July 1, 2005
There’s a megayacht – two, actually – based in Ft. Lauderdale where the crew get at least eight days off a month, and they can accumulate up to four weeks vacation a year. A majority is married, have children and homes, and live a life away from their boats.
On these megayachts, first officers regularly take the wheel to gain experience and confidence at the helm. Second officers, too. And captains are confident to leave junior officers in command while they take time off between hectic trips with owners and guests.
Attendees of The Triton’s recent Connection event heard all the details of the crew rotation and relief system in place in the Gallant Lady fleet. At one point, one attendee couldn’t take it any more.
"That job doesn’t exist," said Phil Nicholas, owner of crew placement agency Carole Manto Inc. and a working relief engineer. "It’s too good to be true."
But it is true. A crew of 40 run the five Gallant Lady yachts operated by JM Family Enterprises, a family-built corporation of car dealerships and charitable foundations based in Deerfield Beach, Fla.
Half of the existing crew were hired with no experience and the company counts employee tenure in double-digit years instead of double-digit months. Though more a relief system for the senior officers than a true job-sharing program, it works because the owner wants it to, said Tim Griffin, manager of marine operations for the fleet and the Connection speaker.
"The philosophy of the approach is very land-based corporate – you have a staff of people you train to move up," said Griffin, himself once an engineer in the fleet.
The Gallant Lady fleet is made up of five yachts – a 172-foot Feadship, a 160-foot Delta, two 65-foot sportfish yachts and a 58-foot Sea Ray. Two captains and four first officers fill the top four positions in the fleet in a relief system. Four engineers and chefs also work in a relief system on the two megayachts.
The rest of the crew is in a rotation among all five yachts. It’s the crew’s make-up that is unique: In addition to the first officer, there are second and third officers as well as first, second and third mates – and that’s it. Any crew who joins the fleet, regardless of experience or tickets, begins as a third mate and works his or her way up.
The mates share the duties of stewards/stewardesses, servers and bartenders to keep yacht guests comfortable. The three officers are in charge of the deck department, running the tenders and overseeing most other operational duties.
In reality, though, there are few distinctions between interior and deck crew.
"Everyone does everything," said Gallant Lady Engineer John Benedict, a 16-year crew member who transitioned into yachting from the oil field. Though engineers do not officially rotate on deck as the mates and officers do, all crew are expected to help out when they can.
"In the evening, whoever is not serving guests does the staterooms – the captain, first officer, engineer," he said. "It makes it really hard for a third mate to say ‘I don’t like doing this anymore’ when they see the officers doing it."
That system allows Gallant Lady crew to have scheduled time off and gives everyone the opportunity to advance their skills.
"You have to take the approach that you’ll bump everyone up a step," Griffin said. "If each one steps up, the first mate becomes captain, the bosun becomes first mate, the deckhand becomes bosun. With the six ranks, it gives everyone something to work toward."
Make no mistake – though the Gallant Lady crew get eight days off a month plus one extra day a quarter, they cannot take them every weekend the way land-based workers do. With guests onboard, they work their two weeks or longer with no days off, much like any other yacht crew.
But there is a benefit.
"The big thing for us is we don’t lose our days off," said Capt. Val Sousa, who operates the Feadship. Sousa is married with two young boys he sees regularly. "But it’s still a lot of travel. There’s no getting around the fact that you’re not home a lot."
It used to be that Gallant Lady crew got five days off a month, until one senior crew member decided to leave. The owner asked why and when he found out, he increased the number of days off to eight, the same as folks who work weekdays on land.
"That’s what it takes to make this work: the commitment from the owner," Griffin said. "You start with the number of days off; you have to establish that first. There has to be a scheduled number of days off per month."
A main criticism of job-sharing or rotation programs is the awkwardness, for the crew and owner, of having multiple leaders. Gallant Lady solved that problem over the years by assigning only one named captain per megayacht.
"When we started this, we had four captains and we found that the whole operation of the yacht changed whenever the captain changed," Griffin said. "The mood of the crew changed, the operation on board, everything. Then when the old captain came back, it changed again."
Now there are just two captains, and the first officers step up to take over in relief. They are less likely to institute their own systems, he said, opting instead simply to continue running the yacht the way the captain did.
Griffin did note that it can be difficult to keep first officers who are ready to move up.
"With us, you don’t have to leave to move up," he said. "There is one first officer now who is completely capable of being a captain, and when a captain’s position opens up, everyone knows who it will be. But he remains a first officer, given the duties of running a yacht like a captain and given bonuses to keep his salary in line with what he might earn on another yacht as captain. We want to keep him."
In a relief system, sometimes there is insecurity on the part of the assigned crew that the owner ultimately could prefer the relief crew and replace them. Gallant Lady simply ensures crew they will not be replaced.
"You’ve got to check your ego at the door," Capt. Sousa said. "I can’t have time off and neither will they" if captains are too protective of their turf.
Relief seems to work well for the Gallant Lady fleet. Each year, the captains, engineers and chefs are assigned a different boat and rank, where they remain for the year. So even though Benedict is the senior engineer, he’s working as the relief engineer on the Feadship this year. It was simply his turn on the schedule.
Four engineers share the two jobs on the megayachts, each working two to three weeks, then the relief engineer works that same schedule. The duties are basically the same, but if a matter arose that required an engineering decision, it would fall to the assigned engineer that year.
"It works really well," Benedict said. "Being able to have that life outside of work makes it like a real job. Other yachts might be more money, but that’s just more money up front."
Benedict’s advice to engineers who want to make a relief or rotation system work is to find an engineer with whom they can share the job, figure it out and submit a schedule to the captain. That avoids giving more work to captains and makes it easier for them to present the idea to the owner.
Griffin acknowledged that the Gallant Lady fleet is unique. Most yachts that operate independently might find it difficult to hire extra crew to work into a rotation, he said. But by adopting the land-based corporate idea that everyone is in training for the next position, it can work, he said.
"If an owner commits to a program like this and wants a dedicated crew, you can put a schedule together," Griffin said. "The owner has to respect the crew. If not, it won’t work.
"There will no doubt be a cost to establishing any such program, but experienced owners and businesspeople in general know that retaining employees leads to increased efficiency," he said. "In our operation, we increased the number of days earned per month by 60 percent several years ago. This had an immediate effect on our crew turnover reducing it since that time by well over 50 percent.
"In most cases, this consistency will ultimately save money by retaining crew that know the status of everything and don’t order supplies or work that is not necessary and simply know the most efficient way to get something done on that vessel."
The Gallant Lady system wasn’t created overnight, but was important to the owner so kinks were worked out over years of trial and error. Now, crew such as Benedict and Sousa say they aren’t interested in seeking greener pastures.
"This came from the owner," Benedict said. "He said we’re all a team. We don’t have people sitting around doing nothing while others are exhausting themselves. We’re not done until we’re all done. I’d take a bullet for the guy."
Have you had experience with rotations, job sharing or relief systems? Tell us about it. Contact Editor Lucy Chabot Reed at lucy@the-triton.com.
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