After watching my sister travel the world onboard a superyacht, I joined the industry for six and a half years. I worked on dual season, heavily used charter vessels, getting my first promotion to 2nd Stew after 10 months and Chief Stew after 3 years – I truly found my place in the world with yachting.
As burnout creeped in, I decided to do something with the following I’d gained on social media posting my travels, and occasionally offering advice to other stew’s.
They say to look at ‘the one big thing people are asking you all the time’ when starting a business & to solve it.
The one question that kept hitting my inbox was ‘how can I get a job onboard a superyacht’ or ‘I’ve got my certificates, now what’ sort of questions.
Whilst there were plenty of stew courses on how to set a table, make a bed and iron a shirt – there was nothing where aspiring stews could learn how to be a favourable candidate when applying for jobs, position and present themselves in the correct light, and the steps needed to create an actual strategy for getting a job rather than just “winging it” – whilst competition to break into this industry grows.
And if there were modules like this tacked onto the end of STCW courses, they were out of date, basic, and there was no after support or community to lean on.
So Shore to Sea was formed.
I invested the remainder of my yachtings savings after paying off my mortgage, into a 12 month online business mentorship program, and living costs in London whilst I built the business.
After 6 months, I did a mini-launch of the course and within 48 hours has sold out of the 10 spaces. After another 6 months, I had refined the program, built the back end from scratch and recorded the final product. I launched to the public and now have 37 students inside my Shore to Sea program.
The students who are from all around the world, have landed jobs on a variety of programs including, motor and sail vessels from 27m to 92m and say they couldn’t have done it without various parts of the Shore to Sea program.
I’ve been able to host events in Palma and Antibes to assist with their relationship building and networking within the industry and build a stronger brand presence for the Shore to Sea / Madison Jay brand and look forward to expanding this to Fort Lauderdale later this year.
Ultimately, my goal is to make the yachting dream a reality for people brave enough to take a leap of faith, outside of societies ‘norm’ and provide them with the knowledge & skills to give them the best career start possible.
In turn, breaking the cycle of boats not being able to risk hiring green crew, and instead bringing quality, hard working candidates ready to commit to their boat & the industry – and having fun whilst doing it!
Link to Instagram to see more about Shore to Sea: https://www.instagram.com/madisonjay__/
New website is coming, so this isn’t live at the moment, but this is the Shore to Sea sales page: https://madisonjay.txfunnel.com/ilcmr6gs
