Frequently asked questions

Yes. Almost everyone starts "green" as a deckhand, junior stewardess or crew chef. Get your basic certificates, write a one-page yacht CV, and get yourself to a crew hub — Antibes, Palma or Fort Lauderdale — where you can do daywork and dockwalk. Attitude, reliability and turning up fit and early matter more than a long résumé.

The two non-negotiables are the STCW Basic Safety Training and a valid ENG1 seafarer medical (or an approved equivalent). Interior crew often add a food-hygiene and silver-service course; deck crew a Powerboat Level 2. Senior tickets — Yachtmaster, engineering CoCs — come later as you build sea time.

STCW is the international Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping — a mandatory ~5-day basic safety course covering sea survival, firefighting, first aid and personal safety. It's run at maritime training schools across the Med, US and UK. You'll also need Proficiency in Security Awareness.

The ENG1 is the UK MCA seafarer medical fitness certificate (many flag states accept an equivalent). An approved doctor checks your eyesight, hearing and general fitness. It's typically valid for two years and is required to work on commercially-registered yachts.

All three, together. Dockwalk the marinas early in the morning handing out CVs; take daywork(paid day jobs that often turn into permanent or delivery work and get your foot in the door); register free with crew agencies; and apply on boards like this one — our Daywork boardcarries the short, immediate jobs and the Job Board the permanent ones. The more lines you have in the water, the faster you'll land a berth.

The Mediterranean season runs roughly May–September (Antibes, Palma, Monaco). The Caribbeanseason runs about November–April (Antigua, St Maarten), often crewed out of Fort Lauderdale. The shoulder months mean yard periods, ocean crossings and plenty of daywork. Dual-season crew chase both.

Entry roles start around €2,500–3,000/month and climb steeply with rank and yacht size. Because food and accommodation are covered, most of it is saveable. See the full breakdown in our free salary guide.

On charter yachts, yes — guests usually tip 5–15% of the charter fee, split among the crew, which can add thousands over a season. Private (non-charter) yachts generally don't tip, but often pay a steady salary and a calmer schedule.

For the US and the Caribbean, crew typically hold a B1/B2 visa. In Europe, non-EU crew must mind the Schengen 90/180-day rule, though seafarer status and the right paperwork can help while you're signed on to a vessel. Immigration rules change often — always confirm with the yacht and the relevant authority.

In season it's long hours, small (often shared) cabins and a tight-knit team — but no commute, low expenses and the chance to travel and save hard. Off-season is calmer. Discretion, tidiness and a good attitude count for as much as technical skill.

Keep it to one page with a clear headshot: the position you're after, your certificates, sea miles, previous vessels, references and your availability. Tailor it to the role, and keep it honest — the industry is small and references get checked.

Yes — free for crew, forever. You can build a profile, browse and apply to unlimited jobs, use the forum and read the complete salary guide without paying anything. Crew Pro is an optional upgrade that gets you seen first.

Sign up as crew, then head to Dashboard → My profile & CV to add your positions, tickets, sea time and a photo, and to upload your CV. Pick from the full industry list — deck, engineering, interior and galley, plus specialist roles like dive and watersports instructors, and shore-based work from yacht management to broking. A fuller profile ranks higher in employer searches and scores better on matches.

An unconfirmed address is an unproven person, so anything that reaches somebody else waits until you've clicked the link: applying to a job, posting in the forum, leaving a review, publishing a vacancy, starting a new conversation, or inviting a colleague. Your crew profile also stays hidden from employers until you verify — you won't appear in candidate search. Editing your profile, uploading documents and saving jobs all work straight away, and nothing you enter is lost. Resend the link any time from your dashboard.

Only approved employer accounts, and only if you let them. Dashboard → My profile has a “visible to employers” switch — turn it off and you disappear from candidate search and your profile page closes, while your applications carry on normally, because applying to someone is your decision to share with them. Your CV and certificates follow the same rule: an employer can only open them if you're visible to them or you applied to their vacancy. Unverified profiles are hidden from everyone.

Open any position on the Job Board and tap Apply · one tap. Track every application under Dashboard → Applications. It's unlimited and free for all crew.

A secure place to store your STCW, ENG1, CoC, visas and other certificates. It reads expiry dates automatically and reminds you before anything lapses, so a stale ticket never costs you a job. Find it under Certificates & documents in your dashboard.

Set yourself available with dates plus your city and country, and you surface automatically in employer searches. Switch to unavailable the moment you're back on rotation — no awkward messages needed.

Completely. The salary guide is open to everyone — no login, no subscription — with pay bands for every department and yacht size.

The forum covers breaking in, training and tickets, each department, life onboard, money and admin, visas and travel, destinations and regional boards. Anyone can read it — including people without an account, and search engines. Posting, replying, reacting and messaging need an account, so post as though the whole industry can see it, because it can. Members can start, edit, lock and illustrate their own threads, react with an emoji, and send the author a private message. The rule we enforce firmly — job ads belong on the Job Board and day jobs on the Daywork board, not the forum; posts that read like vacancies are automatically held for a moderator. The pinned forum rules thread is the full version and worth two minutes before your first post.

Yes. Vessel and management-company reviews are structured and moderated, and you can choose to hide your name. The party being reviewed gets a right of reply.

Tell us the positions, region and minimum salary you're after under Dashboard → Job alerts, and we'll email you the moment a matching vacancy is posted — it arrives in your notifications too. Leave a field blank to mean “any”, so an empty alert tells you about every new position. A vacancy with no published salary still matches a salary filter, because “on application” is common and we'd rather you saw it. Alerts are free on every plan, you can keep up to ten, and deleting one stops those emails immediately.

A separate board at Daywork for short, immediate work — a captain who needs an extra pair of hands tomorrow in Antibes, a wash-down before a charter, a delivery. Posting takes under a minute, and posts clear themselves once the date passes. It's free, and it's where daywork belongs rather than the forum.

The marketplace is crew classifieds — gear, uniform, kit, housing and rideshares between crew. Post a listing, pick a section, and deal safely: meet in person where you can and never send money for something you haven't seen.

Priority placement at the top of the captain's list, direct messages to recruiters, profile-view insights, AI match scores, applicant counts on every position so you can see how many people you're up against before you apply, and unlimited vault storage. Certificate expiry reminders and job alerts are free for every crew member. See the pricing page for the full list.

Three ways, depending on what it's about. The 💬 Feedback button at the bottom-right of every page is fastest for anything broken, confusing or missing — it goes straight to our queue and you don't need to leave the page you're on. Use the Contact page for enquiries, advertising and anything that needs a reply. Or email crew@yachtmuster.net directly.

YachtMuster is operated by SIA "OZ Style", a company registered in Latvia (reg. 40103634763), at Rīga, Pūces iela 43 - 25, LV-1082, Latvia. Full details are on our terms and privacy pages.

Create an employer account, add your company and vessel(s), then post a position from your dashboard. New employer accounts are checked by a person before the first vacancy goes live — usually within a day. You can set everything up and draft positions while you wait. Verified crew then apply directly, and you shortlist, message and track them all in one place. Start on the pricing page.

Because an employer account can read crew CVs, certificates and contact details, and anyone can type an email address into a signup form. Checking new accounts by hand is what lets us promise crew their documents only reach real companies. Until you're approved you can create your company, add vessels and draft vacancies — you just can't publish one or open a crew profile. You'll get an email the moment it's done; if it's taking too long, tell us.

Yes. In Dashboard → Company profile the owner can invite colleagues by email as a recruiter(posts vacancies and reviews applicants) or a viewer (sees the pipeline but changes nothing). Invites expire after 14 days and can be withdrawn any time. How many seats you get depends on your plan — see the pricing page.

Never. You pay a flat, upfront rate to advertise or subscribe and then hire as many crew as you like — no percentage of salary, no success fee, no catch. What you see is what you pay.

Yes. We don't charge by the metre — a 24m sailing yacht and a 90m motor yacht pay the same flat rate. That's a deliberate break from the by-length pricing used on the legacy boards, where a large yacht can pay several times more for the very same service.

Both. On the Growth plan you can search the candidate database by role, ticket, availability and location and approach crew directly — you're never limited to who happens to apply.

Crew confirm their email before they can apply or appear in search at all, build a profile with their tickets and sea time, and store certificates in a document vault you can open from their application. Availability and experience are visible up front, so you shortlist on real information rather than guesswork. It runs both ways: employer accounts are checked by hand, which is what persuades crew to attach real documents in the first place.

Absolutely. Agencies and management companies can run unlimited postings on the Growth plan, with full candidate search, featured placements and multiple recruiter seats so your whole desk works from one company account. Contact us for a fleet rate.

Adverts run for 30 days. You can pause, edit, close or repost any position at any time from Dashboard → Jobs, and reuse a previous advert as a template for the next one.

Your brand or product, to the yachting community — display banners across the site, a feature in our crew newsletter, and social-media promotion. It's built for schools, chandlers, marinas, services and suppliers who want to reach working crew. (Looking to hire crew instead? That runs on the employer plans, not here.)

See the rate card above. Display banners start at €115 a month, a newsletter feature is €140 a send, and a social-media promotion is €115 a post. Every price is flat and published, with no long tie-in and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Leaderboard (970×90), MPU (300×250) and mobile banner (300×250), served across the jobs, forum and salary pages where crew spend their time. Send us your artwork, or we'll help you put it together.

Yes. Sponsor a slot in our crew newsletter (€140 a send) to land in registered members' inboxes, or book a social-media promotion (€115 a post) to reach our wider following.

Tell us what you'd like to run on the Contact page and we'll get you live, usually within a couple of working days.

We're lean and built by crew, so we keep overheads low and pass it on — flat, published rates that undercut the legacy platforms while putting your brand in front of the crew who actually matter.