MATES VS CAPTAINS

I would be prepared to bet that there is a glut of captains out there. The talk these days is of the value of experience and not simply qualifications alone. As less and less boats have been bought and sold over the last year, more captains than normal have been forced to seek the assistance of the crew agencies than the oft used connections with brokers and yacht management players. It all points to the market seeking a higher ascertainable quality of captain.

The high numbers of applicants available and looking for jobs mean that employers have to work hard to screen desirable attributes above and beyond the standard qualifications and this in turn means that decision makers are forced to confront general notions of what is better or worse in a Captain’s CV.

At the apex of crew positions are the captains of large yachts. Anything is large if you have to polish it but large here is meant to be around the 50 metre mark, full displacement boats. One of the standard contentions I hear of regularly is the difference between a captain that has worked up from smaller to larger boats, compared to a captain who has accumulated the majority of their experience as a mate. But with emphasis arguably focused beyond simply the ticket you hold and more how you got it. Is there a particular benefit to either or is personality and ability the predominant factor. Let’s be honest boats and jobs are all different, so is there a general benefit of one set of experiences over another?

The route of a captain from small to large yachts is often a very different learning environment to that of a large yacht alone. Perhaps the biggest difference is the reliance on many smaller yachts of the captain as an engineer. Or at the least a troubleshooting engineer. For any captain who has also served as a yacht’s engineer there may well be benefits down the line to knowing what the hell the engineer on a large boat is talking about. Perhaps in some cases it relates to a higher level of respect for engineers. On many large yachts, the mate does not get very close to the engineering of the vessel very often if at all.

The lack of formality sometimes acceptable on smaller boats is often not suited to larger vessels. Imagine a vessel with only four crewmembers observing the strict duty roster of a larger vessel and being on watch one out of four nights? Informality is a particular issue where there is a formal safety management system as required by most flag states on larger vessels. There is simply too much physical work to do on a small vessel to be able to keep up to date with the sort of paperwork required by some larger vessels that operate mini ISM for example.

Larger vessels do tend to travel further on average than smaller vessels so it may be the case that experience as a mate could yield more sea time. However small vessels seem to do more short trips and so the experience of leaving and entering ports for a small boat captain could be significantly more than a large vessel’s mate. The same could be said for boat handling. Not every Mate aboard a large yacht is given the opportunity to ‘drive’ and many are not what you may call a safe pair of hands when it comes to handling a yacht.

What about management experience? The mate of a large yacht is a tricky management position. Sometimes he or she has to represent the crew to the captain and sometimes it’s the other way around. All the while a mate has to earn the respect of the crew, captain and guests. It can be an awkward position, calling for balls, brains and diplomacy in equal measures. Compare this to a captain who has only dealt with a few crewmembers at most in a less structured setting. If this was the sum total of your management practice; installing and maintaining a disciplined, ordered workplace that is both enjoyable and motivating could be a significant challenge.Well at first glance is does seem that there are clear differences between the typical paths taken to get to the ‘top’ in terms of yacht jobs. But the question is whether the differences are relevant. I am interested to get feedback from the industry, as advising crew members on which route to take, is an inevitable part of the work of someone in my job.