The all-too-real issues of sexual harassment and assault can be hard for the industry to talk about — but the cost of silence is too high.
In January 2025, after a large sailing yacht arrived in Antigua, an anonymous woman announced on channel 16 that the captain was a rapist. Since then, numerous victims have come forward chronicling assaults going back to 2014.
In February, yacht captain James McGruder, whose arrest history spans five US states, pled guilty in a West Palm Beach court to felony battery, a lesser charge than the sexual battery he had been accused of, to avoid jail time. In May, while under probation, he filed a petition to be allowed to leave Florida to captain a yacht in New York.
In August, the body of stew Paige Bell was discovered in the engine room with visible signs of injuries after she had been left alone on board with the engineer she had reported for harassing her.
These incidents just from the past year reveal serious cracks in the glossy armor of superyachting: women who feel they have no recourse when assaulted on board, crew members with criminal histories who continue to find work on yachts and an environment where even when one speaks up, they are not protected.
Sexual harassment and assault are inconvenient truths in a world that exists solely for pleasure. “I don’t want to say it goes on all the time, but it’s far more common than I think we want to believe,” says Erica Lay, who runs El Crew Co in Palma, and whose contacts have been passed around as someone who helps women. “I have friends that I’ve known for years over a few glasses of wine, tell me, ‘Oh yeah, in my first year in yachting I was raped by the chef.’ It’s just horrendous.”
For many in the industry, it’s time for specific, concrete solutions. “We need a whistle-blowing system. We need to educate the crew. We need a legal strategy, like the US that says bullying and harassment is a personal injury and creates safety risks. And flag states need to sit up and take notice of this and stop pushing it under the table,” says Angie Wallace of Purser Training, who has been working towards these goals as part of a soon-to-be-announced initiative.
“It feels a bit lawless out there”
As whispers of the sexual misconduct of the aforementioned sailing captain surfaced, Lay connected the victims via WhatsApp so they could support each other, while Wallace, who at the time headed the PYA Welfare Group, helped them draft affidavits. But in compiling the case, she ran into roadblock after roadblock, with flag state deferring to the police, witnesses pulling out and a lack of documentation from the victims. She was close to giving up when Andrew Roch of The Crew Academy in the UK heard a recording of the VHF call and took up the cause. There are now seven cases pending with five UK police forces.
“Why does it take a 52-year-old male (to get justice), when there have been two senior female leaders in the industry trying for two years?” Roch says. “I find it strange that our industry does not listen or take seriously sexual assault or rape claims. I think it’s because it is fully male-dominated at management, and owners’ interests are put before crew interests.”
This wasn’t the only time Wallace felt that flag state sidestepped the issue. “I listened to a young lady the other evening. She was being harassed by a crew member, and she did all the correct reporting procedures. Everything was to the letter that we would say, take it to your head of department, take it to your captain, take it to your DPA, take it to your management company, take it to flag state. It went all the way to flag state. Flag state says, ‘Yes, you’ve got a case. Give me the names of witnesses and everyone that’s involved.’ And then flag state knew one of the guys, and suddenly it’s like, ‘You need to take their pay offer and leave it alone.’ If flag state can be bought, where do we go?”
“It does feel a bit lawless out there, and it’s very difficult I think, for people in the industry to know where to turn to,” says Lay.
Historically, yachting has not been the most transparent of workplaces. “No one knew about it. There was no TV show; you could get in, make a lot of money, get out. But because it was something no one was paying attention to, we have a huge lack of any true oversight and repercussions for people who misbehave — things that come with an established job,” says Captain Hugo Ortega of Robin’s Nest II, who has worked in the industry for more than a decade.
Crew may be attracted to yacht work to escape the nine-to-five lifestyle, but, as Ortega says, they can’t evade 2025 thinking. “You wanted to get away from the rules of real life; well that doesn’t include sexism and sexual intimidation — you’re not escaping HR.”
“Every boat must be like this”
Creating a safer industry starts with educating new crew. They need to know what they’re getting into, Wallace says. “Sometimes crew are so desperate to get a job that they will ignore all the red flags. And it’s only when they get on board, they go, ‘What do I do now?’” The safety committee she is on is looking to bring in more transparency. “We’re drawing up onboarding procedures and complaint procedures. We’re trying to think of different ways that instead of being passed from pillar to post, to have a centralized complaint area.”
As part of his Superyacht Sunday School coaching program that helps people break into the industry, Ortega has formed a large active community that acts as a support system. “The biggest thing that keeps people on bad boats, is that they think, ‘Oh shit, every boat must be like this,’” he says. He relays the story of a new crew member who was groped on board. She turned to the group and learned that other boats were not like hers and she left. “She now knows what’s not OK and she’ll be less likely to get into that situation again,” Ortega says.
Captains also need to further their education with leadership training, Wallace says. “They go through a lot of training in how to run a boat, but they don’t have any training in how to manage crew. And that really is the majority of their job. It’s quite easy to point a vessel, turn the engines on and go from A to B. It’s a whole other matter when you’ve got a bunch of crew that you need to manage, with different nationalities, different ages, different cultures, different languages.”
Ortega believes captains need to adopt a zero-tolerance policy. “Just like people know they can’t show up to work at 8:30am instead of 8am, it should be the same thing as I can’t make people feel intimidated. I can’t walk past the stew and grab her hips, because it’s part of that casual sexism or harassment that we’re all used to. I have to be worried that if the stew says something, I’m going to get a written warning or I might lose my job. It has to be heavily implemented to begin with. There has to be that shock factor, so that everyone understands this isn’t OK.”
“Captains think they are good judges of character”
In the wake of Paige Bell’s murder, the debate over criminal background checks heated up. Some people stated they should be mandatory in yachting, while others questioned their usefulness since it is not possible to check every jurisdiction in the world. And in cases like Bell’s, reportedly the perpetrator had no criminal history and was considered a good crew member.
Traditionally, hiring has been based on references, whether from industry colleagues or placement agencies. Interviews follow and, as Sally Byrne, co-founder of Safe Sail, points out, “captains generally think they are good judges of character.” Meanwhile, candidates will propose references that will paint themselves in the best possible light, adds Conrad Empson, founder of CrewPass.
The idea of vetting potential crew in a more objective way has been gaining traction. Safe Sail and CrewPass, which both began operations four years ago, have seen ever-increasing interest in their services, which go far beyond a criminal background check. Using different business models, the companies have the same endgame: a holistic review of a job candidate that reveals red flags.
Safe Sail, whose team has intelligence and investigations experience, offers vetting that can be tailored to the client’s requirements. This ranges from basic personal, address and passport verification to multi-jurisdictional criminal background checks and enhanced vetting that incorporates analysis of digital footprint and behavior, civil and credit checks, qualification and reference verification and more.
“Because of the limitations of relying on criminal background checks in isolation, a multi-source verification process is essential to assess data from multiple angles. Once all available intelligence has been collected, analyzed and assessed, we would develop an understanding of the candidate’s risk profile, if any,” says Byrne, adding that, “we cannot stress enough, the importance of understanding that risk can never be fully mitigated, and safety should never be guaranteed as per the guidelines of all vetting standards and frameworks.”
CrewPass is more like a verified profile, valid for two years. It can be paid for by crew to make themselves more attractive to employers, or by employers to verify who they are hiring. The standard check covers identity, criminal background and adverse media, then further layers can be added, including social media, credit and civil checks. The most comprehensive is an enhanced internet scrape, recently rolled out in version two of the platform, which scans for behavioral and interaction insights. “So if you’re being derogative online to women, or anything like that, which we have seen, this flags it up,” Empson says.
Combating the subjectiveness of references, CrewPass is using its four years’ history checking and placing crew members to create a verified map of employment. “We know what crew members have been on a boat at the same time. So we are able to say that that crew member has worked with these people, and if [the prospective employer] has the contact information for any of those people, they can reach out,” Empson says.
So why isn’t every yacht management company using vetting services? Perhaps because background checks take time and cost the owner money. Though, as Wallace says, “I wonder whether owners, if they truly were aware, would say, ‘Of course, we must do this.’”
Empson points out that all it took to get his first yacht job was daywork and STCW and ENG1 certificates. Within a week the owner was on board. “I had full access to his life, his kids with no questions asked. I’m sure that owner wasn’t even aware of that fact. He would expect everyone to be vetted.”
The good news is sexual harassment is being taken more seriously. Strides can be seen in laws like the 2022 Safer Seas Act in the US, which requires the Coast Guard to revoke or suspend the credentials of anyone who has been convicted of sexual assault in the previous 10 years or of sexual harassment in the previous five years. And upcoming amendments to STCW will make training in sexual harassment and bullying prevention and response mandatory starting on January 1, 2026.
“Our industry must do better in creating safe reporting mechanisms, educating leadership and ensuring that crew who speak up are protected rather than punished,” Lay says.
Ortega is hopeful that as younger generations with different mindsets fill more positions on board there will be a shift. Wallace agrees. “We seem to be growing in numbers of people who say, enough is enough, we need change.”
But, as Lay points out, “change will only come if we stop pretending this isn’t happening and start tackling it head on.
Get Safe
To any crew who has been assaulted or harassed, Erica Lay offers this advice: “Get to a safe place. That might be leaving the yacht, going on another yacht next door, getting to a hotel, getting to a police station, but first of all, make sure that you’re safe.
I’ve had calls and messages over the years from young women, just out of the blue, asking ‘What do you think I should do? I don’t feel safe on the yacht.’ And I’ve always said to them, ‘Look, if you phoned your dad or your big brother, what do you think he’d say to you?’ And every time they say, ‘You’re right, I’ll pack my bag.’” Lay recommends having a credit card to use as a get-out-of-jail-free card in these situations and not waiting to be repatriated. “Don’t hang around. Remove yourself immediately. You’ll never regret doing that.”
Captain Hugo Ortega adds, “If you’re thinking just another month, or I’m going to wait until we get back to America, one last crossing, one last charter... That’s when tragedies happen.”