Best Of UNCENSORED 2025: The Cost Of Silence In Crew Mental Health
- Yachting International Radio
- Dec 11, 2025
- 8 min read
Why Crew Mental Health Can No Longer Be Ignored
This Best Of UNCENSORED 2025 feature pulls together the most confronting and necessary conversations we have hosted on Crew Mental Health over the past year. These are not isolated stories, niche experiences or “hard luck” cases. They are patterns repeated across yachts, flags and ranks, affecting crew at every level while the industry continues to lean on voluntary guidelines instead of enforceable protections. From sexual assault and retaliation to perimenopause, therapy stigma and the economic argument for mental fitness, each moment in this compilation exposes another piece of the same reality: you cannot talk about performance, retention or professionalism without talking honestly about Crew Mental Health.
At the centre of this reality sits a single, deeply uncomfortable truth: the system still protects itself more than it protects the people who live and work within it.
“Sign the NDA, take the €3,000, and go home.”
When a crew member reports sexual assault, follows every prescribed step, contacts every authority and still ends up unemployed while the perpetrator continues working, it is not a breakdown. It is the system functioning exactly as it has been allowed to function for decades. That is the anchor point of this Best Of UNCENSORED 2025: the cost of silence, and what it does to Crew Mental Health long before any policy document ever comes into play.
When Speaking Up Still Costs Women Their Careers
One of the strongest moments in this Best Of UNCENSORED 2025 episode is the real story of a female crew member who reported a sexual assault onboard and did everything “right.” She contacted port authority, filed a police report, notified the captain, reached out to management, Flag State, MLC channels, Nautilus International, Yacht Crew Help and every welfare support she was told to use. For two weeks she lived in acute trauma, unable to sleep or eat, reliving the incident while trying to trust a system that claims to protect her.
What came back was not accountability. It was an offer.
“The perpetrator stayed. The woman who reported him did not.”
Her job disappeared. The perpetrator did not. This case is not an outlier. Maritime lawyers and welfare organisations see similar patterns over and over again. Guidelines exist. Company values statements exist. Awareness campaigns exist. But without consequences, they remain public relations rather than protection. Litigation, as our legal expert makes clear in this Best Of UNCENSORED 2025, becomes the only reliable mechanism for forcing the truth into the open where the culture of cover-up can no longer operate in the dark. When silence is incentivised and retaliation is tolerated, the damage to Crew Mental Health is not theoretical. It is immediate, measurable and often lifelong.
Crew Mental Health And The Rights Every Seafarer Already Has
Another key section in this compilation addresses a basic question that surprisingly few crew can answer: what legal rights do seafarers have regardless of tonnage, flag, vessel type or nationality. The answer is broader than many expect. Every seafarer has the right to a reasonably safe workplace. That safety is not limited to ladders, lines and machinery. It also encompasses psychological safety and protection from bullying, harassment, sexual assault and discrimination.
“A vessel cannot be considered safe when the environment itself is harming the people who live and work on board.”
Crew are entitled to habitable living conditions, adequate food, and medical care for injuries and illnesses that arise during their service, even if those injuries occur on shore leave. A vessel can be legally unseaworthy not only because equipment is failing, but because it is chronically short staffed, hours of rest are ignored and fatigue becomes the norm. All of these factors directly erode Crew Mental Health. Yet many crew are never clearly informed of these rights, and many employers rely on that lack of knowledge to avoid accountability. This Best Of UNCENSORED 2025 moment underlines that wellbeing is not just a moral conversation. It sits on a legal foundation the industry cannot honestly claim to be unaware of.
When Criminal Systems Say No, Civil Law Still Exists
A recurring theme in this episode is the confusion between criminal and civil pathways. Crew who report bullying, harassment or assault often hear from local police that “there is no case,” or that the authorities are not prepared to act. It is easy in that moment to conclude that nothing illegal has happened and no remedy is available. Our legal contributor dismantles that assumption and explains that while criminal prosecution is controlled by the state, civil maritime law is a different avenue entirely.
“Criminal law may decline to act, but civil law can still deliver justice.”
In civil cases, crew can pursue claims for assault, harassment, unsafe conditions, unpaid wages and employer negligence, even when no criminal charges have been filed. The focus shifts from putting an individual offender in jail to holding employers and vessels accountable for creating or tolerating environments where harm becomes predictable. For Crew Mental Health, this distinction matters. Feeling completely powerless is psychologically crushing. Knowing there is still a legal route to challenge what happened can be the difference between shutting down and stepping forward.
Yacht Crew Help: A Lifeline Built Because Crew Were Not Calling
The Best Of UNCENSORED 2025 would not be complete without the segment on Yacht Crew Help and why it had to be created. ISWAN had already been running a global helpline called SeafarerHelp, yet research in 2018 showed that yacht crew were barely using it. They did not see themselves as “seafarers,” did not feel the name reflected their world, and did not believe their specific issues were understood within that framework. This meant Crew Mental Health challenges in yachting were going largely unreported to the one service that was designed to support them.
Yacht Crew Help was developed to bridge that gap: a free, confidential, multilingual helpline available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, specifically for yacht crew and their families. Every contact can be anonymous. No vessel name, management company or employer details are required. Over time, this stream of anonymised data has built a clear picture of what crew are actually facing, from harassment and overwork to isolation, financial stress and mental health crises.
“Crew were struggling, but they were not calling. So a lifeline was built specifically for them.”
That data is now being used to create educational resources, campaigns and partnerships aimed at improving conditions. It is one of the few places where Crew Mental Health is documented from the crew perspective rather than filtered through management reporting.
When “Banter” Is Used To Excuse Abuse
One of the most powerful personal testimonies in this Best Of UNCENSORED 2025 is from a woman who was the only female in a galley of two hundred men. Her first experience of physical sexual harassment at sea came on that ship, at the hands of a senior chef who followed her into a walk-in fridge, groped her and demanded sex in exchange for making her life “easier.” She reported him. She tried to have him blacklisted. In the end, she was the one who left.
This happened on a cruise ship with HR, DPA and all the usual corporate structures in place. In many yachting environments there is not even that. The captain is management, HR and compliance in one. Even when formal structures exist, what is missing is often the human element: empathy, compassion and the basic understanding that Crew Mental Health is harmed not just by physical acts, but by environments that consistently dismiss and minimise behaviour that is clearly over the line.
“If you are not comfortable, it is harassment. Intention does not erase impact.”
The episode breaks down the different forms harassment can take: verbal comments, sexual jokes and innuendo; non-verbal behaviour such as staring or intrusive gestures; psychological tactics like gaslighting and undermining confidence; and physical elements from unwanted touching to coercion. One of the most corrosive patterns is how often women are shamed after setting boundaries. A stewardess who asked for comments about her “sexy hands” to stop found herself ridiculed for “not being able to take a joke,” which is simply another layer of harassment dressed up as humour. For Crew Mental Health, this leaves people feeling trapped, unsafe and deeply vulnerable in spaces where they should feel protected.
Perimenopause And Crew Mental Health: The Crisis No One Prepared Women For
Another standout section in this Best Of UNCENSORED 2025 focuses on perimenopause, a word many women do not even hear until they are in the middle of it. Medical training often prioritises fertility and pregnancy, then jumps straight to menopause as a single moment when periods stop. The long hormonal transition in between, where symptoms can last for years, is frequently overlooked. For women working at sea, this has serious implications for Crew Mental Health and performance.
Our guest expert explains that perimenopause can begin in a woman’s thirties and last ten years or more. The accompanying story from a chief stewardess is a stark example. At forty, her symptoms started gradually: migraines, tiredness and changes she attributed to stress. Over time they escalated into cognitive fog, loss of concentration, anxiety, hot flashes, mood swings, insomnia and a collapsing libido. Multiple doctors told her she was “too young” for menopause and that her tests were “normal.” She lost her job, went through a divorce and blamed herself for not coping.
“Perimenopause affects every aspect of your life, including your ability to perform at work, yet almost no one talks about it.”
It was only after three unsupported years that she educated herself, found a specialist and accessed hormone replacement therapy, which transformed her ability to function. Her story highlights how silence around female health translates directly into impaired Crew Mental Health, strained onboard relationships and unnecessary suffering. Workplaces cannot claim to prioritise wellbeing while ignoring a biological transition that half the workforce will experience.
Therapy As Maintenance, Not A Mark Of Weakness
The stigma around therapy remains one of the most persistent barriers to Crew Mental Health. Many crew worry that asking to see a therapist will make a captain question their fitness for duty. Leaders themselves may unconsciously hold similar beliefs, seeing therapy only as something people pursue “when they are not coping,” rather than a proactive tool for self-development and prevention.
One of the most transformative parts of this Best Of UNCENSORED 2025 discussion is the reframing of therapy as mental maintenance. Just as crew invest in their physical health through training and exercise, the brain also benefits from structured, professional attention. Therapy can be where people go when they are functioning well and want to understand themselves better, strengthen their resilience and avoid sliding into crisis.
“We maintain our bodies. We have to maintain our mental health in the same deliberate way.”
When captains and senior crew speak openly about their own use of therapy, the stigma begins to erode. When therapy is acknowledged as a normal part of looking after Crew Mental Health, rather than a last resort, people are more likely to seek help early instead of waiting until they are already in burnout or contemplating self harm.
Why Mental Fitness Must Be Treated As Infrastructure, Not Luxury
The final segment in this Best Of UNCENSORED 2025 looks at the economic reality behind Crew Mental Health. Many management companies still treat emotional intelligence, leadership development and mental fitness training as optional extras that can be trimmed from the budget. The evidence suggests the opposite. Retention, team unity, safety, owner satisfaction and operational reliability are all tied directly to the wellbeing of the people running the vessel.
Our guests argue that there should be a permanent budget line for continuing education, crew mental fitness and environmental responsibility, the same way there is a fixed budget for fuel, dockage and technical maintenance. Courses by organisations like The Crew Coach or Seize The Mind, structured leadership training, regular psychological check ins and independent mental health assessments should sit alongside STCW as standard, repeatable requirements.
“You insure the yacht. What is your insurance on the crew?”
Crew are one of the largest single costs on any vessel. Treating Crew Mental Health as an investment rather than an afterthought is not just ethically sound, it is commercially intelligent. A crew that is trained, supported and psychologically safe is far more likely to deliver the longevity, stability and high performance that owners and management companies want.
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SUPPORTED BY
MOORE Dixon
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Global specialists in superyacht insurance, risk management and strategic support for owners, captains and the wider maritime sector.
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