This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sandy Yawn, a superyacht captain who leads yacht crews on Bravo’s “Below Deck Mediterranean.” For the premiere of the show’s eleventh season, she walked us through a day in her life at sea. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I started my yachting career young and worked my way up. Along the way, I worked for some extraordinary owners who taught me a lot about being a leader.
I remember once working for this one owner and hearing him on the phone in his office. He was dealing with his boat and he goes, “I don’t know, take 15 minutes and educate me.” And I thought, “He doesn’t know! Wow, I don’t have to know everything.” That was a big learning for me.
As the captain and leader on board, my biggest challenge is keeping consistency with the crew. No owner or client wants to go through different crew for repeat charters. It’s like “Cheers” — you always go back to where people know who you are, right? They know your preferences, how you like your tea or how you take your coffee. We have logs where we keep tabs on our repeat clients.
My superpower is that I’m good at leading crew so they come back. I don’t lead with fear and I don’t lead with intimidation. I lead like a puppy: If you’ve got a puppy and you want to teach them how to swim, you go swimming. The puppy’s going to watch you on the steps. Next thing you know, they’re going to crawl in that water and start swimming with you.
Here’s what a typical day in my life at sea looks like.
I’m on deck at 7 a.m. and work out every day
As far as my routine on board, I’m on deck at 7 a.m. and I’m there until the last person goes to bed. I try to get a rest period in the middle. We’re required to have eight hours of rest in a 24-hour period — that’s maritime law — but how we choose to use our rest time is up to us.
I’m a creature of habit. I like a good coffee in the morning. I’m not a morning eater, so I usually don’t eat in the morning until about 10 or 11 a.m., but I’ll have fresh orange juice. When I’m home in Florida, I’ll squeeze fresh orange juice every day.
I try to eat well, but filming this season of “Below Deck Mediterranean,” I ate a lot of croissants. I was there a week before filming started, and man, did I put some weight on. Thankfully, we had a gym in our house.
I’m a gym person. I like going where people are. At home, we have two SoulCycle bikes and a gym. I’ve been working out every day because, the older you get, the harder it is to stay fit.
My routine and leadership style is influenced by my sobriety
I’m sober. I have the magic of the 12 steps, which to me is life-changing, and I go to meetings.
In the morning, I’ll read a meditation, and then I hit my knees and I ask for help for the day and ask to be a good human being and not selfish. And then I start my day.
At the end of my day, I review my day, because that’s part of the 12 steps, too: Have I hurt anyone? Do I owe an amends? It’s the maintenance part of recovery.
I’ll never forget, once, I had a phone call in my cabin with the boat’s owner. It was about money, the budget — I’d gone over. I come out, and my first officer asks me a question. I bit his head off.
I looked at his face, and he went from happy to sad, and I was like, “Oh my God, I love this guy. He’s such a great guy. I don’t want to make him sad.” So I said, “Rob, you didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry.”
Promptly admitting when you’ve made a mistake and saying you’re sorry, that’s the 10th step. Even on “Below Deck,” even with the crew, if I say something that hurts someone’s feelings or I’m not thinking, I’ll apologize.
Yachting keeps me away from home, but not as much as it used to
The maritime industry has evolved since I started. Before, when we worked, people didn’t see me for a long time.
I wasn’t there when my mom died. I wasn’t in her life for two years. I’d talk to her, but I hadn’t seen her. That was terrible, and I was like, “Something has to change.”
The industry has changed since then. Now, you get these rotations on these bigger boats. Some crew may get four months or five months on, five months off.
For me, in between “Below Deck,” I’ll run a few boats. It isn’t like charters, because to run a charter, the owner wants to hire you. And I’m like, “I’ve got to go do this TV show, sorry!”
Filming ‘Below Deck’ is a whirlwind, and I arrive early to adjust. At the end, my wife visits me.
Filming “Below Deck” is a lot more intense than a typical yacht season. We are in it until it’s done.
When you’re chartering, you usually have more time in between charters, so you get a longer break to recharge your batteries. Here, you’re back-to-back.
But listen, I’ve done back-to-back charters and 24-hour turnarounds in my career, too.
When I’m filming “Below Deck,” my wife Leah comes out to see me at the end.
Filming is six weeks, and I’m gone for eight weeks. I go early to adjust to the time zone. I’m taking on a boat for the first time, with a whole new crew — I need at least four days to prepare.
I prefer in-person and phone conversations to emails and texts
Being on deck is about speaking clearly. We learn in maritime school how to project our voices. We have to be crisp in our communication. Our enunciation and pronunciation have to be spot-on. We practice in a classroom how to talk on a radio and ask for help.
If you’re talking softly, people are not going to listen. If you’re talking too harshly, they’re not going to listen. But if you talk in a way that’s inviting and invigorating and direct, they’re going to listen because it’s almost like a respect of that. So your voice is everything. Your voice is your power.
I always say to my friend who runs a charity and works a lot on email, “Pick the phone up.” You’ve got to have conversations.
If I start seeing more than two, three, or four texts going back and forth, I pick the phone up. Otherwise, it gets escalated in your mind. You might think the tone’s different.
At home and off-charter, I like traveling and seeing live music with my wife
Recently, I said to Leah, “We’re not having fun. We work too much. We’re working all the time.” I’m like, “I want to see some live music, take some dance lessons with you. ” So we’ll do something.
I grew up with Southern rock and roll, but I like pop music. I like all of it. My playlist is very mixed.
I’ve got friends all over the place, and we’ll travel to really nice places. I’m an experiences person. I want some nice clothes, of course, but I would rather spend money on experiences. So we’ll go to the Monaco Boat Show. We’re going to the Hamptons for a week, then we’re going to go to Newport, and then we’re going to finish in Boston.
Leah and I have fun together. We laugh all the time. At home, our desks face each other in our office. We collaborate, we talk, and we have a whiteboard in there with all the things I have to do.
I’m the organized one in the family, and Leah’s the creative one. I’m very organized because I work on a boat. You have to know which manual to grab when you’re in trouble.
Season 11 of Below Deck Mediterranean premieres at 8 p.m. EST on Bravo.
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