A new stew joins on a Tuesday, the boat sails Wednesday and you are on charter Thursday. You cannot shadow her for three days. Whatever she needs to know has to already be written down, in a form she can hold in one hand while she works.
The interior manual
The interior manual is the boat-specific reference for how this yacht runs its interior. It is written once, reviewed each season, and it usually covers:
- House standards for cabins, heads, saloon, crew mess and laundry
- Service styles used onboard and the table setups for each
- Product lists: which chemicals, which linens, which glassware, which polishes
- Equipment: washing machines, steamers, coffee machines, water systems — settings and quirks
- Contacts: agents, launderers, florists, provisioners in home ports
SOPs versus checklists
They are not the same thing, and confusing them is the most common interior admin error.
| Standard Operating Procedure | Checklist | |
|---|---|---|
| Answers | How a task is done to standard | Whether each step got done |
| Length | Narrative, photos, product names, sequencing | Short lines, tick boxes, initials |
| Used | When learning, when training, when disputing standard | Live, in the cabin, during the task |
| Changes | Reviewed seasonally | Reprinted every trip |
An SOP for a guest cabin turnaround might run two pages with photographs of the correct pillow arrangement. The checklist derived from it is twenty lines you can carry in an apron.
Writing a checklist that gets used
- Order it by movement, not by category. Work the room the way a stew physically walks it: entrance, wardrobe, bed, bedside, desk, head, balcony.
- One line, one verifiable action. "Bathroom clean" is not a checklist item. "Shower glass squeegeed and dry, no water spots on tap" is.
- Include the invisible. Under the bed, behind the headboard, the extractor grille, the inside of the kettle, the safe left open and empty.
- Sign it. A checklist without an initial is a wish list.
- Keep it to one page. If it needs two, you have written an SOP.
Keeping the manual alive
The manual is only credible if it is current. Practical habits:
- Date every page and hold one master copy — paper or digital, not both drifting apart.
- Log changes as you make them, not at the end of the season when you have forgotten why.
- When the owner changes a preference permanently, that is a manual amendment, not a note on the fridge.
- Photograph correct setups. A picture settles an argument about tray dressing faster than a paragraph.
Onboard Notes
- Do not import an SOP wholesale from another yacht. Equipment, products and owner taste differ; a copied chemical instruction can damage a finish or void a warranty.
- Cleaning-product instructions in an SOP must match the actual product label and the safety data sheet held in the COSHH file. If they conflict, the label wins.
- Checklists are evidence. If a guest reports a fault in a cabin that was signed off, the signature is the start of the conversation — write only what you have actually verified.
- Ask the chief stew before you change any document that another department relies on, especially anything touching cabin safety briefings or turnaround timings.