Cotton Crew Club: Why Use A Yacht Crewing Agency?
Protect your vessel, delight your guests, avoid expensive mistakes, and spend time on what matters.
With so many digital methods of crewing, more Owners today are turning to Facebook and other online groups to find the right staff for their yachts. While these yacht jobs communities can be useful, forging the occasional perfect match found between yacht and crewmate, this method is also often very stressful for the Captain or Owner in question.
Without any guarantee that you will get the right yacht crew first or even second time, Owners can find their boats, themselves and their guests not being properly cared for, paying out big money for – and wasting valuable time on – these hiring mistakes in the long-term. That’s where a crewing agency like Cotton Crews comes in, ensuring that you get the perfect crew for your requirements and taking all the hassle out of hiring.
Protect your vessel
With crewing, as with everything, you get what you pay for. A good crew agency will help you to get the right onboard team – people who will look after your yacht properly and make sure you get the best out of it. Not only is this beneficial when you are using the yacht, but it also protects your boat as a financial asset if the time comes to sell up. Hiring those who are dedicated to keeping every corner of your yacht shipshape will ultimately mean that you retain some of your resale value, which is always a priority as an Owner.
Whether you have a 30m sports boat looking to fill one position or a 100m+ megayacht with its own in-house recruitment team, hiring for five specialist roles at a time, a crewing agency can stop you from making recruitment mistakes that could depreciate your treasured vessel.
Delight your guests
Another high priority of your crew should obviously be looking after the guests, but every Owner has a slightly different idea of how this is done – from exuberant crew who become almost part of the family, to quiet staff members who whisk in and out without interrupting. As an expert crew recruitment agency, we take time to understand your preferences and have a wide database of crew members to fit them. Experienced yacht crew recruiters will also understand the differences in crew structure and jobs on different sizes of yacht, and how roles can change significantly between private and charter vessels.
For charter yachts, the desire to delight guests is also driven by the need to create a loyal client base that comes back time and time again – a charter boat is a business, after all. So, getting the right crew on board becomes even more crucial, being the building block from which you can create a successful and lucrative charter program. You also have such a limited time to get it right that you need all of your crew to be exceptional from the get-go. That’s where we come in.
Avoid expensive mistakes
Alongside the long-term money saved on keeping your vessel in perfect condition, hiring without a crew agency could also lead to some costly payouts in the short term. You will always want to try candidates out, meaning you have to put them on the payroll – even just temporarily – and add them to your insurance. However, hiring without professional help could lead to having to do this multiple times while you work out who is a good fit. On the other hand, a crewing agency will usually be able to find you strong, vetted and referenced candidates straight away.
If you’re anchored somewhere that’s not a yachting hub, it’s likely you’ll also have to keep flying crew in for interviews – South Florida yacht crew aren’t just going to magically appear on deck. This will be expensive and ultimately, you really want to limit the amount of ill-fitting interviewees you have. Yet this is easier said than done for a Captain or Owner trying to hire on their own, all the while taking care of everything else onboard.
All these costs quickly add up to big sums and are often far more than you would have spent with a crew recruitment agency, with ten times more stress.
Spend time on what matters
We know that you have better things to do than meeting stewardess and deckhand applicants who might not be quite right. That’s why we do all the legwork for you, looking in detail at candidates’ social media accounts and yacht CVs to make sure they are exactly what you are looking for. Then, we will meet the ‘best fits’ to work our list down to a top five, from which you can decide who you’d like to meet. It really is as easy as that.
While bigger agencies merely send out automated CVs that their computer systems think might be right for you, we put in the hours to hand-pick candidates. Every time. And when we send candidates over, they’re ready to interview and move on board tomorrow if needed. One perfect crew member, zero stress!
Learn more about hiring luxury yacht crew with the Cotton Crew Club or get the Cotton Crew Hire app here:
