Your second stew is technically excellent and quietly poisonous: she sighs at the junior, redoes her work in front of her, and the junior has stopped asking questions. Service is still perfect. Nobody has complained. If you do nothing, you will lose the junior by July. This is the part of management nobody trains you for.
Training as a System
Ad hoc training produces ad hoc standards. Run training as a cycle:
- Baseline — assess each crew member against the standards manual; record what they can and cannot do unsupervised.
- Plan — one or two development targets per person per season, written down.
- Deliver — demonstrate, supervise, release. Use quiet weeks and yard time; never train for the first time during service.
- Verify — sample-check the output, not the effort.
- Record — a simple training matrix per person, dated.
| Crew | Cabin turnaround | Silver service | Wine service | Laundry / delicates | Flowers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2nd stew | Independent | Independent | Developing | Independent | Independent |
| 3rd stew | Independent | Developing | Not trained | Independent | Developing |
| Junior | Developing | Not trained | Not trained | Developing | Not trained |
Delegating Without Abdicating
Delegate the task and the authority, never the accountability. A workable brief contains: the outcome, the standard, the boundary (what they may decide alone), the deadline, and the check-in point. Then step back — but keep the check-in. Taking the job back mid-way tells the crew member they were never trusted, and tells you nothing about their capability.
Appraisals
Appraisals should contain no surprises. If a performance issue first appears in the annual review, you have already failed to manage it.
- Hold short, regular one-to-ones — fifteen minutes, monthly, in private, not on the passerelle.
- Structure: what went well, what needs work, what support is needed, what changes before next time.
- Use specific, observed behaviour: not you have a bad attitude, but on Tuesday, in front of the guests, you rolled your eyes at the junior.
- Agree actions in writing. Both parties keep a copy; the captain sees serious matters.
Difficult Conversations
Prepare, then keep it short and human.
- Open with the fact, not the accusation. I want to talk about what happened at turndown.
- Evidence — one or two concrete examples. Never a list of grievances hoarded over months.
- Impact — on the guest, the team, the standard.
- Listen. There is often something you did not know: illness, exhaustion, a family crisis, a rota you broke.
- Agree what changes, by when, and what happens if it does not.
- Record it. Contemporaneous notes are your only protection later.
Formal disciplinary steps, warnings and dismissal belong to the captain, following the company's procedures and the seafarer employment agreement. Your role is to escalate early, with evidence, not to run a private trial.
Onboard Notes
- Praise in public, correct in private. On a yacht there is almost no private space — book it deliberately: a walk on the dock, an empty crew mess at 15:00.
- Never have a difficult conversation on charter day, at night, or after a drink.
- The conversation you are dreading gets more expensive every day you postpone it.