Your yacht runs eleven back-to-back charter weeks, then a transatlantic, then a yard period. You have four interior crew and one is on rotation. You cannot staff all three programmes the same way, and the rota you write in April will decide whether anyone is still standing in August.
Structure Follows Programme, Not Tradition
Size sets the headcount; the programme sets the shape. A private owner-use yacht with long quiet passages needs a different structure from a hard-charter yacht turning around every seven days.
| Vessel / programme | Typical interior shape |
|---|---|
| 30-40m, private, light use | Chief stew plus one stew; multi-tasking, no specialisation |
| 40-60m, charter | Chief stew, service stew, housekeeping stew, laundry/junior |
| 60-80m, heavy charter | Chief stew, second stew, service and housekeeping teams, dedicated laundry |
| 80m+, owner-operated | Chief stew as pure manager, heads of service/housekeeping/laundry beneath |
Roles, Not Just People
Write the department as roles with defined outputs and then put names against them. Each role needs: a scope, a daily rhythm, a standard to hit, and a named deputy. Cross-train so that a single sickness does not collapse the service.
- Service — table, bar, beach club, provisioning liaison.
- Housekeeping — cabins, heads, deep cleans, guest laundry.
- Laundry — crew and guest linen, uniform, pressing.
- Floating/junior — supports the pinch points, learns everything.
Writing the Rota
- Build the rota from the guest day, not from an eight-hour office shift. Identify the peaks: breakfast, cabin service, lunch, turndown, dinner, late bar.
- Use split shifts and staggered starts so that no one covers 06:00 to 01:00 alone.
- Publish the rota in advance and protect the days off in it. A rota that changes daily is not a rota.
- Record hours honestly. Falsified records are a compliance failure and destroy trust with the crew.
Rest Hours and Fatigue
Seafarers are entitled to minimum hours of rest under the MLC 2006 regime as applied by the vessel's flag state. Do not memorise a number from a forum post: the applicable minima, the permitted split of rest periods, and any exemption arrangements are set by the flag state, reflected in the vessel's SMS, and administered by the captain. Your job as HOD is to:
- Design a rota that can comply, rather than one that only complies on paper.
- Escalate to the captain when the programme cannot be crewed within the rest regime — that is a manning problem, not a personal-resilience problem.
- Watch for fatigue markers: breakages, forgotten preferences, short tempers, silence.
Onboard Notes
- The first charter of the season always overruns. Build slack into weeks one and two, not week eight.
- If you must break a day off, say so in advance, say why, and give it back with a date attached.
- A rota is a promise. Chief stews lose their team faster by breaking small promises than by demanding high standards.