Yacht Crew Manager
A yacht crew manager looks after the people side of a managed fleet from an office ashore. You make sure every yacht has the right crew, with valid tickets and legal contracts, paid on time and looked after when things go wrong. Most people in the job did years at sea first, and captains trust them because of it.
The jobWhat fills the day
The job covers the whole working life of a crew member on a managed yacht. You take the captain's brief for a vacancy and shortlist through agencies or your own database. You check references and certificates, issue a Seafarer Employment Agreement that complies with MLC 2006, and arrange joining flights and visas. Once the person is on board you track ENG1 and STCW expiry dates, run leave and rotation schedules, handle disciplinary cases and grievances, and deal with the hard calls too: medical repatriation, a dismissal, or a crew member stuck at a border.
The workload depends on the size and mix of the fleet. At a small firm managing six yachts between 35m and 50m, you may be the only crew person, doing recruitment, payroll input and insurance claims yourself. At the bigger management houses in Monaco, Antibes, Palma, Southampton or Fort Lauderdale, the work is split up. One crew manager might look after a portfolio of 60m to 100m yachts, each carrying 15 to 35 crew, with separate payroll, travel and compliance staff to back them up. Spring hiring before the Mediterranean season and the autumn handover ahead of the Caribbean are the busiest periods.
Firms mostly hire former crew. Ex-chief stews and pursers are common because they already know rotas, contracts and difficult conversations. Ex-officers and engineers are valued for their grip on manning certificates and flag requirements. People from crew agencies and general HR also get in, but they need to learn quickly what a Y4 or an AEC covers and why a captain needs a relief engineer by Friday. You need to be organised and discreet, and calm on the phone at 2am.
The usual route in is as a crew coordinator, handling travel, documents and data entry, before you take on a portfolio of yachts. After that you can move up to head of crew, crew employment and payroll manager, or into broader yacht management and operations roles. A CIPD qualification or a recognised MLC and ISM course helps you progress. Pay rises with the size of the fleet you run and with how much the captains rely on you.
Skills employers look for
- MLC 2006 and SEA contracts
- Crew recruitment and vetting
- Certificate and manning compliance
- Rotation and leave planning
- Payroll and expenses coordination
- Crew welfare and disciplinary cases
- Crew database software
A working dayTuesday in a Monaco management office
Read the overnight emails from captains in the Caribbean and the Maldives. A deckhand on a 55m has failed his ENG1 renewal and has to be replaced before Thursday.
Call two crew agencies in Antibes for deckhand profiles, then send three CVs with references to the captain for approval.
Draft SEAs for a new chief stew and sous chef on a 72m. Check the wage, leave and repatriation clauses against the flag state's requirements.
Lunch at a café on the port with a colleague from the technical team.
Go through the monthly certificate expiry report for the whole fleet and email reminders for STCW refreshers and CoC revalidations due within 90 days.
Video call with a captain about a grievance between two interior crew. Agree the next steps and a written record for the file.
Send payroll changes, overtime and leave balances for three yachts to the payroll provider before the monthly cut-off.
Book flights and a Schengen transit letter for a rotational engineer joining in Palma, then update the crew database and log off.
Pay by experienceAnnual salary. Estimates. Bars share one scale.
This is a taxed shore salary, so it is lower than crew pay after tax unless you live in Monaco. You do get settled hours, around 25 days' leave and an annual bonus at some firms. See the Yacht & Crew Management salary guide for figures from live adverts.
Qualifications
Must have
Gets you hired
- Seagoing experience in a senior crew role
- MLC 2006 training course
- CIPD Level 3 or 5 in HR
- ISM Code awareness course
- STCW Basic Safety (for yacht visits)
Where it leadsA typical career path
Yacht Crew Manager jobsOpen now on SuperyachtRoles.com
Questions crew ask
Do I need to have worked on yachts to become a crew manager?
It is not a legal requirement, but most firms strongly prefer it. Captains take you more seriously if you have done the job, and you will understand rotations, tickets and life on board without having to learn them. People from HR or crew agencies can get in, usually as a coordinator first.
How is this different from a crew recruitment consultant?
A recruitment consultant works for an agency and gets paid for placing candidates with many clients. A crew manager works for the management company or the owner and looks after the crew for the whole time they are employed: contracts, compliance, payroll, welfare and discipline as well as hiring.
Where are most crew manager jobs based?
Most are in Monaco, Antibes and the wider Côte d'Azur. Palma, Southampton and Fort Lauderdale also have plenty. Some firms allow hybrid working, but expect to be in the office during the spring hiring rush.
Is the job strictly office hours?
Mostly, but yachts operate around the clock and across time zones. Expect calls in the evening and at weekends for medical emergencies, urgent replacements or crew stuck at borders. Larger firms share this with an on-call rota.