Female Yacht Crew Safety Survey: What Happened When Women Spoke Up?
Nearly 1,200 women took part in the Female Yacht Crew Safety Survey. Their accounts of harassment, assault and retaliation raise a question for the people who run yachts: when a crew member comes forward, who takes responsibility for what happens next?
In the Female Yacht Crew Safety Survey, 61% of respondents reported experiencing sexual harassment and 31% reported sexual assault, according to findings shared by survey organiser Cherise Reedman. The confidential survey invited women who work or previously worked aboard superyachts and megayachts to describe their experiences. It asked about bullying, physical assault and drink spiking as well as sexual harassment and assault. It also asked whether women reported what happened and how those reports were handled.
Reedman began pursuing the survey after the death of yacht stewardess Paige Bell. Over the years she had heard accounts from women about incidents on board, but she wanted a clearer picture of what women were experiencing and how the industry responded. She encouraged women to take part whether their experiences had been good or bad. The findings she shared give the industry a chance to look at where incidents happen, who is involved and what crew can expect if they ask for help.
What the Female Yacht Crew Safety Survey found about rank
In 63% of the sexual harassment and sexual assault cases discussed in the findings, the person involved was more senior on the vessel. On a yacht, that can mean the person who assigns duties, assesses performance or has a say in whether someone is invited back next season. It can also mean the person a crew member has been told to go to with a complaint.
Reedman described the difference between what she would feel able to say to a captain now and what she could have said as a 25-year-old chief stew. A young head of department may be responsible for a team while working alongside officers who have decades more experience and greater authority on board. Holding a leadership role of her own doesn’t make it any easier to challenge someone above her.
The living arrangements add another consideration. A crew member may have to see the person again at the next handover and share the same crew spaces after the shift. If she asks another department head for help, she may wonder who will hear about it by morning. On a yacht without shore-based management, there may be no obvious person to call outside the vessel. A reporting route that works for a disagreement over duties can break down when the complaint concerns someone who runs the department.
Crew safety extends beyond the yacht
The survey also asked about drink spiking. Reedman said it came up primarily in accounts of what happened ashore, and that women named ports frequented by yachts. That finding points to a different situation from harassment by a senior colleague aboard. A crew member may return to the yacht after an incident in port and need support from people who weren’t there and may have no idea what happened.
For captains and managers, that affects what crew need to know before going ashore. It matters whether someone knows who they can contact from port, how to reach confidential support and whom they can speak to when they return to the vessel. Crew safety includes what happens away from the yacht and how the people running it respond when a crew member comes back and asks for help.
What happened after women came forward
The survey findings put the reporting figure at 35%. Some women said their reports led to no action. Others described retaliation. For crew deciding whether to come forward, how a yacht handles an earlier complaint can matter as much as anything written in the crew handbook.
That puts a responsibility on management after the initial report. If someone’s duties change or they’re treated differently after speaking up, who is in a position to notice and intervene? If the yacht moves on to its next charter, who makes sure the person who reported the incident hears what’s being done? Those are the parts of the process a crew member experiences directly.
What captains can practise before an incident
Captains often receive reports because the chain of command leads to them. Reedman wants them to have a chance to work through what they would do if someone disclosed a sexual assault while the yacht was still at sea. The crew member may need care and privacy while the person named in the report remains on board. The captain has to consider immediate care, the safety of the rest of the crew and what help is available from shore.
Reedman is organising a roundtable in London for around 20 captains. They’ll meet the shore-based team that takes calls from vessels and see how it handles a case. The captains will then work through how they’d respond to a report of sexual assault or rape aboard their own yachts, including what they can do immediately and when they need specialist help.
A captain can ask what information the shore team will need, who else may have to become involved and what can realistically be arranged while the yacht is underway. Those are easier conversations to have in a room with other captains and the people who would take the call than during an incident at sea.
Who takes responsibility once the report goes ashore?
Reedman is also planning a separate roundtable for yacht management companies. It will look at how incidents are recorded and how information reaches the people responsible for acting on it, including the flag state where applicable. A third roundtable is planned to bring captains and managers together to work through the handover.
That handover can be hard for a crew member to see. The captain may have passed the report ashore. The management company may be waiting for more information. Meanwhile, the person who came forward may still be on the duty roster, wondering whether they’ll have to explain everything again to someone new. The joint roundtable gives both sides a chance to agree who takes the next step and who stays in contact with the crew member.
The survey focused on women’s experiences, and Reedman wants the procedures developed through the exercises to apply to anyone affected, including crew and guests. She also raised the prospect of a separate survey for men, with questions that reflect their experiences aboard.
Reedman is a former chief stew who founded Yacht Pearls of Wisdom after moving ashore. It was a way for women still working on yachts to learn from those who had left. The survey drew on both groups and gave them a place to describe experiences that might otherwise have stayed within a crew or gone unspoken altogether.
A crew member joining a yacht should know who they can call when their usual reporting contact is involved. The person who takes that call should know who can arrange immediate support, who takes over ashore and when the crew member will hear back. Those are decisions captains and management companies can make before the next charter, while there’s time to work through them together.
Support for crew
ISWAN’s YachtCrewHelp provides free, confidential support for yacht crew around the clock. Safer Waves offers support and information for seafarers affected by sexual violence at sea.
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