Hi, my name is Chris and I have been in the yachting industry for 6 years now. I arrived after working on Cruise ships for 5 years starting as a 3rd ETO and leaving as a 1st ETO.
I was always amazed seeing the yachts when pulling into the dock on the cruise ship and always pictured myself working within the industry. I very much enjoyed my time in the cruise industry, I wanted to progress so I reached out into the yachting industry.
After getting my CV and documents together I was excited and looking forward to my first yacht position on MY Octopus where I joined as 1st Electrician/ETO. I was told by a few people coming into the yachting industry that very few people stay on the same yacht for more than 2 years. I found this very bizarre as I feel it is important to try and build a team and longevity is a key part of that. I proved that theory very wrong by serving almost 5 years as MY Octopus working to Relief Chief Electrician/ETO. During this time, I worked many yard/maintenance periods including 1 large 10-month refit in Hamburg. My first yacht meant I was able to develop my skills, knowledge, and team. Unfortunately, I was made redundant.
This was certainly an amazing yacht to start my yachting career as I built up an excellent understanding of the industry and made friends for life.
After been made redundant, I did not want to sit still and decided to use this time to complete my ETO CoC III/6 as this was extremely important to me and for my career development/progression. I managed to gain my ETO CoC 2 months after been made redundant.
As the yachting industry was quiet due to the pandemic, I took some online courses to further develop my skills even further. To increase my knowledge and experience I took some temporary work on P&O Ferries although this was only for a couple of months, I found this was a better use of my time than sitting at home.
At the beginning of November, I was approached about a Chief ETO position on a 115M Motor yacht, which they wanted me the lead the re-development of the vessel as she had been neglected and had a large crew turn around. I was more than happy to take this project on and when I got there an assistant and I began moving forward straight away. Many projects and upgrades were agreed to take place once we got to the maintenance period. Looking at the future there were potential long-term prospects within the fleet. Unfortunately, due to several issues, the crew were all forced to leave which was obviously a very upsetting time. Luckily, the birth of my baby daughter brightened up this disappointment.
After time at home with the new addition I was looking for a new position and I was approached about the position of where I am now. Although it is a smaller yacht I still saw the position as a career progression. Serving here a sole Project ETO they wanted to bring me in the lead to refit/transitional period from one owner to the other. Although it is only early stages many project/upgrades are well underway, agreed or completed. This hard work with all the team on board will certainly be worth it, in the end, it’s quite an exciting time.
I have had fantastic support along the way from friends, family, nautical college and my recruiter YPI Crew.
My outlook on the work is to always look at things positively, anything is possible if you put your mind to it and work with your team closely to build a solid working relationship.
