Women In Yachting: Marlies Sanders On Moving From Deck To Captain
- Yachting International Radio
- 16 minutes ago
- 8 min read
There are career paths in yachting that look neat from the outside. A first job, the right boat, the right mentor, a steady climb through the ranks, and eventually command. Then there are the paths most people actually live. They are less polished, less predictable, and often shaped as much by refusal as by opportunity.
For Superyacht Captain Marlies Sanders, the journey into yachting did not begin with a childhood plan to stand on the bridge. It began after a transatlantic crossing, an arrival in the Caribbean, and the discovery of an industry she had not originally mapped out for herself. What followed was not a straight line, but a career built through work, tickets, sea time, resilience, and a refusal to allow other people’s assumptions to define the limit of what was possible.
Her story matters because it does not simply celebrate one woman’s achievement. It exposes something larger. Women in yachting are still too often asked to prove what others are allowed to assume. On deck especially, competence is not always enough to open the door. The industry still carries old ideas about who belongs where onboard, what a deck team should look like, and whether women can progress without disrupting a culture that should have evolved long ago.
Sanders did progress. She built the experience, earned the tickets, and moved into command. But the value of her story is not only in the destination. It is in the details of how she got there.
Women In Yachting Need Visible Routes To Leadership
Visibility is not a soft concept in yachting. It is practical. Crew make decisions based on what they believe is possible, and often that belief comes from what they have seen others do before them. When women do not see women on deck, in officer roles, or in command, the path can feel theoretical. It may exist on paper, but not in lived reality.
Sanders’ career challenges that. She began without a formal yachting background, worked across multiple roles, gained experience on sailing yachts and motor yachts, and understood early that if she wanted to stay in the industry, her qualifications needed to match her ability. She earned her Yachtmaster, later progressed through further MCA qualifications, and ultimately achieved her Master 3000.
There is nothing accidental about that kind of progression. The entry point may have been unexpected, but the climb required discipline. It required deciding, repeatedly, to keep going.
“Don’t let yourself be discouraged. It might take you longer, but you will make it.”
That message lands because it is not motivational fluff. It is drawn from the reality of an industry where capable women can still be delayed, dismissed, or filtered out before they are given a proper chance.
The Early Lesson: How Not To Lead
One of the defining moments in Sanders’ early career came not from a formal leadership course, but from witnessing poor leadership firsthand. On one of her early boats, she saw a divide between departments that left the interior team carrying guest service while deck and technical crew stepped back once cocktails were being served.
It was the kind of onboard culture that many crew will recognize instantly. The invisible wall between interior and deck. The “not my job” mentality. The belief that hierarchy excuses people from helping where help is clearly needed.
Sanders did not take that as normal. She took it as a warning.
She promised herself that if she ever became a captain, that was not how she would run a boat.
That is one of the most important parts of her story. Leadership is often shaped by the examples people reject as much as the examples they admire. For Sanders, command was never only about holding a ticket. It was about the standard onboard, the atmosphere among crew, and the willingness to step in when the work required it.
On sailing yachts in particular, she describes a culture where people were expected to help across departments when needed. Beds, heads, service, dishes, deck work, operational duties. The job was the boat, not the title. That kind of practical humility is often what separates a manager from a leader.
The Ticket Path Is Not The Whole Story
The yachting industry talks a great deal about qualifications, and rightly so. Tickets matter. Sea time matters. Training matters. But qualifications alone do not explain what it takes to stay in the industry long enough to lead.
Sanders earned her Yachtmaster in 2005 after gaining early experience and completing transatlantic passages. She later moved through her Master 200, Officer of the Watch 3000, Master 500, and Master 3000. That timeline was not instant. It was built across years of operational work, study, decisions, delays, and practical problem-solving.
At one point, while working on a smaller sailing yacht, she needed BA kit training for her Training Record Book, but the vessel did not carry the equipment. Rather than use that as a reason to stop, she went around the marina asking larger motor yachts if anyone had fire drills taking place. One crew ran a drill specifically to help her.
That detail says a great deal about career progression in yachting. Formal systems matter, but people matter too. The doors that open are often linked to initiative, reputation, and relationships. For crew trying to move forward, especially women on deck, the lesson is clear: qualifications must be pursued seriously, but networks can become just as critical.
Bias Dressed Up As Practicality
Sanders did not experience the worst of the bias at the very beginning of her career. On smaller sailing yachts, she found people were generally willing to judge her by whether she could do the job. The resistance became more obvious when she began looking toward larger vessels and more formal deck opportunities.
That is when the comments appeared.
Too old.
A woman on deck would ruin the vibe.
Not the right fit.
These are not harmless phrases. They are gatekeeping mechanisms. They allow vessels to dismiss competence without having to admit bias. They also reveal how often the industry still treats women’s presence as a disruption rather than an asset.
“Some boats will have the policy, we don’t do girls on deck.”
That sentence should make the industry uncomfortable. Not because it is surprising, but because it is still recognizable.
The excuses often arrive in practical clothing. Cabin arrangements. Crew dynamics. Existing team culture. Owner preference. Guest expectations. But when those explanations are used repeatedly to exclude capable women, they stop being practical barriers and become convenient shields for outdated thinking.
Sanders is clear that gender is not the only equality issue in yachting. The industry needs broader openness across the board. But the deck pathway for women remains one of the most visible tests of whether yachting is truly prepared to judge people by ability rather than assumption.
What The Industry Loses When It Says No
When a capable woman is passed over because she does not fit someone’s idea of a deckhand, officer, or captain, the loss is not only hers. The vessel loses too.
It loses perspective. It loses discipline. It loses the value of someone who has often had to work harder to be seen as equally capable. It loses the opportunity to build a team with broader problem-solving ability, stronger interpersonal awareness, and a more balanced culture.
Sanders makes the point plainly. Women who reach senior positions often do so because they have had to be twice as good to get half as far. That should not be accepted as the standard, but it does mean the industry is overlooking some of its most determined talent when it refuses to hire or promote women fairly.
The argument for women on deck is not charity. It is not optics. It is not a branding exercise. It is operational intelligence.
A yacht that limits its talent pool because of outdated assumptions is choosing weakness. It may not call it that, but that is what it is.
Leadership Is A Standard, Not A Rank
Sanders’ approach to leadership is grounded in ethics, honesty, and self-knowledge. Her mentors, supporters, and peers helped shape parts of her path, but much of her leadership philosophy appears to come from experience rather than theory.
She speaks about being true to yourself, not rushing, being good at what you do, and staying honest. These are simple principles, but they are not always easy to hold in an industry where pressure can come from owners, guests, senior crew, operational timelines, weather, and commercial expectations.
One of the harder parts of command, she notes, is not always the operational challenge itself. Operational problems can be handled. Weather decisions can be made. Even serious technical issues at sea can be worked through with training, judgment, and calm.
The harder balance is often crew.
Supporting crew while running a vessel is not a side issue. It is central to good command. A captain who cannot make time to develop people, listen properly, and create a functional onboard culture may be managing the boat, but they are not leading it fully.
That matters deeply in the context of women in yachting. Culture determines who stays. Culture determines who gets heard. Culture determines whether a young deckhand feels able to keep pushing forward or quietly leaves before reaching her potential.
Networks, Mentors, And The Courage To Be Seen
One of Sanders’ strongest pieces of advice is also one of the most practical: build a network.
For many crew, especially those who prefer to let the work speak for itself, networking can feel uncomfortable. Sanders acknowledges that she had to learn not to be shy about herself. Yet much of her career developed through relationships rather than agencies. People remembered her, recommended her, and helped create opportunities because she had made herself visible.
That is not self-promotion for the sake of ego. It is survival in an industry where reputation travels faster than CVs.
“Don’t be shy about yourself.”
For women on deck, this is particularly important. Skill matters, but hidden skill is too easily overlooked. The industry still requires women to be seen, known, trusted, and recommended. That may not be fair, but it is currently real. Until hiring cultures improve, networks remain one of the strongest tools crew can build.
Representation Is Proof
The strongest part of Sanders’ story may be her understanding of legacy. She does not frame it as needing to launch something enormous or put her name on a major initiative. Instead, she recognizes the impact of simply being visible, doing the work, mentoring where she can, and allowing others to see that the path exists.
That matters.
A woman standing in command changes the mental picture for every young crew member wondering whether there is room for her on deck. It also changes the industry’s own excuses. Every visible female captain makes it harder to claim that women do not belong in the role.
“It’s so much easier to have the dream if you can see it.”
That is the heart of this story.
Marlies Sanders is not presented as an exception so rare that others cannot follow. She is proof of what happens when ability is developed, standards are held, and discouragement is not allowed to become the final word.
The yachting industry does not need more speeches about diversity that disappear when hiring decisions are made. It needs more visible pathways, more serious mentorship, more captains willing to challenge lazy assumptions, and more vessels prepared to hire for competence rather than comfort.
Women in yachting are not asking for lowered standards. They are asking for the same right to meet them.
For every woman on deck trying to decide whether the path forward exists, Sanders’ career offers a clear answer.
It does.
And the more women who are seen taking it, the harder it becomes for the industry to pretend otherwise.
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