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The Crew Coach

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Arenys de Mar
The Crew Coach

Globally recognised leadership trainer reshaping yachting culture through psychology-driven training, crew wellbeing, and values-based leadership.

Personal success strategies for professional yacht crew

04/09/2026

How someone leaves a yacht matters too.

There are situations where termination is absolutely the right decision. Poor performance may have continued despite feedback. Behaviour may have crossed a line. The working relationship may simply no longer be viable.

Respectful termination doesn’t mean avoiding accountability or softening a decision that has already been made.

It means recognising that the person sitting opposite you is about to lose their job, income and often their immediate plans at the same time.

So it’s important you handle the conversation well.

Give them clear information about what happens next, protect their privacy, follow the correct process and make space for the questions they are likely to have.

The decision can be final without the way you deliver it making an already difficult situation harder than it needs to be.

Good leadership isn’t only visible in how you welcome people onboard or manage them when things are going well. It’s also visible in how you handle their departure when the relationship has come to an end.

Save this for a conversation most Captains and HODs would rather never have to have.

03/09/2026

Most crew don’t struggle with leadership because they don’t care or aren’t capable.

They struggle because somewhere along the way, being good at their job turned into being responsible for other people.

Now they’re expected to give feedback. Manage tension. Have uncomfortable conversations. Keep their own emotions from spilling into the team. Motivate people. Develop junior crew.

These are some of the things crew who completed the course told me they’re now doing differently: noticing their own emotional state, managing conflict earlier, approaching performance reviews with more structure and feeling better equipped for difficult conversations.

That’s what I want this course to do.
Not turn people into textbook leaders but rather give them practical tools they can use the next time leadership gets difficult onboard.

If you’ve recently stepped into leadership, or you’re preparing to, DM me “FLC” and I’ll send you the details.

01/09/2026

Getting promoted over someone you’ve worked alongside can make the first few weeks of leadership uncomfortable.

You know they’re disappointed. Perhaps they expected the role themselves. And because you have empathy for that, it can be tempting to overcompensate.

You soften your feedback.
You hesitate before delegating. You explain decisions you wouldn’t normally explain. You become more concerned with keeping the relationship comfortable than establishing how you’re going to work together.

Having empathy for someone’s disappointment doesn’t mean taking responsibility for resolving it.
You didn’t make the promotion decision.
What you can take responsibility for is the working relationship from here.
Have the conversation.

What do we expect from each other now? How will we handle disagreement? What happens if either of us feels undermined or frustrated? How do we raise something before it becomes a bigger issue?
And listen to their answers too.

Moving from peer to leader doesn’t mean the relationship suddenly becomes one-way. You’re establishing a different working relationship together, and that can take time.

The goal isn’t to make the disappointment disappear.
It’s to create enough clarity that you can both move forward and work well together.

31/08/2026

A few things I learnt in August … about group behaviour, leadership and, unexpectedly, my evening routine.

The first came from watching how quickly group behaviour can shift.
Once several people begin criticising or mocking one person, it can give others social permission to join in. Comments that might feel insignificant in isolation can become something very different when they’re repeated, reinforced or escalated by a group.

I’ve also been learning more about dog-piling, particularly how it can show up online and in workplace cultures. It’s made me think a lot about psychological safety, group norms and the responsibility we each have for the behaviour we reinforce, not just the behaviour we initiate.

After years of working in superyacht leadership development, I still find myself refining what good leadership actually looks like as I navigate my working relationships with my aupairs.

And finally, sleep.

I’ve spent years thinking about morning routines while giving very little thought to how I finish my day. I can work, parent, think, plan and operate at full pace until it is time to go to bed.
I’m starting to realise that coming down from the day needs to be intentional too.

Not everything we learn is completely new. Sometimes we understand something intellectually for years before we really notice it playing out around us or in ourselves.
Those were mine for August.

What did you learn this month?

29/08/2026

How do you communicate expectations as a leader or Head of Department?

One of the first things I’d say is: don’t assume that communicating an expectation once means it has been understood, remembered or agreed on.

Onboarding is a good place to start. But expectations need to be an ongoing conversation.

And I think this is where we sometimes misunderstand what “setting expectations” actually means.

It isn’t just the HOD saying, “This is what I expect from you.”

You also need to understand what your team member needs from you.

What does good communication look like to them?
Where do they need more clarity?
What do they expect from you as their leader?
Is there something getting in the way of meeting the standard you’ve set?

Sometimes you also need the patience to explain why an expectation exists.

“Because I said so” might achieve compliance in the moment. Understanding the reason behind a standard gives someone much more context for making good decisions when you’re not standing beside them.

And then there’s the part leaders can easily underestimate: listening.

If someone tells you an expectation isn’t clear, they need more support, or they see something differently, that doesn’t automatically mean your standard needs to change.

But it does mean there’s a conversation to have.

For me, managing expectations well is a continuous loop:

Explain what is expected → explain why → check understanding → actively listen → clarify where needed → revisit.

Good communication between an HOD and their crew shouldn’t only travel in one direction.

What conversations are you having with your team about expectations?

28/08/2026

As a Second Stew, you’re probably already leading more than you realise.
You’re giving junior stews feedback. Helping someone improve their service. Managing conflict before it affects the rest of the interior team. Holding standards when the Chief Stew isn’t there. Working out when someone needs direction and when they need more support.

These are leadership skills.

And you don’t need to wait until you become a Chief Stewardess to start developing them.

Learning how to give constructive feedback, manage conflict, communicate assertively, understand different personalities and motivate a team while you’re still Second gives you something incredibly useful: time to practise.

One of our GUEST IAMI Foundational Leadership students talks here about exactly that.

She found the course particularly useful for navigating conflict and giving constructive feedback, alongside understanding the psychology behind why these leadership tools work. She also specifically recommends the course for Second Stews.

27/08/2026

We’re very good at recognising technical competence in yachting.

A Chief Stew might be exceptional at service, housekeeping standards, provisioning, inventories, laundry operations, table settings and managing guest preferences.

A Chief Officer might be highly competent in navigation, passage planning, bridge procedures, deck operations, maintenance, tender operations and safety drills.

A Captain might have exceptional vessel-handling skills, strong navigational knowledge and a deep understanding of safety, compliance, maritime regulations and vessel operations.

These are important skills, and they’re often a big part of what allows someone to progress through the ranks.

But being excellent at the operational side of your role doesn’t automatically tell us how prepared you are to lead people.

Giving feedback. Managing conflict. Delegating. Setting expectations. Addressing poor performance. Developing junior crew. Managing different personalities. Having difficult conversations.

Those are skills too.

25/08/2026

Yacht crew salaries haven’t kept pace with the industry, and I think that’s a conversation we should be having.

In shore-based employment, salaries are reviewed over time in response to things like inflation, changes in responsibility, labour-market conditions and competition for good people.

Why shouldn’t we be having the same conversation about yacht crew salaries?

If salaries have remained largely unchanged while the cost of living and expectations placed on crew have continued to increase, where do we begin to address that as an industry?

But disagreeing with someone’s opinion and publicly humiliating the person who expressed it are two very different things.

I watched the reaction to Marcela’s comments last week, and some of what I saw from professionals working within our own industry concerned me.

We talk a lot about bullying, psychological safety and healthier workplace culture onboard superyachts. Those standards shouldn’t disappear when we move online.

If something someone says triggers a strong reaction in you, take a moment to work out exactly what you’re reacting to.
Then speak to them directly.

“This is what I took from what you said. Is that what you meant?”
Give them an opportunity to clarify their position before deciding what they believe or intended.

In Marcela’s case, the issue people appeared to be reacting to was the suggestion that crew salaries haven’t increased enough over the past decade.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Marcela believes they shouldn’t increase.
And that’s where the conversation could have gone instead.

Do we agree yacht crew salaries need reviewing?

What has stopped them from keeping pace?

Who needs to be involved in that conversation?

And what could we realistically do as an industry to change it?

You don’t have to agree with everything somebody says.

Before publicly attacking the person, make sure you understand what they were actually saying.
You might find you’re both concerned about the same problem.

18/08/2026

$300 to have the diagnosis confirmed and be told there was nothing they could do.

That was Alice Lloyd’s experience after years of knowing her exhaustion felt like more than simply being tired.

She went on to live with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia for twenty years.

In the latest episode of The Wellbeing Project, Alice talks about that period of her life, what eventually made her reconsider the way she was living, and the practices she believes helped her personally.

We also talk about stress, life onboard and what leaders can notice before someone actually says, “I’m not coping.”

🎙️ New episode coming soon.

Dirección

Arenys De Mar

Horario de Apertura

Lunes	07:30 - 17:00
Martes	07:30 - 17:00
Miércoles	07:30 - 17:00
Jueves	07:30 - 17:00
Viernes	07:30 - 17:00
Sábado	10:00 - 15:30

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