Probably the most often asked question I hear these days is; “…do you know anything about a boat called ………”. It comes about as a result of crew members hearing on the grapevine that there are issues on board a yacht; high crew turnover, difficult owner, poor crew accommodation or a thousand others.
Lets face it there are many boats out there with reputations that are shadier than a yacht broker’s accountant. However, you don’t get to hear about them until you are on another boat as a working crew member. It is just like job hunting in the industry. The moment you get a job that has taken a long time to find you will hear of five more in a week.
Crew turnover is arguably one of the most important considerations that should influence the decision as to whether or not to take a job, assuming you have the choice. The context is all important and there may be a perfectly good explanation like the boat sold or went into a yard for a long refit. However, there are many boats that don’t keep crew very long and whatever the given reason, they are best avoided.
Should there be a “Black Book” of yachts with less than encouraging employment statistics? Who would keep such a list and who would be responsible for impartially gathering the statistics?
The theory works well. Someone in the “loop” would keep a track of the number of crew that gets fired or leaves a particular yacht. The idea of using statistics is that it would be an unequivocal statement of fact. The interpretation and gossip could be left to the bars. Crew would be able to access the data on perhaps a website, on condition that when they leave a yacht they simply fill in a form saying their start and finish dates and reason for leaving. They of course could do so anonymously.
Confidentiality agreements could be respected through avoiding using the name of the yacht but making it so obvious you could not fail to guess it. Frankly most yachties are pretty good at guessing yachts!
As the database develops it would serve the industry well. Owners’ could see how their boat rated, captains would be accountable for their hiring and firing averages (and one hopes strive to improve), crew could be informed about avoiding the ‘dogs’ and looking for the better positions.
This could just work. In fact I volunteer to be custodian of the statistics. So write to me at Dockwalk.com I don’t want any whinging, just facts: How long on board, why you left and the name of the boat. Nothing more, nothing personal. I will publish the results unless of course, I mysteriously disappear. Which is quite possible as thinking about it, there are quite a number of people that may be less than happy at this idea.