Your alarm goes at 05:45. Guests are asleep. By the time the first one appears on the aft deck at 07:30 wanting a green juice, the boat has already been cleaned, the breakfast table set, the crew fed and the day's plan changed twice. The guests will never see any of it. That is the job.
A charter day, interior
| Time | Typical activity |
|---|---|
| 06:00–07:00 | Crew up. Interior areas, guest heads, decks below wiped down. Breakfast set. |
| 07:00–10:00 | Guest breakfast, served over a long window as guests wake individually. |
| 10:00–13:00 | Cabins serviced while guests are out. Laundry running. Beach club and toys supported. |
| 13:00–15:00 | Lunch service, often al fresco. |
| 15:00–18:00 | Reset, laundry, afternoon snacks, guest requests, tender runs ashore. |
| 18:00–19:30 | Turndown. Canapés and cocktails. Table set for dinner. |
| 19:30–23:00 | Dinner service. |
| 23:00–late | Bar, night service, clear-down, prep for tomorrow. One stew on late duty. |
Nothing about this is fixed. Guests change plans constantly, and the department that copes best is the one that has prepped ahead.
Watches and duty patterns
- Deck typically keeps navigational watches at sea (a rotating pattern such as four hours on, eight off).
- Interior rarely keeps navigational watches, but does keep duty rotations: a late/night stew on call for guests, and an early stew opening the boat.
- At sea on passage, interior crew may be assigned safety or gangway watches, and on charter some yachts run a 24-hour service capability — meaning someone is always awake and available.
Hours of rest — the hard limit
Under MLC 2006, seafarers are entitled to minimum hours of rest, recorded and monitored. The regime sets minimums within any 24-hour period and within a seven-day period, restricts how the rest may be divided, and requires the vessel to keep records that you sign.
Do not sign a rest-hours record you know to be false. The figures exist to keep a fatigued crew from making a fatal mistake. If the rota cannot be run within them, that is a rota problem, not a you problem — and the chief stew and captain need to know.
Onboard Notes
- Prep on the quiet days. Fold the extra towels, polish the extra glasses. Charter weeks are won in the turnaround.
- Sleep is a professional obligation, not a luxury. A stew running on four hours breaks glassware, forgets allergies and snaps at people.
- Learn to hand over properly at the end of your duty: what is outstanding, which guest asked for what, what is in the fridge for the night.
- Guest sleep patterns dictate your day, not the clock. A guest who stays up until 04:00 has a stew up until 04:00.
- Fatigue is cumulative. Nine days into a back-to-back charter run, watch your crewmates as carefully as you watch yourself.