It’s been reported that last week a 26 year old South African woman died whilst working as a stewardess on board a superyacht that was docked in Nice. The young woman is alleged to have fallen down some stairs and fatally injured her spine.
I found out about this because somebody posted a JustGiving page onto a facebook page of yachties that I am in, set up by the family to “help raise funds for her full repatriation, funeral costs and after care for her family”. Immediately comments started piling in that the boat is supposed to pay the costs of repatriation.
I reflected on my own experience in yachting. When I joined my first boat on a seasonal contract after job hunting in and around Antibes for 2 weeks, my repatriation location was set as Antibes, France (no specific address because of course, I didn’t have one there). I did query it with my Chief Stew, who said that because that was the location the boat had recruited me up from that would be my repatriation location. She said she had never had a contract with her real repatriation location (South Africa) because she had always been in France to find jobs. The only person on our boat with a genuine repatriation location was the Chef, who had been recruited from home in Mallorca.
I decided not to query it with the Captain or boat agency – I was green crew and I didn’t want to risk souring the dynamic on board or landing myself back in the crew house, jobless.
The story of this South African stew made me wonder, would that decision have meant that – had the worst happened and I had died onboard that boat – that the boat would have only had to repatriate my body to Antibes rather than back home to my parents in the UK. Is this what has happened to this young woman’s family?
Reading about this story led me to a Guardian article about 3 young Brits who have died in the yachting industry and how their bodies and families were treated. It’s pretty horrifying reading.
It’s from 2016 so it does not even cover the horrifying killing of Jake Feldwhere, struck by a boat going 6 times the speed limit with a skipper high on cannabis at its helm. This incident occurred in May 2019, but it was not until October 2022 that the Marseille Maritime Tribunal released its ruling on the Captain: 3 year suspended jail sentence, a 5000 EUR fine and lifetime ban from working as a seafarer.
Even if we put the cannabis aside (there have been reports that tests were inconclusive), the penalty is zero mandated prison days for the completely irresponsible and illegal speed and unnecessary manoeuvre that resulted in the death of a young man.
What really makes me furious here, is that yachting is the domain of the super rich. This is not an industry that is short of money. In the case of Jake Feldwhere, did the authorities somewhat sanction reckless behaviour if you can pay the fine?
And in the case of the young South African stewardess who died last week: somewhere between the current owner, prospective buyer and the boat’s agency, there is the money to repatriate the body of this young woman who’s dedicated the last 2 years of her life to looking after the condition of the boat, so that it can be sold for someone else’s profit.
So how to protect young yachties in this industry? It seems that like in many areas of society with inadequate regulation (think rental market in big cities), the powers that be are able to take advantage of young people on the basis that there’s a hundred people just behind them waiting to take their place if they won’t accept the current conditions.
I could have called on Nautilus to help me with my contract, but who wants to live in close quarters with a captain that you’ve argued with. Yachtie contracts need to be closely regulated enough that Captains, owners and agencies would not dare to cut corners.
Potential consequence of this might be a strong preference for crew located closest to the boat, so a strong advantage for European crew during the Mediterranean season. South African crew would not thank me for this.
That is however discrimination which is outlawed in MOST modern societies. So if a crew member could prove that they lost out on a job for this reason, then the boat should be subject to legal action as any other business would be. How to regulate this opens a whole new can of worms.
Potentially a new regulation should be that ALL yacht recruitment MUST proceed through a recruitment agency that has been certified by a governing body. Therefore there would be a 3rd, unbiased party to ensure contracts are in order. This would also help to eliminate the rising wave of scam job offers that is proliferating in the industry currently, preying on the desperation of green crew to secure their vital first role.
I express my deepest condolences to the families of these deceased yacht crew members.