You have found a flight to Antibes for a hundred euros and you are ready to go. Then you count it up properly: the courses, the medical, the flights, the crew house, and eight weeks of eating while you look for work. This is the number that decides whether you arrive prepared or arrive desperate.
Passports and Visas
- Passport: long validity, plenty of blank pages. Many countries and yachts want at least six months validity beyond your travel dates.
- Schengen: if you are not an EU/EEA national, your right to stay in France, Italy or Spain while job hunting is limited and rule-bound. Overstaying is not a minor administrative matter — it can end your career before it starts.
- The US B1/B2 question: crew working on yachts in US waters commonly hold a B1/B2 visitor visa (and some crew use a C1/D transit and crew visa depending on circumstances). Which is appropriate depends on your nationality, the yacht, its flag and what you will actually be doing. This is genuinely complicated, it changes, and getting it wrong has consequences. Check the current rules with the relevant embassy or a qualified immigration adviser — not with a crew house rumour.
- Some crew are effectively blocked from the US market by visa difficulty. Know that before you build a plan around Fort Lauderdale.
A Realistic Starting Budget
Figures below are illustrative structure, not prices. Costs vary by country, provider and year, and change constantly — get current quotes before you commit.
| Item | Notes |
|---|---|
| ENG1 / seafarer medical | Book first; a fail saves you everything below |
| STCW Basic Safety Training (+ PSA) | Your single largest training cost |
| Food Safety Level 2 | Usually cheap, often online |
| Flights to a hub | One-way, plus a contingency |
| Crew house | Charged nightly or weekly; budget several weeks |
| Living costs while searching | Food, transport, phone, laundry |
| Kit | Deck shoes, plain polos, black trousers, sunscreen |
| Emergency fund | A flight home, and the means to survive if it does not work |
Budget for eight to twelve weeks of looking, not two. Green crew who arrive with three weeks of money take the first bad job they are offered, or go home.
The Honest Warning
This is a real financial outlay with no guaranteed job at the end. Nobody owes you work because you bought certificates. Some people arrive in Antibes in May, day work in a fortnight and are permanent by June. Others spend three months on the dock and go home. Both happen every single season.
Onboard Notes
- Do the medical before the training. Do the training before the flight. Do not do it in the other order.
- Never work in a country or on a boat without the right to do so, however persuasive the offer sounds.
- If the budget only works when the tips are good, the budget does not work.
- The certificates and awards budgeted above are issued by approved providers and approved centres, not by xplor. These xplor lessons are study support only and certify you for nothing.