How much can you earn working on a super yacht? As with all other jobs, the salary you can expect when working on a luxury yacht depends on a few factors:
- Rank
- Experience
- Size of the super yacht
- References
- Negotiation Skills
Rank:
There is a big difference if you want to work as a Captain or Master on a super yacht or as a Deckhand or as a Steward. For obvious reasons, a Captain or a Chief Engineer are the highest ranked members of the crew. They carry the responsibility for the yacht and the group pf people on board. Therefore they are the ranks with the highest salary.
On the service side, the rank of Chief Steward is the highest ranked. On a few occasions, depending on the owner of the mega yacht, the Chef is a very well paid position. After all, if you are able to spend huge sums of money in a super yacht, you can easily afford an excellent Chef. So on general terms, within the service crew, the Chef has a special position on a salary table.
Learn more about ranks on ships in this post.
Experience:
The experience is a determining factor for any job on a luxury yacht. Highly valued are continuos long stints on the same yacht. This demonstrates reliability of the crew member. Super yacht owners usually want to have a personal connection with members of the crew. A very important factor is also training. Have you steadily progresses with your certifications? Do you have a proven growth path? How many yacht jobs have you held in the past? Have you actually operated a ship the size you are applying for? What specific qualifications do you have?
Size of the super yacht:
As with anything: size matters. We all agree that managing a small yacht is less difficult than managing a mega yacht. So what stage is your superyacht career in? You can´t expect to jump from being a Master on a 30m yacht to becoming a Master of a 150m mega yacht. You need to show steady progress, maybe even dropping a rank for gaining experience on a larger size vessel.
References:
The hiring trends show, that this makes 50% of your application to a job on a superyacht. Can you provide good and coherent references from past employers? Nobody wants to employ a group of people as crew that have burned bridges with other mega yacht owners. Can you provide references from superyacht crew members you have worked with in the past?
Negotiation Skills:
You can expect to ask for more salary for a temporary job in an unattractive cruising area. Aslo, you can negotiate more if you are fluent in several languages. The secret here is patience. Once you have a salary range in mind, do not accept offers too fast that do not match what you had in mind. People who work on charter yachts should expect to get lower pay than working on fully privately owned yachts. Also, a big asset for extra pay is your experience on sailing yachts. There is fewer experienced ship crew for sailing yachts than motor yachts.
| Rank | < 24m | 25-40m | 40-55m | 55-70m | 70-85m | >85m |
| Captain | $2,500 – $6,000 | $5,000 – $9,000 | $7,000 -$13,000 | $9,000 – $17,000 | $12,000 – $20,0000 | +$15,000 |
| Chief Engineer | $2,000 – $4,500 | $4,000 – $7,500 | $5,800 – $11,000 | $7,500 – $15,000 | $9,500 – $ 17,500 | +$12,000 |
| First Officer | $1,800 – $4,000 | $3,500 – $5,500 | $4,200 – $7,000 | $5,700 – $10,000 | $6,200 – $9,000 | +$8,000 |
| Second Officer | N/A | $1,800 – $4,000 | $2,500 – $4,500 | $3,500 – $6,000 | $4,000 – $6,500 | +$4,500 |
| Second Engineer | N/A | $1,500 – $3,500 | $2,200 – $4,000 | $2,800 – $4,500 | $3,500 – $5,500 | +$3,800 |
| Chief Stewardess | $2,800 – $3,500 | $3,500 – $4,500 | $3,900 – $5,200 | $5,000 – $6,500 | $5,500 – $8,000 | +$7,000 |
| Stewardess | $2,000 – $2,500 | $2,200 – $3,000 | $2,200 – $3,200 | $2,500 – $3,500 | $2,800 – $3,800 | +$3,000 |
| Bosun | $2,000 – $3,000 | $2,800 – $3,500 | $2,800 – $3,500 | $3,000 – $4,000 | $3,200 – $5,000 | +$3,500 |
| Deckhand | $1,500 – $2,500 | $1,500 – $2,500 | $2,000 – $3,000 | $2,000 – $3,000 | $2,000 – $3,000 | +$3,000 |
| Chef | $3,000 – $4,000 | $3,500 – $4,500 | $3,800 – $5,500 | $5,000 – $7,500 | $5,500 – $8,000 | + $7,500 |
1 comment
i like this websit i start looking for job on yacht every day thank you for this information