One of the biggest single things stopping a captain from going to sea is a lack of decent crew. If you are a captain looking for crew, read on and see what your options are to help get your boat to your destination.
Getting good crew could make your journey
Money can buy a lot of things for your yacht journey but it can’t guarantee good crew. As a captain looking for crew you may have little experience yourself but want one (or more) dependable crew who can fill the gaps in your personal experience.
In 2016 a yacht made the international news for all the wrong reasons – the skipper and crew were so clueless that on a delivery from Norway to Maine, they needed help from the UK Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) seven times as they attempted to sail past the country on to an Atlantic crossing. Thankfully, by now the laughing stock of the sailing world they got the hint that they would almost certainly drown on the Atlantic leg so gave up.
As a captain you could know very little yourself and want to learn as much as you can on such a delivery. With great, competent crew you can do just that – they can get you wherever you need without necessarily spending any money paying them.
Captain looking for crew
There are a number of options for a captain looking for crew. You can pay a professional delivery company €€€ a day to get your yacht to its destination. This can cost upwards of €300 a day per crew member, or on a 3 week delivery schedule with three crew, upwards of €18000. You may not have paid that much for your boat!
The riskier option is to hire the idiot on the dock or someone you’ve met in the bar. Not all salty tales are true, and magnified with beer they can be very untrue indeed – many a sailor has a few of those to tell! Their leathery hands may come from gardening as opposed to rope burns, and their tan from being drunk, asleep on the beach.
Yacht clubs can be an option for a captain looking for crew but if you’re not from round those parts that can be a very expensive option for a speculative search. The crew however can be quite good as they may have had to pay (and be vetted) to get their name out as they search for a captain.
Onboard Space?
There’s a new offering called Onboard Space that can help a captain looking for crew. Here, we allow you to search for crew and should you and the crew want to connect, you pay a small fee for each others’ contact details. You then meet socially and perhaps even do a short sail together before deciding if you are the right match.
On completion of the trip you offer feedback for one another and this allows other captains looking for crew to get an idea as to who the good crew are – this also applies to crew looking for skippers.
This month Onboard Space are offering your first three connections absolutely free!
