Interviews

Broking the Mould

Involved in yachting for over 20 years, Captain Steve White moved ashore this year to take on a new challenge with fellow captains in his brokerage company International Yacht Register. TCR spoke with Captain White about how he perceives the superyacht industry today, brown paper bags and tricking pirates with cardboard cut-outs.

Captain Steve White (Caroline Hillier/Superyachtart.com)

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What are your thoughts on the crew needing to move on when a yacht is sold?

It depends very much on how long that crew has been on the yacht. For example, I was on Chamar, which became Bad Girl, for 16 years and it was sold twice, and both times we made sure that all the crew were kept on. But that was usually because the crew had been onboard a long time so they were assets. I think owners have to be advised; if someone has been onboard for a couple of seasons they have a relationship with the boat. If they have only been onboard a couple of months, fair enough.

Captain White with his crew at Christmas 2004

But you could be potentially saving yourself quite a large sum of money if it is someone like an engineer who understands how the yacht works.

Yes definitely, even if one only takes the commission perspective for getting a new engineer onboard into account. It would appear that at various times you may have management agents and brokerage who would prefer to change the crew of the captain and chief engineer and put their own people onboard straight away, for whatever reason. This is a part of the industry that we feel very strongly has to change; you must get that direct link back to the owner and the captain. Once you get this relationship back in sync it’s all pretty simple.

So with IYR one of the elements you emphasise is the standards of the boat maintained by the captain and crew. How are you going about looking at the standards and reporting them?

We are already doing onboard inspections, with a team of four people in total – with one in the US – who do these for the procedural sides and we also have Peter Vogel of Triple S Consultancy doing the interiors, Michael Lamb of Superyacht Safety, Leonard Bilton from Bilton Marine, and the whole thing is overseen by Mike Worthington-Leese from John Winterbotham & Partners.
The process of the multipoint inspection takes two days with the yacht in full owner mode, so we can see exactly what standard the boat is run to, not in terms of ISM or ISPS – that will have already been done and the yacht will have all the correct paperwork for that already onboard and prechecked. It is the procedural side of the yacht’s operations we are interested in. We go through all the standards of how all procedures and operational standards are implemented and run within the yacht’s systems, this includes the hygiene and cleanliness of the yacht, the engine room planned maintenance and conditioning etc. And then every six months the yacht has to be reinspected, which takes about half a day to go through to check.

And if the boat doesn’t reach the standards is that it, or does it have a chance to improve?

We will write out a full report to say that the yacht and crew have not met the standards but if they do certain things then we can help them reach the required standard to enter the system.

Which areas do you feel from the boats you have seen so far are falling down more than others? The deck and engineer routes are mostly prescribed and so it is easier to see how the career path progresses; for the interior side – apart from the chef, perhaps – it is a lot harder to learn what is needed formally.

I would say the area of the boat I am most concerned about as a whole is not so much the engineering, the deck or the interior per se, but the actual overall management of the three departments. The skill of managing a yacht is starting to wane. If you don’t have a good onboard manager – a captain – then nobody is getting the right direction. With the interior staff the standards are more a reflection of experience levels; I believe the average now is about two years for a stewardess to stay in the industry.
My partner was a chief stewardess who came through hotel management schools and was the youngest manager of a five-star hotel in Europe and so she came that way into the industry, which is very rare. The majority of interior staff are from other walks of life who happen to walk into yachting and they don’t have the background or training, which is why I think although Peter [Vogels]’s system – although comprehensive – is very, very good.

Marlene Andersen, White's partner and Chief Stewardess

He is another person who started working in hotels, when he was very young, and he has learned from the bottom up.

Peter is the best there is; there is another man who was very good as well called Peter Edinger, who was fabulous and who now runs a private estate in Las Vegas, but Peter Vogel is as good as you can get. The owners of Chamar had standards that were unbelievably high; the owner’s wife was quite famous in the industry for being particular, and it really was white gloves at dawn [onboard]. Peter was the only steward who ever reached and exceeded her expectations; he now has an opportunity to make a big impact in yachting. I wish him all the best for the future and that is why we are involved with him.

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For the complete interview, click here.