A recent case of crew abandonment raises the question: are owner-operated yachts riskier for crew?
The yacht was a disaster for its crew. First of all, the living conditions were deplorable: a spider infestation had put one crew member in the hospital; the bathrooms were damp and poorly ventilated, which led to black mold; and it took a formal process to get a missing toilet seat and an unsanitary crew mattress replaced.
On top of that, the yacht’s flag state violations were rampant, as it lacked even the most basic safety equipment. There were no life jackets in the crew or guest rooms, no flares at all carried on board and not one of the fire extinguishers was up to code; all were either expired, corroded or inoperable.
Sure, the crew let the captain know of these deficiencies, but the captain also owned the yacht, so the grievances, for the most part, fell on deaf ears. Eventually, the owner/operator simply fired the complainers, terminating their contracts without notice and leaving them shoreside with no provision for repatriation.
This was the situation on one anonymous 79-foot yacht, according to a report received by CHIRP Maritime, a confidential near-miss and incident reporting program. It was only after an inspector from the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) got involved that the crew were able to get assistance to return home.
“This case highlights a broader concern regarding vessels operated solely by their owners, where the usual checks and balances provided by an independent management structure may be absent,” CHIRP wrote in about the case in its newsletter. “When command and ownership are combined, especially on vessels under 30 meters (98 feet), external oversight is often limited and accountability difficult to enforce.”
Michael Reardon of Reardon Yacht Consulting in Fort Lauderdale confirms that it is extremely rare for owner/operators to use a management company. “Many small-boat owners have the mentality of ‘I’ve made it on my own; I’ll figure out yachting on my own,’” he says. And as a result, he says “it’s almost guaranteed they will not” offer the same working conditions as a regular yacht.
His company provides yacht management in addition to project management, crew placement and general consulting services, so he admits it sounds self-serving, but he has seen that it’s highly likely an owner/operator will not treat the crew as well as a managed yacht, and that the vessel is more likely to not comply with flag state and applicable international conventions.
He gives the example of the Maritime Labor Convention, which protects seafarers’ rights to decent living and working conditions and mandates repatriation, among many other stipulations. All yachts that charter must comply, and one of the biggest non-conformities are hours of rest. “The management companies are on the hook if those issues aren’t dealt with,” Reardon says. “If we have too many vessels out of compliance with hours of rest, when the Cayman Islands comes and audits us, it’s a big problem. A single operator doesn’t necessarily even know or care about that stuff. So the incentive to comply is much greater for a management company.”
So, if there is no management company to provide oversight, what are crew to do when there is an issue and the captain/owner doesn’t want to hear it?
“Go to flag state or an attorney,” Reardon says.
The best-case scenario for an aggrieved crew member is to try to bring the matter to a US maritime court, which tends to favor the seafarer. This requires establishing jurisdiction in the US, which may not be straightforward. For instance, maritime attorney James Stroup of Stroup & Martin in Fort Lauderdale had a case involving a South African who was injured in Turkish territorial waters on a boat that was owned by a Panamanian corporation. “The boat has never been to the US. The injured seaman has never been to the US, but we were able to find a connection to the US that gave the federal court jurisdiction here because the boat was managed by a Fort Lauderdale-based management company, and the crew member was paid out of a bank account in Fort Lauderdale,” Stroup says.
The SEA often will specify what law is going to apply and where the venue for any litigation is going to be, or if it will be arbitration. “A common thing we see is for vessels that are flagged in the Isle of Man or in Guernsey, the crew agencies that put together the contracts will say ‘binding arbitration in Isle of Man.’ They pick a forum that puts the crew member at a disadvantage, and they do that on purpose to get away from the US jury system,” Stroup says. His best advice is to consult a competent maritime attorney who can analyze the factual scenario and give advice on what can be done.
Finally, as in the CHIRP-reported incident, ITF is a good resource. A couple of ways the global federation of trade unions supports seafarers is by recuperating owed wages and getting them home if they have been abandoned. For the latter, just email abandonment@itf.org.uk.