Getting work as crew on a yacht is a great way to
A series of flights can get you around the world in no time at all. In fact, you could be travelling so fast, your pants will be lagging behind around your ankles. Around the world ticket prices offer incredible value too, but there are other ways to travel. Other ways that involve adventure, the element of chance, nature’s rule, and a lot of style. I’m not talking Pogo Sticks here, I’m talking Big Blue Taxi’s.
Yachts, there are thousands of them and…they’re breeding! Although it may seem quite a mission, it is very possible to sail around the world by simply hitching lifts on yachts. Yachts need crew and quite often they struggle to get crew, which is where ‘we’, the travellers come in. It is not for the traveller with a schedule though, a 3 day voyage can easily take a week and so on. The pace of sailing depends on the wind, but the pace of the sailing is very much part of the experience.
Getting a Lift
There are bucket loads of Internet sailing magazines and yacht club sites, most of which have message boards. Do a search using the words “yacht, sailing, crew” and you’ll be bombarded with site addresses. On the message boards you should be able to leave your own message in the hope that a skipper looking for crew will spot it. This has worked for me…once. One site in particular that sticks in my mind as a good starting point is www.sailfree.com.
You could also try an agency. The world’s biggest is probably ‘Crewseekers‘. For a fee these agencies will match your particulars and desired destination with a database of yachts that need crew and vice versa.
The best way to get moving is to put yourself about. Find out where all the international yachts come in and which marina’s they use. Once you get to a marina, just ask around. If you can, go from boat to boat and ask everyone you see. Marina’s also have notice boards, so go armed with a flyer and a drawing pin. Yachts that need crew will often advertise on the notice boards too.
Experience
To have experience is an advantage but if you don’t it doesn’t always matter. Sailing is very hands on and it’s not exactly brain surgery. All you really need to know to get started is which of your two hands is your right hand. From there you’ll be able to work out that the hand left over will be your left hand. Once that’s all sorted you’ll soon learn that Right is actually Starboard and that Left is actually Port. Skippers will tell you what you need to know as you go along and the basics are pretty easy to pick up.
Cost
“Nothing’s for Free”: who the hell said that?! It normally works one of three ways. Sometimes if it’s a big yacht (Gin Palace), you’ll get taken on as crew, get a free ride and sometimes get paid. Other yachts will take you on and ask for a contribution towards costs, that should only entail food and drink, as fuel and mooring fee’s are down to the yacht owner. Finally there are yachts that will charge you a fee per day or per week. If this cost is over reasonable expenses, then you could consider that the skipper is operating commercially. In that case they should be licensed and insured to do so.
The Skipper
If you’re offered a ride, ask some questions about the skipper and the yacht. The ocean is a beautiful place to be, but it is no place to be with a complacent or incompetent skipper. Questions to ask should include what qualifications the skipper holds, Yacht Master is a good one. What equipment the yacht has, Radio and GSP are essential, Radar and Echo Sounder are bonus big boy toys. Also ask about the sail plan and exactly what you will expected be to do. If the skipper talks to you about navigating coastal waters at night, whilst he sleeps and you’ve never even sailed a plastic boat in the bath, then it may be best to wait for another ride to come along.
If Things Go Wrong…
I recently crewed on a yacht sailing from Sydney to the Whitsunday Islands. The first section, Sydney to Brisbane, was skippered by the yacht owner. The second section, Brisbane to the Whitsunday’s, was due to be skippered by his father.
We set sail and were off to a good start, onboard were myself, the skipper, his wife and two other backpackers who had never sailed before. The skipper in this case claimed to be a Yacht Master. However, after the first few days it was clear that he had a complacent attitude to sailing. A series of events followed that caused the other two backpackers to jump ship after four days.
On the first night, the two backpackers were given a 15 minute briefing on coastal navigation and then left to sail a four hour shift, whilst the skipper went off to get some sleep. Coastal navigation is challenging enough in the day-time but at night-time it has to performed correctly, as a yacht is effectively sailing from instruments more than vision. In the next few days we experienced engine failure, the skipper anchored the yacht in a bay close to breaking surf, the navigation lights were found to be faulty and we even hit a sand bank…three times.
Once we reached Brisbane I decided to stay on for the ride to the Whitsunday’s, believing that the new skipper would have to be better. What’s that saying? “From the frying pan into the fire”. We left Brsibane at 4am and as we sailed down the river into Moreton Bay the skipper said:
“Now I’ve got you blokes out here, I can tell you the weather forecast” (Alarm Bells began to ring), “15-20 Knots [wind speed], increasing to 20-25 knots”.
By 2:30pm we were 24 miles out, the swell was 5 to 6 metres and the wind was hitting 40 knots, that’s considered storm force. Our predicament wasn’t too favourable, the jib was shredding in the wind and the yacht was almost surfing down waves out of control.
To make things just perfect the skipper elected not to go below and locate our position on the chart because he felt a little seasick.
There were two others on the yacht who had joined in Brisbane, again they had never sailed before. My experience, although reasonable, had never extended to navigation but in this situation I gave myself a crash course in using a GPS, found our location and set a course for Noosa Bay where we could hide from the growing storm. It took us 5 hours to get there, fortunately the two novices were on the ball and played an essential part in getting us out of the shit.
Once in Noosa Bay we found that the Goose Neck had partially cracked. This is a piece of metal that attaches the mast to the boom. Had it completely snapped out to sea in the storm, we would have been well and truly in the ‘fire’. Two days later, the three of us happily jumped ship.
That is one extreme of the whole sailing ‘gig’. Sailing is really a great way to get about and even a better way to see world. So check the skipper out, have a drink with him and go on your gut feeling, you always have the option to say ‘no’ and you can always jump ship if things aren’t quite plain sailing.
Questions?
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