Yacht Crew Help

Yacht Crew Help is a free, confidential, multilingual helpline for professional yacht crew available all day, every day. Despite the many benefits of working on board a superyacht, the challenges of working away from home for long periods and living in close quarters with colleagues can become overwhelming. Yacht Crew Help is here for superyacht crew, whatever problem they’re facing, wherever they are in the world. Our helpline officers are trained in counselling skills, suicide risk assessment and providing emotional support to crew all over the world. We’re connected with a wide range of organisations and do whatever we can to find the help that is needed. The programme is run by the International Seafarers’ Welfare and Assistance Network (ISWAN), a charity which promotes the welfare of seafarers working in all sectors of the maritime industry.

In 2018, ISWAN partnered with MHG Insurance Brokers to conduct a survey of seafarers working on superyachts to investigate welfare issues specific to the sector. The research report was published in December 2018 and revealed that:

• 80% of women and 54% of men reported suffering from one or more episode of work-related stress

• 82% of respondents experienced low crew morale always, often or sometimes

• 55% of female respondents found accessing mental health care to be an occasional or regular challenge

In collaboration with a steering group of representatives from across the superyacht industry, ISWAN developed Yacht Crew Help to make sure men and women working on superyachts could easily access the support available to them worldwide when life gets tough.