Tiny cabins. Demanding guests. Crew drama. Sleep deprivation. Now imagine navigating all of that with your partner by your side 24/7. Some yacht captains swear by hiring couples, calling them loyal and stable. Others won't go near them after past disasters. Dockwalk speaks to yacht crew about the reality of working - and living - with your partner on board.
There are few environments quite as effective at fast-tracking a relationship as a superyacht. You work together, eat together, socialise together and then retire to a cabin roughly the size of a cupboard together. Throw in demanding guests, sleep deprivation, crew politics and sprinkle over a few same-day turnarounds, and it’s either a recipe for lasting love or an extremely efficient way of discovering you’ve made a terrible mistake.
Yet couples are everywhere in yachting. Some captains see an established couple as a ready-made team offering stability and longevity; others hear ‘couple looking’ and start backing slowly towards the door.
So, are two yacht crew who arrive as a package a hiring risk – or could a strong couple actually make a superyacht run better?
When two really does work better than one on a superyacht
Chief stewardess Courtney Dow and yacht chef Vince Montagna have been together for more than 15 years, working alongside each other for over 10 years - first in restaurants and hospitality businesses and now on board yachts.
“We feed off each other. We know how the other person thinks, what they’re going to need, and often what they’re thinking before they even say it,” says Courtney.
Their chef/chief stew combination can also remove one of yachting’s more traditional sources of friction. “We don’t operate as a galley and an interior constantly trying to figure each other out. We operate as one hospitality system.”
Their message to potential employers is simple: “Don’t hire us because we’re a couple. Hire us because we’re an experienced hospitality team who happens to be a couple.”
Another stewardess has worked alongside her chief officer partner for four years. Their captain prefers established couples, believing they offer longevity, loyalty and stability.
But there is an important word in there: established.
Why some yacht captains won’t employ couples
One captain hasn’t hired a couple since a chief mate, who’d joined with a deckhand, began an affair with the chief stew mid-season, leaving all three on board.
“The rest of the summer was awful,” he recalls. “None of them wanted to leave, so the rest of the crew suffered for it.” The icing on the cake? The new couple split up as soon as the season ended.
Another captain has a more practical concern: what if one half simply isn’t very good? “It’s not fair to make one department carry a dud because their partner’s a superstar. And then when they leave, you’re left with two vacancies instead of one. Too risky. And too common!”
Yet experience can cut both ways. A third captain insisted on single crew until romantic drama between two of them persuaded him to try a couple. They stayed for years.
“Since then, my agent has found couples to work with me when one set leaves. All of them have become lifelong friends of my family,” he says. “I’d never go back to hiring singles.”
What happens when one crew member outranks the other?
Georgia Gutteridge and her partner Leane Koogje have been together for almost 10 years and have worked together for much of their careers. Hierarchy, however, stays at work.
“I might technically outrank her on board, but I’m certainly not going back to the cabin expecting her to call me captain,” Georgia says. “I quite enjoy remaining alive.”
Early in their careers, they joined a sailing cadetship in Papua New Guinea, run “full military style”. Leane was deemed too old to be a cadet and instead made a manager/instructor – partly responsible for Georgia’s punishment drills.
“There were periods where I was four months deep without a single day off,” Georgia recalls. “Meanwhile, I’d occasionally look over on a Sunday and see Leane sitting in a floaty drinking a beer.”
The cadetship put their relationship under real strain. Their first yacht job together wasn't plain sailing either: Georgia says they encountered open homophobia from their captain and Leane eventually left. Since then, they tell prospective employers from the outset that they are “two women, not just a couple”.
Despite a spectacular baptism of fire, almost 10 years later they still work together – and actively prefer it.
Two yachting careers, one relationship
Working as a couple inevitably means two careers become intertwined. For one experienced deckhand and engineer, being a couple landed them an “amazing” job in French Polynesia because the yacht specifically needed their unusual combination.
On another yacht, despite being recruited as a couple, their captain subsequently insisted they sleep separately – even during a yard period ashore. “I don’t mind strict rules during work hours, but our time off should not be managed as if we are teenagers,” she says.
She eventually resigned while her partner remained in a rotational position important for his career. For now, she takes temporary roles rather than committing to a permanent position that could leave them apart for a year.
“What wins is communication,” she says. “Decisions in our relationship are made together; we try not to leave room for resentment.”
Can you ever escape each other on a superyacht?
Apparently, yes. Sometimes.
Courtney and Vince consciously spend time apart when they can, although it’s often less about escaping each other than escaping the yacht: “Sometimes the most romantic sentence in a 15-year relationship is, ‘I’m going out for a couple of hours. You have the cabin to yourself'.”
Perhaps that’s the trick. Successful yacht couples remain two professionals, understand when hierarchy matters, make compromises – and occasionally know when to disappear for a few hours.
As Courtney puts it: “There will always be another yacht. Finding someone you can survive a charter season with, demanding guests, crew politics, a tiny cabin and each other with is considerably harder.”
Particularly if you’ve already survived the punishment drills.