And Womening!
What's between them?
It has been said by many, that the mostly female interior crew aboard yachts, are rarely chosen for what is between their ears. Well at least I have said it many times. One might get the impression from our normal hiring practices that the interior crew is not always employed for their skills as much as their looks. Certainly it is arguably the case that the typical interior crew do not have the luxury of following a defined career path delineated by a standard set of qualifications coupled with a requisite amount of experience. Well at least not in the way that the deck crew or engineers have.
Almost certainly this is as a result of there not being a standardized set of qualifications regulated by the flag states for the interior crew. The training they undertake is largely down to their own choice. It is perfectly normal to meet chief stewardesses or of course stewards, with nought but the STCW 95 Basic Safety Training certificate of training, even if they are occupying roles where they play a significant role in the management of a yacht and are responsible for many of the less experienced crew members. Regularly this is the case where couples run yachts.
ISM CODE
The typical safe manning document aboard a yacht confines itself with bridge and engine room watchkeeping and defined safety and security roles. This is of course the same for the commercial sector. All very well until you realize that a safe manning document aboard some cruise liners would seem to imply that ship with thousands of guests and crew is ‘safe’ to proceed to sea with perhaps 15 or 20 crew members. In reality the safe manning document does not tell the whole story of what is required to run the vessel safely and indeed it is concerned with the MINIMUM number of crew, duly trained and qualified to undertake specific and limited safety management functions aboard a vessel.
I make the point, as recently I met an experienced chief stewardess who had rather unfortunately found herself in a fire aboard a large motor yacht. She pointed out that when it came to the “unlikely event of an emergency” she was completely sidelined by the, in some cases, relatively inexperienced crew. Her observation was that she could have played a far more useful role than she actually did.
If there had been guests on board she quite rightly felt that her knowledge of the interior of the vessel and the guests on board would or at least could have contributed to the successful accomplishment of the yacht’s safety procedures. Simple things, like where the guests were and their state of fitness or the languages they spoke could have proved very useful when coordinating their safe evacuation. Following the safety briefing it often comes down to the interior crew to answer queries or questions as to what to do if something goes wrong. Considering the fact that the interior crew are usually the ones that form a working relationship with guests it is probably fair to say that with training they could develop skills that would positively contribute to the safety of the precious cargo yachts carry: People.
There are number of courses that, although not aimed at interior crew would undoubtedly benefit them if we thought outside the box and learned what we wanted to learn as opposed to learning the minimum we have to learn. Advanced firefighting, first aid, sea survival and even ISPS and ISM or crowd control courses would surely prove useful to interior crew. Two of the most fire prone areas; the galley and the laundry are usually occupied by crew who work on the interior and yet who in most cases have little or no formal training in firefighting save what they learn on the basic safety course. There is nothing wrong with the basic training but you have to wonder how much better prepared they could be with further more advanced training.
Because danger never takes a day off!
At a time when more people are chasing fewer jobs would it not be worthy to consider more safety training as an interior crew member? Is it the case that the interior crew don’t care about safety or are they stereotyped into gender ascribed roles? Who knows the actual answer but anyone who finds themselves being asked to put the kettle on while the rest of the crew are putting BA gear on is probably not fully utilizing their experience.