August 9, 2011
This month's survey comes at the request of a captain who has been on the same vessel with the same owner for 25 years. He was curious to learn if there were other long-time, long-term crew out there.
Turns out, not so much.
Before we begin, we want to acknowledge that the results to this survey likely would have been much different if we had asked these questions three years ago, before the industry was wracked by financial upheavals.
But, alas, we didn’t ask then. We’ve asked now.
The captain who asked for this survey is indeed in a class by himself. While it’s a little less unusual to find captains who have stayed with an owner a long time, there aren’t many who have stayed with one owner and the same yacht for a long time.
“The captain who has been lucky enough to be with the same owner for 25 years is very lucky,” said a captain in yachting more than 25 years. “This is by no means the norm.”
“Longevity is the key to the industry,” said a captain in yachting more than 30 years. “If you can find the right owner, you have solved 90 percent of the problems. It is important to build a relationship, and relationships only evolve with time.”
In an open-ended question, we asked captains if they would prefer to work on one yacht long term or if changes kept things interesting.
Resoundingly, captains preferred a long-term position, but not necessarily with one boat. Almost all of the 73 respondents who answered this question said their contentment depended on the owner.
“As a captain, I look for good owners (good people), not a good boat,” said a captain in yachting more than 30 years. “I can fix the boat with a good owner, but you can't take a good boat and make a good owner.”
“Good owners are harder to find than good boats,” said a captain in yachting more than 25 years. “At least if you get a bad boat you have a chance of fixing it. I would like to hang on to a good owner. Long-term yacht jobs are very rare.”
Regretfully, we didn’t ask about the owner specifically.
“The yacht has nothing to do with it,” said a captain in yachting more than 20 years. “It is all about the owner that you work for. I, for example, have done four boats over 10 years for the same owner.”
“It's all about the owner,” said the captain of a yacht less than 80 feet in yachting 10-14 years. “I work for a great family. They could buy a tub and I'd stay with them.”
“I’m more interested in staying with my owner than with a particular yacht,” said the captain of a yacht 80-100 feet in yachting more that 30 years. “Great owners are scarce. I would stick with this one even if he traded for an outrigger canoe built by bleep and equipped with bleep electronics."
To read more comments about this questions, click here.
In the interest of statistics, we asked captains and crew lots of questions about their vessels and their bosses. Here’s what we learned.
First, we wanted to know about the vessel, so we asked Is your boss the original owner?
About 37.5 percent of our 144 respondents this month said their boss was the yacht’s first owner, leaving most yachts -- 62.5 percent -- no longer owned by the original owner.
Since most yachts have had more than one owner, we wanted to know how many owners they’ve had. Interestingly, exactly half had just two owners, the original owner and the current boss.
About 40 percent have had three or maybe four owners. Almost 5 percent have had at least five owners. Just four respondents had no idea how many owners the yacht they currently work on has had.
So just who is the owner? We asked this to get a feel for who the captain answers to, so we asked respondents to give us the beneficial owner, not the paperwork owner, for example the off-shore corporation created for tax purposes.
Almost half of the 144 respondents (47.9 percent) said the yacht is owned by an individual man. The bulk of the rest of yachts were owned by a married couple (36.8 percent).
The next two groups were tied at 4 percent each: a business or a corporation (such as those that own The Highlander and Gallant Lady), and several generations of a family.
Just two respondents (1.3 percent) said the yacht is owned by an individual woman, which surprised us a little.
Two yachts are owned by a group of friends. Just one of our survey respondents works on a yacht owned by monarchy (less than 1 percent).
The other main thing to know about a yacht when you look at it is the story behind its name. Since we couldn’t compile all that information in a statistically significant way, we asked instead Does the yacht carry its original name?
These results were a bit more evenly matched. More than 45.1 percent of yachts still carry their original name, which was interesting considering less than 40 percent of yachts are still owned by their original owner. Most respondents (54.9 percent) said their yachts do not carry the original name.
Among those yachts that do not carry the original name, respondents figured that 62 percent have had only two names: its original and its current name.
Once again, the next largest group of yachts -- 35.4 percent -- had three, maybe four names. Just 2 percent had at least five names, which was interesting considering more than twice that amount of yachts have had at least five owners.
Just two respondents had no idea how many names their yacht has had.
While we were on the topic of names, we had to ask What do you think about the practice of changing a yacht's name?
While we have heard many captains question this practice, saying that naming a vessel is the privilege you get for building it, very few in our survey -- just 6.25 percent -- said it shouldn’t be done.
The vast majority -- 70 percent of respondents -- said it’s no big deal and believed that the owner can name his boat whatever he wants.
About 15 percent of respondents admitted they would rather the owner didn’t change the name, but acknowledged that it wasn’t really their call.
And 13 percent had no preference either way.
In an effort to determine how many long-timers were out there, we asked captains How long have you been onboard your current vessel?
Though their tenures were much longer, the largest group of respondents (38.2 percent) have been on their current vessels less than four years.
The next largest group (nearly a third) have been on their current vessel 4-6 years.
“I have worked for two owners, the first was for 10 years and the current one for the last six,” said the captain of a yacht 121-140 feet in the industry more than 20 years. “My intention is to retire with them. Longevity is security in a very insecure industry.”
“I like to stay working for the right people and not move around too much,” said the captain of a yacht 161-180 feet who has been in the industry more than 25 years. “My last owner was eight years; this one is now nearly six years.”
About 12 percent have been on 7-9 years; 10 percent 10-14 years; and 2.7 percent have been on 15-19 years.
To our original point -- how many long-timers are there left out there -- just 4.2 percent have been onboard their current vessels more than 20 years.
When we cross referenced these long-timers with the original boat owners, we discovered only four captains among our 144 respondents -- 2.7 percent -- have been on one boat with one owner as long as the captain who suggested this survey.
“Building a long-term relationship with the owner and family makes the job easier and more pleasant,” said a captain in yachting more than 30 years. “They do not use the yacht a lot, therefore it is always relatively fresh and new to them. So they are still enthusiastic about yacht ownership, despite it being the same yacht, for 23 years.”
It occurred to us afterward that a captain may have been on the same vessel with the same owner for a long time, but just not from the beginning, so the number of long-time, long-term captains may be higher.
Next, we asked specific questions about the owner, including How long has the owner owned this vessel?
The largest group of owners (36 percent) has had their current vessel 4-6 years. More than a quarter (27 percent) have owned their vessels less than four years. Just 4.2 percent have owned their current vessel longer than 20 years.
Interestingly, five of the six respondents that have been on their current yachts more than 20 years have been with the owners that long.
After asking about a yacht’s ownership, we were curious to see how an owner’s yacht habits would differ, so we asked, How many boats has this owner owned?
We had a tie between “three, maybe four” and “at least five” with 30.5 percent each.
“My wife and I have worked for this owner for 20 years,” said a captain in yachting more than 30 years. “During our time with them, they have owned at least a dozen boats and he owned dozens before we went to work for them. I'm sure he has a few more boat purchases in him for the future.”
The next largest group -- a quarter of respondents -- said the boss has owned just two yachts.
“I have been with the same owner on two boats for almost 19 years,” said the captain of a yacht 81-100 feet in the industry more than 30 years. “Great guy.”
Just 11 percent said the current yacht is the boss’s first. And three respondents had no idea.
We thought it might be interesting to find out the naming and buying habits of the boss, so we asked a few more questions for the 128 respondents who work with an owner who has owned more than one yacht.
First, have the names been similar, perhaps in a Roman numeral sort of way?
Owners were evenly split in this regard. About 48 percent of respondents said the owner keeps the names similar; 48 percent said they don’t.
Just six respondents, about 4 percent of this group, had no idea.
Does the owner always buy bigger with each successive yacht?
The vast majority -- 86 percent -- of owners have bought ever larger vessels.
“The owner has offered to buy a bigger yacht if the crew agrees,” said the captain of a yacht 81-100 feet in the industry 5-9 years. “We know our busy charter yacht inside out and are reluctant to move up unless we find a yacht that is very likely to grow the business.”
“As the owner’s boat changes to a bigger size, the owner changes personality as he acquires different friends, and it’s not always for the best,” said the captain of a yacht less than 80 feet. “I move as soon as I am treated as a servant.”
Has the owner always bought the same kind of boat, be it power, sportfish or sail?
Nearly 65 percent of respondents said their boss stays in the same yachting genre.
Has the owner always bought the same builder?
More than 80 percent said no.
With owners that appear to continue to move up, it shouldn’t be too surprising that there aren’t more crew on the same boat long term. We get the point that it’s the owner -- and the crew’s relationship with the owner -- that makes all the difference.
We conduct our monthly surveys online. All captains and crew members are welcome to participate. If you haven’t been invited to take our surveys and would like to be, register for our e-mails online at www.the-triton.com.
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