Aren’t holidays great! Most yachties are obviously in the business of making other peoples holidays great but nonetheless holidays are worth working for. I should know I am on one. Tuscan sun, pool, food, pool, food, barbecue, food, pool, all mixed with copious amounts of wine, children and locals with nice big tasty tomatoes. Just the thing to recharge the batteries. If only I could get past the red blotchy phase and develop a tan it would be perfect.
Different yachts all seem to have different arrangements for holidays for their crew. Some give flights, some only allow you to take what leave has accrued. Some yachts include weekends, some don’t. Some have formal arrangements, some less so. It is quite interesting that something as important as a crew member’s leave, time off, holiday, break, furlough or whatever you may call it, are treated very differently by practically every yacht I have come across. For me it is very important for crew to take a break. We have all seen the martyrs who refuse to take leave or those who would try and accrue as much leave as possible and try and take cash instead on leaving the boat. As they tire or get ‘burned’ others can be affected by their behaviour. For a growing number of yacht crew their leave is the only time they can use to train for qualifications that will keep them on the career ladder.
What if there was a standard of accepted practice for every yacht? Would it be better or worse. Inevitably some would win and some would lose compared to current arrangements as yachts can be famously both generous or mean. But, what would surely happen is that crew would know where they stood and value judgements would be unlikely cause issues on board. It sounds a bit far fetched, a standardized leave arrangement for yachts but think about it. What if it went beyond just leave and there was a standardized contract.
We all know the rules and we know how to write the rules and they cannot be so dissimilar from one yacht to another that a relatively off the shelf contract would not actually serve a useful purpose. Any extra requirements could be in the form of an addendum pertinent to a particular yacht. The Dockwalk is advocating ‘contracts for all yachties’ and as we know it is already the law in most cases to provide crew with a contract. However we still do not all get them and the forums a full of people who have fallen out with the captain because of leave issues or the interpretation of a grey area that should have been clarified in a contract.
When the MLC comes into force which is said to be “soon” by those in the know, it will make contracts much more common and so having a streamlined one, that is used by many might actually make it more acceptable for the parties that must agree to definitive terms. I know I would use such a contract if one existed in fact I can’t imagine why more crew don’t have contracts it seem like madness to me. But what do I care? I am, after all, on holiday.