Halfway through a 90-minute massage the yacht swings on her anchor and the beam swell arrives. Your guest goes quiet. You have oil on your hands, a face-down client, and a treatment room that has just started to move. What you do in the next thirty seconds is the difference between a memorable treatment and a very unpleasant one.
Hygiene and infection control
You are working skin-to-skin, in a closed environment, with a shared ventilation system and no hospital nearby. An outbreak on a yacht is a charter-ending event.
- Hands: wash before and after every treatment, nails short, no rings, no bracelets, no watch.
- Linens: fresh, laundered set for every guest — sheets, towels, face-hole cover. Never re-use "because it looked clean".
- Surfaces: disinfect the couch, headrest, bolsters and any hard surfaces between guests.
- Products: decant oil into a working bottle. Never double-dip into a pot with used hands.
- Your own health: if you have a cold, a cough, gastro symptoms, or any cut or lesion on your hands, you do not treat. Report it. A dressing plus a glove is not always enough.
- Cover any cut of your own; do not treat over broken skin on the guest.
- Ventilate and wipe down the room; do not let a treatment room become a damp, warm, mouldy cupboard.
Treating in a seaway
Motion changes everything about the treatment.
- Check with the bridge before you take the booking: are we underway, is a swell forecast, are we swinging at anchor?
- Choose the most stable part of the vessel — low and central, near the centre of buoyancy, never high and forward.
- Cabin or interior space beats an exterior deck once there is any motion.
- Adjust your own stance: feet wide, knees soft, low centre of gravity, one hand always able to steady. Never brace against the guest.
- If motion builds, shorten or end the treatment. A treatment stopped early and explained kindly is a professional decision, not a failure.
Motion sickness
Face-down, eyes closed, warm, still, with a strong smell — this is a highly effective recipe for seasickness in a susceptible guest.
- Ask at consultation whether they suffer from motion sickness.
- Keep the room cool and ventilated; a strong aroma is a trigger.
- Watch for pallor, sweating, silence and swallowing. Do not wait to be told.
- Bring them upright slowly, get them air and a horizon, and offer water. Have a bowl within reach.
- You are not immune either. Working head-down in a swell will get you eventually — get your own eyes on the horizon between treatments.
Onboard Notes
- Fresh linens, clean hands, no double-dipping, no treating while ill.
- Ask the bridge about motion before you confirm a booking.
- Low and central, never high and forward.
- Pale and quiet means stop. Fresh air, upright, horizon, bowl.
- Preparatory study only. Nothing here qualifies you to treat. Massage requires an accredited vocational qualification (for example ITEC, CIBTAC or VTCT) and professional insurance.