You can pick this up by working for free as crew with some delivery companies, I know Halcyon Yachts are often looking for unpaid crew. If you want to skipper for them you are going to need 20,000 sea miles, and they will help you get your ocean YM which is no bad thing if you are looking to work commercially. Working as unpaid crew for them will help you build your miles up towards the 20k mark, but only if they like you. If they do like you and as you progress they think you are capable enough then there is potential to get the paid skipper position. However, if you only want to do this in the UK then that is going to be severely limiting to your progress.

I do not know about crewing the UK charter market

As far as I know the crew positions on private yachts through agencies tend to want youngsters, good looking ones with middle class backgrounds. Older people would probably baulk at the ridiculous demands of the industry and they can be ridiculous.

My advice and it is the best thing I can think of, is give Sunsail a call, Polly is lovely but tough (if she is still there). They have UK boats, do have UK based skippers on their books for things like their events/regattas etc and to be honest if you really want to break into the market I would say bite the bullet and get over to Greece or somewhere like that and do a season with them. OK. Not UK based, but once you have some commercial experience and additional miles it will help. That said, you will never build up a lot of miles doing Sunsail in their locations. You might be able to get delivery work with them, and it will not be that long before their yachts are heading back to base, or even some heading over to the Caribbean.

As the months pass on, there will be a lot of boats heading over to the Caribbean. A great way to get miles.

So, in short, if you are deadly serious about this serious minded career path you will need to knuckle down for a bit and get stuck in, as well as perhaps either waiting a long while for a role that fits your current profile, or suck it up and get overseas and start clocking up the miles and experience. How tough can it be? Well, imagine being on a long passage and your crew goes down, it is your responsibility regardless of how tired you are, you need to function in all ways, think problems through, assess risks, make plans, be strong, agile and safe, capable of using tools, dealing with all systems on board, electric, motors, everything and do so with a clear mind. It is a tough job. I have doubts because after all teh work you put in, you allowed tiredness to stop you at the final hurdle and if I was recruiting for a position this would not endear you to me. So, if you are serious then put that behind you and grab the bull by the horns.

Do keep us all posted on your progress, I would love to know how you get on, and with all sincerity, good luck. My final advice, get your YM and commercial endorsement, then go and bash a few sunsail boats around in the sunshine, get wildly drunk in amazing places with other sailors and swim every day in the sunshine. I did it years ago as a bareboat skipper and loved it. I'd hate the flotilla roles.
 
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gary2sail

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I would like a career as freelance charter yacht Skipper in the UK. I have a Yachtmaster Coastal Skipper certificate. What I would like to know is what certificate and experience do you need to work as freelance charter yacht skipper in the UK?
I am going for my Yachtmaster Offshore certificate with commercial endorsement will this be alright.
I might be going also looking into get a instructor certificate, is there still a shortage of instructors in the yacht industry?
 

SaltIre

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I would like a career as freelance charter yacht Skipper in the UK. I have a Yachtmaster Coastal Skipper certificate. What I would like to know is what certificate and experience do you need to work as freelance charter yacht skipper in the UK?
I am going for my Yachtmaster Offshore certificate with commercial endorsement will this be alright.
I might be going also looking into get a instructor certificate, is there still a shortage of instructors in the yacht industry?
If you want to charter a yacht why not just contact some charter companies and ask them? Or are you hoping people will pay you to take them on a charter?
 

gary2sail

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I would like a career as freelance charter yacht Skipper in the UK. I have a Yachtmaster Coastal Skipper certificate. What I would like to know is what certificate and experience do you need to work as freelance charter yacht skipper in the UK?
I am going for my Yachtmaster Offshore certificate with commercial endorsement will this be alright.
I might be going also looking into get a instructor certificate, is there still a shortage of instructors in the yacht industry?
 

gary2sail

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To my mind charter skipper and sailing instructor are not the same thing - at a glance they might seem similar, you take a group of people who don't have the skills and experience to sail by themselves out on the water, but I think they are different. The former is customer service / hospitality focussed role: your guests will be on holiday, they may want to do lots of sailing or just hop from place to place and lots of eating / drinking, some might be keen to learn from you but others will expect you to do much of the real work. The other role still needs lots of customer service skills but is more about teaching/pedagogy than sailing. Has potential to become quite repetitive, structured based around syllabus etc. e.g. a day spend doing MOB and pontoon bashing might be frustrating if the weather is great sailing but you need to cover the course work. As a new instructor likely to be doing lots of people learning basics rather than more interesting stuff.
I know that there are two, I am trying to think which one would be the best option for me as a career.
I would like the charter yacht Skipper option.
 
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