Entry & progression
This module covers the parts of the job the merchant ladder never teaches. A yacht puts people in small boats, in the water, and on machinery, for fun. The watchkeeper carries responsibility for all of it, and there is no textbook chapter on it.
On a ship, the moment the vessel is at anchor the risk profile falls. On a yacht it rises. The tenders go in the water, the toys come out, guests who have never worn a lifejacket are taken ashore at night by a deckhand who has been up since six, and somebody has to be watching all of it. That somebody is the officer of the watch.
The watch does not stop at anchor
- Know where every tender is, who is in it, who is driving it, when it is due back, and how you would reach it. Keep a written movements board. Not a memory.
- Know who is in the water. Swimmers, divers, anyone on a toy. Nobody starts an engine while there are people in the water. That includes the generators' cooling intakes and the thrusters.
- Watch the anchor. Bearings, GNSS anchor watch, a swinging circle, and the depth. Dragging is not dramatic. It is slow, and it is what happens while everyone is looking at the tender.
- Watch the weather. A sea breeze arriving at 1600 turns a comfortable lee into a lee shore, and a tender run that was easy on the way out into a wet, dangerous one on the way back.
- Keep the VHF watch. The tender is your responsibility even when it is out of sight, and the radio is the only thread you have.
The tender driver
Tender driving is where junior crew are killed and where yachts generate their worst liabilities. The driver is often the least experienced person on board, at night, carrying people who have been drinking, in a boat with enormous power and no protection for anyone in it.
WARNING — The kill cord is not optional It goes around the driver's leg, every time, on every trip, at every speed. A tender whose driver has gone over the side and whose engine is still running does not stop. It circles — and it comes back to the people in the water.
This has killed people. It will kill more. If you are the OOW and you see a tender leave with the kill cord clipped to the console, you stop it. That is not officiousness. That is the job.
Guests are not crew
They will not read the safety briefing. They will step over a line under load. They will stand up in a moving tender to take a photograph. They will swim off the transom without telling anyone. They will do all of this while being charming, and while paying for everything you are standing on.
The mitigation is not lecturing. It is designing the operation so that a guest's predictable mistake cannot hurt them — a boarding platform that is manned, a swim ladder that has someone at it, a tender that does not move until everyone is seated, a briefing given once, cheerfully, and then quietly enforced by the crew's behaviour rather than by argument.
Saying no
The hardest skill on a yacht, and the one nobody teaches. There is real, constant pressure — commercial, social, personal — to run the tender in conditions you would not choose, to go somewhere the chart says not to, to stay at anchor when you should have moved. The person who is paying is not the person who is responsible.
CAUTION — Australian requirements for tenders and small craft Requirements for tender operation, lifejacket carriage, radio and small-craft licensing in Australian waters are not recorded in AUS_FACTS and are not stated here. They may differ by State and by the vessel's flag and survey. Confirm with AMSA and the relevant State authority, and follow the vessel's safety management system.