First and foremost, thank you for the invitation & it’s an honour to have received a nomination in the Bosun/ Lead Deckhand Category.
My name is Anton I come from a small town in South Africa named Welkom, my family decided to move to Johannesburg where I grew up playing rugby from a young age and later on moved to Durban, I have been fortunate enough in my life time to have experienced some interesting sports activities, I started Scuba Diving in 2006 & qualified as a Divemaster, I was introduced to sailing which I fell in love with. I went on many sailing offshore cruises with friends & Family.
I obtained my ARA level 2 certificate in team building, communications & extreme sports such as high Cliff abseiling, white water rafting, rigging of mountain Cliff gear where I directly worked with high end clients and kids of all ages.
I come from a very strong hospitality industry and working with people is what got me into yachting.
Working onboard motor yachts, the past decade has been a real passion of mine, moving from a 73M to a 105M having the complete support and trust to lead a larger deck crew by my captain has been a great boost.
There are certain challenges the change of boat brought on, remodelling of garages, Interior maintenance, a fully inflatable system redesign of the appropriate size and specifications for the family and vessel …. Each and every time completing them sometimes while learning as we go. I have come to learn many more skills during my time and I am definitely one for safety and growing my deck crews’ skills, the aim is to have them gain as much knowledge as possible knowing that one day this team will be better than me. The joy and pride I get from showing the younger, hungry deck crew coming into the industry is something that always reminds me of when and why I started this industry.
Over my time in yachting, I have made many good friends, on boats and with different suppliers that I have collaborated with in custom designs for the yacht that I have enjoyed to my upmost.
Whilst leading our deck crew over shipyard periods and on season, I am also the delegated rotational chase boat captain on our lovely 60ft Chase boat, bringing our lovey owners family to their beautiful shore destinations. Working for this family and captain for close to 10 years is, and has been very rewarding and I am very excited to see what the future holds.
