What to pay your crew
Knowing how much to pay your crew can be a perplexing decision for any yacht owner, and it is never one taken lightly. Salary costs for a yacht can be one of the biggest outlays over the year, easily running into the millions of euros for the more substantial vessels.…
Knowing how much to pay your crew can be a perplexing decision for any yacht owner, and it is never one taken lightly. Salary costs for a yacht can be one of the biggest outlays over the year, easily running into the millions of euros for the more substantial vessels.
If you have just purchased your first crewed luxury yacht, you may have no clue where to start. If you are stepping up to a much larger vessel, or upgrading in size significantly, what is fair and what will the crew expect on a larger vessel?
It is worth doing some research, perhaps even before you purchase the superyacht, to make sure you understand the actual costs you are going to incur down the line.
There are many varying factors that could dictate how much you are paying your crew. To an extent this will come down to what you, as an owner, feel is fair for the work that the crew does. If you have a long-term relationship with some crew – perhaps a captain or longstanding private chef – you might want to pay more than the average salary to reward their loyalty. This can also be something to consider for crew lower down the hierarchy who have been with you for a while and you would like to remain on board rather than leave to seek a more senior role.
For the last two years, Luxury Yacht Group (LYG), which has been placing superyacht crew for over a decade, has been tracking and publishing the salaries offered and expected of crew of all positions and in 2010 through an online reference tool. Updated weekly, it can help owners as well as captains and crew find the average salaries in the market. In December, The Crew Report magazine, a sister publication to The Superyacht Owner, published a review of the salary trends from the previous 12 months using the online tool.
Interestingly, despite the economic turbulence, salaries remained relatively stable.
For the interior crew, in terms of experience, chef salary expectations have moved little since 2010; the peak salary/length is still around 200ft but those on vessels around 250ft are earning more. Chief stews with three to five years of experience are expecting to take home on average $350 less per month than in 2010, though the salary/length balance is stable.
The correlation for salary expectations and experience is much the same as in 2010 for engineers of all levels. Senior engineers continue to be some of the highest paid crew when considering yacht length, with a peak of some chief engineers earning in excess of $12,000 per month. Salaries paid for chief engineers start to decrease at 210ft, most likely due to rotational positions being introduced, which is mirrored in the salaries of second engineers on yachts of 220ft and higher.
Deckhand salary expectations are slightly down on 2010 for all experience ranges but they are up almost a third for the very lower ranges of superyacht length variation from the LYG records, as well as up a few hundred dollars per month for ranges 100-120ft and over 200ft. In general, deckhand salaries are a few hundred dollars over $3,000 per month.
First officer/chief mate salary expectations are relatively stable with experience compared to last year. Against length they are generally slightly down on 2010 trends, though there is an incongruous peak at 220ft at $8,400 compared with flanking length ranges.
Captains with up to three years’ experience are on average expecting to earn $250 per month more than last year; there is less movement in the higher experience brackets. Captains of vessels between 140ft and 160ft are earning up to $1,500 more per month than last year’s results; captains between 160ft and 180ft are earning up to around $2,500 more. Though the peak is again around the 200ft mark for salaries, it weighs in at $11,250 rather than last year’s $12,000; again there is a dip in salary after this length range, probably due to the introduction of rotational roles for the captains.
Full information can be found on the LYG website here. Figures are quoted based on a monthly salary in US dollars. It is important to note these figures are from a sample and should not be considered absolute guidelines for your crew’s salary.
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