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As a new generation reshapes how yachts are designed, used and managed, the Isle of Man is making a compelling case for something luxury cannot manufacture overnight: trusted people, responsive institutions and an ecosystem built to solve problems. Luxury at sea is easy to see. It is expressed through architecture, craftsmanship, technology and the extraordinary freedom to move through the world on one’s own terms. Yet experienced owners understand that the quality of yacht ownership is often decided far from the sundeck. It is decided in the ownership structure. In the choice of flag. In the clarity of the advice received before a contract is signed. It is decided when a captain needs a definitive answer, when regulations change, when a crewing matter becomes urgent or when an owner’s plans no longer fit neatly within conventional boundaries. This is the largely invisible infrastructure behind a significant yacht, and it is where trusted maritime jurisdictions distinguish themselves. Capt. Lee Clarke of Isle of Man Maritime has viewed this world from both sides. His career began at sea, progressing through commercial vessels, cruise ships, training roles and cadet development before bringing him back to the island connected to generations of his own family’s maritime history. Today, his focus extends beyond any single vessel or maritime sector. It is about building a professional environment capable of supporting owners, captains, seafarers and advisers as yachting becomes more complex. A Flag Is a Relationship, Not a Badge The flag carried by a yacht may occupy only a small space on the stern, but the jurisdiction behind it can influence almost every stage of ownership. Registration, regulatory oversight, safety standards, crew documentation and operational compliance all sit within that relationship. Around them is a wider network of legal, corporate, financial, insurance and management expertise. When these elements work together, ownership feels controlled and considered. When they do not, even a relatively simple issue can become expensive and disruptive. There is no single jurisdiction that is right for every yacht or every owner. The vessel’s intended use, cruising programme, financing, ownership profile and commercial ambitions must all be considered. Reputation alone is not enough. What matters is how that reputation performs when an owner, captain or adviser requires help. “If I were an owner, I would want a flag I could call and ask, ‘What can we do to fix this?’” For Clarke, accessibility is one of the Isle of Man’s most valuable qualities. A respected jurisdiction should not feel remote when the stakes are high. Its professionals must be able to listen, understand the commercial and operational reality, and work towards a solution without compromising standards. Trust, in this context, is not a marketing claim. It is the accumulated result of sound regulation, professional judgement and consistent human response. The Connected Ecosystem Behind Yacht Ownership Yacht owners rarely experience a jurisdiction as an organisational chart. They experience whether the people involved communicate with one another. A registry may be highly regarded, but ownership also depends on corporate service providers, accountants, banks, lawyers, payroll specialists, surveyors, managers and crew professionals. If those services exist in isolation, the owner or family office is left to connect them. If they operate as an ecosystem, decisions can be made with greater speed, context and confidence. Isle of Man Maritime has sought to strengthen those connections through four areas: superyachts, business, skills and seafarers, and digital innovation and artificial intelligence. The intention is not simply to assemble a list of maritime companies. It is to encourage expertise from different disciplines to work as a more coherent whole. That distinction matters. An ownership structure should make sense alongside the yacht’s registration. Crew arrangements should support the intended operation. Legal, financial and technical advice should not contradict one another. When circumstances change, the relevant specialists should be able to reach the same table quickly. The Isle of Man Ship Registry’s Yachts Engaged in Trade framework is one example of a jurisdiction responding to changing patterns of yacht use. Subject to defined conditions and compliance requirements, it allows eligible Isle of Man registered pleasure yachts over 24 metres to undertake limited commercial activity without permanently abandoning their underlying pleasure registration. It is not a universal solution, nor a substitute for tailored legal and tax advice. Its significance lies in what it recognises: modern ownership does not always fit into a single, static category. New Owners, New Yachts, New Expectations The profile of yacht ownership is evolving. Many owners are entering the market at a younger age, bringing different expectations of how a yacht should function and what it should make possible. The traditional image of a yacht designed primarily for Mediterranean entertaining is no longer the only aspiration. Expedition vessels and highly capable explorer yachts continue to attract owners who want to travel further, remain aboard for longer and access places beyond established cruising routes. These yachts are increasingly expected to support several dimensions of life at once. They may serve as a private residence, a remote office, a platform for family exploration or a base for scientific and philanthropic work. Interiors are becoming more personal, reflecting the interests of an owner rather than a predetermined idea of what a superyacht should look like. Luxury is moving away from conformity. A yacht may incorporate specialist diving equipment, research facilities, advanced communications, extensive wellness spaces or immersive entertainment environments. Support vessels have evolved into sophisticated operations in their own right, carrying equipment, tenders and personnel that allow the principal yacht to deliver a far wider programme. This new freedom also creates new demands. More ambitious itineraries require different technical capabilities, experienced crew and stronger shoreside support. Working from the yacht raises questions of connectivity, security and confidentiality. Scientific activity, specialist equipment and remote cruising introduce further operational considerations. The yacht may be unique, but its success still depends on a disciplined structure behind it. Crew Welfare Is an Ownership Issue For all the attention given to design and technology, a yacht remains entirely dependent on its people. Clarke’s own career at sea informs his conviction that seafarers cannot be treated as a secondary part of the maritime discussion. A yacht cannot move safely without its captain and engineers. It cannot deliver exceptional hospitality without its chefs, interior teams and deck crew. Nor can it maintain the standards expected of a high-value asset without people who are properly trained, supported and respected. “Whatever we do within this space, it all relies on our incredible seafarers.” Crew welfare is sometimes discussed as though it were separate from the owner’s experience. In reality, the two are closely connected. Fatigue, poor leadership, weak communication and inadequate support affect retention, safety and service. A stable, motivated team protects the atmosphere on board as well as the yacht itself. The industry has made progress, but expectations continue to rise. Mental health, fair working conditions, professional development and responsible leadership are becoming central to the way quality operations are assessed. Owners and family offices are also paying closer attention to the culture created on board and to the reputational consequences of getting it wrong. The same principle applies to inclusion. A maritime sector seeking the best possible talent must be able to welcome people from different backgrounds, including more women and members of the LGBTQ+ community. An industry cannot credibly call itself world-class while placing unnecessary barriers in front of capable people. The finest yachts may be built from steel, aluminium and carbon fibre, but their true character is created by the people who operate them. Innovation Must Earn Its Place Artificial intelligence is entering the maritime world, but its value will not be measured by novelty. It will be measured by the problems it solves. Clarke points to AI-supported man-overboard detection as an example of technology with an immediate human purpose. Camera systems capable of identifying and tracking someone in the water could provide critical assistance in darkness or difficult conditions, when human vision alone may not be enough. Applied intelligently, similar systems could support navigation, safety, maintenance and administrative efficiency. Yet technology must complement professional judgement rather than attempt to replace it. The strongest maritime ecosystems will be those able to connect digital expertise with the practical knowledge of captains, engineers, regulators and seafarers. Sustainability carries the same requirement for substance. Owners are looking beyond superficial claims and considering how a yacht is designed, powered, provisioned and operated. Expedition programmes and scientific partnerships are also allowing private vessels to contribute to research in areas that would otherwise be difficult or costly to access. Environmental responsibility has particular resonance for the Isle of Man. Designated in 2016, its UNESCO Biosphere encompasses the entire island and its territorial waters. It reflects the principle that environmental protection, community and economic activity must be considered together. For yachting, that balance is essential. Progress will not be achieved through a single propulsion system or headline technology. It will come from hundreds of informed decisions made throughout the yacht’s design, ownership and operational life. The People Behind the Reputation Yacht ownership is becoming more adventurous, more individual and more technologically sophisticated. It is also becoming more demanding. Owners want flexibility without uncertainty. They want innovation without avoidable risk. They expect discretion, but they also need access to people capable of giving clear answers. These expectations are placing greater importance on the professional ecosystem surrounding the yacht. The Isle of Man’s advantage is not simply that it offers a recognised flag or a concentration of maritime services. Its deeper proposition is connection: between public and private expertise, between regulation and commercial reality, and between the ambitions of an owner and the people responsible for making them achievable. “We cannot operate without our incredible people.” An owner can commission exceptional design, advanced engineering and almost limitless personalisation. Trust is different. It must be earned through competence, judgement and response, often long before it is ever tested. That is the quiet luxury behind successful yacht ownership. Not only the freedom to go anywhere, but the confidence that the right people are standing behind every decision when you do. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PRESENTED BY International Yacht Register ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ International Yacht Register provides luxury yacht charter, ownership and advisory services for clients seeking trusted guidance, exceptional yachts, discreet support, market knowledge and access to the global yachting lifestyle. iyr.net Yacht ownership is changing as a new generation looks beyond the flag to trusted jurisdictions, responsive regulation and connected maritime expertise. Capt. Lee Clarke reveals why the Isle of Man’s quiet advantage lies in the people and infrastructure behind the world’s most significant yachts.

Most people see the polished side of running a superyacht business: awards, technology, loyal clients and a capable team. What they do not see is the phone that has not been switched off in 18 years, the legal meetings taking place at one o’clock in the morning, or the business owner lying awake worrying not only about her own mortgage, but those of 25 employees. Alicia Store, Chief Operating Officer of dsnm Ltd, and David Store, its Chief Executive Officer, have built the company together while also building a marriage and raising a family. On paper, their responsibilities divide neatly. Alicia oversees the daily operation of the business, while David manages yachts and drives the development of Compass software. In practice, the company occupies almost every corner of their lives. Running a superyacht business at this level is not simply a job with longer hours. The work may leave the office, but the responsibility follows them home. The Job Titles Only Tell Half the Story Alicia’s remit stretches across nearly every department, from cash flow, budgeting and client retention to staff management, training, marketing and brand. Her purpose is to make sure everyone at dsnm Ltd can do their job to the best of their ability. David remains a yacht manager with his own fleet while leading the development of Compass. He jokes that he does not appear to do as much as Alicia, a line she is only too happy to agree with. They are not trying to perform the same role. David creates movement, ideas and, by his own admission, a certain amount of chaos. Alicia creates the structure that makes it workable. He credits her with the company’s scale; she credits his belief in her when her own confidence has faltered. Their differences are part of the reason it works. Running a Superyacht Business Means Carrying Other People’s Risk Both describe their team as the best part of the company. They hire selectively, looking for people who understand what they are building and care about delivering the same standard of service. That culture brings enormous satisfaction, but it also creates a weight rarely visible from outside a business. “There have been times when I have come home, got into bed and, rather than worrying about my mortgage and feeding my child, I have worried about 25 other people’s mortgages, their children and their bills.” It is easy to speak about employment in numbers: headcount, payroll and growth. Alicia speaks about it in homes, children and security. In those terms, a commercial decision is no longer confined to a spreadsheet. It reaches into the lives of everyone who depends on the company remaining stable. Caring less might make the burden easier, but it would also remove something fundamental. The people who make the work enjoyable are the same people whose futures Alicia feels responsible for protecting. The Phone Has Not Been Off in 18 Years The most revealing measure of Alicia’s commitment is not a revenue figure or an award. It is the fact that she has not switched off her phone in 18 years. She does not offer that detail as a complaint. She loves the work and believes in what the company is building, but she is honest about the obsession involved. It reaches from hiring the right person and examining figures late at night to making sure a logo is exactly right before it goes out. “To run a company successfully, you sometimes have to be obsessed with what you are doing on an unhealthy level.” David once imagined that running a company would be similar to having a job. Experience taught him otherwise. The last time he turned off his phone and stopped checking email was on their honeymoon, 14 years ago. Alicia kept hers on. Business stories are often polished after the fact. The finished company appears inevitable, while the exhaustion and constant availability disappear from view. Crisis Arrives Without an Instruction Manual The pressure intensified when events beyond the company’s control arrived one after another. COVID brought unprecedented disruption, while the conflict in Ukraine created legal and commercial questions about who the business could work with and under what conditions. Momentum built over years was interrupted overnight. Meetings with lawyers ran into the early hours, paperwork covered the family table and decisions had to be made without a tested roadmap. “We were having meetings with lawyers at one o’clock in the morning, working out who we could work with and who we couldn’t. I wasn’t trained to do that.” David focused on the foundation beneath the company. No leader can predict the next global crisis, but a business can be built to react without losing its footing. In an industry that crosses borders, stability is not the absence of change. It is the capacity to absorb it. The Sacrifice Success Cannot Give Back The most difficult cost arrived during the COVID lockdown, when Alicia had a baby while the company was in a precarious position. She worked on the day she gave birth and was back online the next day. There was no maternity leave, baby shower or ordinary time away with her child. “I worked that day, gave birth and the next day I was back online. I took no maternity leave whatsoever.” She does not regret the decision itself. Given the number of people relying on the company, she understood why it had to be made. She regrets the experience she lost and can never repeat. That distinction cuts through the mythology surrounding entrepreneurship. Success accumulates through clients, teams, technology and recognition. Sacrifice works differently. Time disappears once, and no later achievement can buy it back. The choice helped keep the company moving, but necessity does not erase its personal cost. Alicia can be proud of what the decision protected and still grieve what it took away. Why Marriage Became an Advantage Running a company can be isolating, even when the office is full. The most serious decisions often remain with the people at the top long after everyone else has gone home. Working together means Alicia and David do not carry that isolation alone. They share the celebrations and the pressure, often working through problems at the dinner table with someone who understands their full weight. Their partnership is not frictionless. Alicia occasionally wants to throw a stapler across the office, while David has learned that accepting she is right can be the simplest route to peace. The humour works because it sits beside genuine respect. “There is no way dsnm Ltd would be as big as it is now if it wasn’t for Alicia.” Alicia calls David the most supportive person imaginable. He pushes her when her confidence falters; she gives order to his ideas and energy. Their marriage does not remove the strain of leadership, but it gives them somewhere to share it honestly. The Courage to Build Before Everything Is Ready If David could change one professional decision, he would have created Compass sooner. The idea existed for years before the company had the money to build it. Ambition still has to meet commercial reality. Seeing the first clients use Compass remains one of David’s proudest moments. It proved that an internal idea could become a working tool for the people it was designed to support. dsnm Ltd has received two Queen’s Awards, one connected to the company and another to Compass. The first took Alicia and David to Buckingham Palace, where being in the same room as the Queen felt almost unreal. The recognition made visible years of deciding that standing still was not an option. David’s view is uncomplicated: if a company is not moving forward, it is falling behind. Innovation adds pressure, but failing to build for the future creates a greater risk. The Luxury of Being Unreachable When asked to choose any yacht and any destination, Alicia chose Antarctica aboard Octopus. David chose Indonesia on a sailing yacht, anchored somewhere with no other boats and nobody else around. There is something revealing in both answers. After years of being permanently available, their imagined luxury is not a busier harbour or another room full of recognition. It is distance, stillness and a place beyond the reach of ordinary demands. Running a superyacht business has given Alicia and David a team they love, technology they are proud of and recognition that once placed them inside Buckingham Palace. It has also taken nights, holidays, maternity leave and the ability to stop thinking about what happens next. Their success does not prove that sacrifice is painless. It proves that the polished result carries a private cost. The work can be divided, the problems can be shared and the occasional stapler can remain safely on the desk, but the responsibility never fully disappears. Perhaps that is why, after 18 years of being available, the rarest luxury they can imagine is finally being unreachable. For Alicia and David Store, building dsnm Ltd has meant balancing marriage, family and the weight of 25 livelihoods in one of yachting’s most demanding sectors.

In yachting, the people who understand how a vessel must function are not always present when the decisions shaping that function are made. Designers design. Shipyards build. Contractors install. Crew arrive later and learn to operate what has already been decided. Meeli Lepik believes that sequence needs to change. The founder of Holistic Yacht Interiors has built her business around bringing operational experience into yacht design from the beginning, before inefficiencies, compromises and frustrations become part of the finished vessel. For Meeli, operational experience in yacht design is not an optional final check. It is the knowledge that allows beautiful spaces to function properly once owners, guests and crew begin using them. Her position is grounded in years of senior onboard experience, major new-build projects and the network she developed inside shipyards. It is also connected to Monaco, where an early piece of advice first made her consider creating something of her own. Her reflections were recorded at the Monaco Yacht Show in 2025 and carry particular weight as she prepares to return in 2026. She is going back to the place where the idea first began to take shape, but with considerably more behind her this time. The Advice That Planted a Seed The possibility of building an independent business entered Meeli’s mind around eight years ago. She was already working alongside experienced businesspeople, but one moment at a Lürssen party during the Monaco Yacht Show stayed with her. Several people had approached her to thank her for the work she had done. A financial adviser connected to one of the yacht owners noticed what was happening and told her not to dismiss it. “Meli, pay attention. The people come to say hello and thank you. Don’t let that slide. Create something on your own.” It was powerful advice, but recognition does not automatically make the timing right. Meeli understood that being encouraged to start a business and being ready to build one were not the same thing. Rather than rushing towards the title of entrepreneur, she chose to deepen her experience. Two more major new builds followed, expanding her understanding of how decisions travel between stakeholders and how much operational reality can be lost between a drawing and a vessel in use. The seed had been planted in Monaco, but it still needed time. Knowing When Experience Is Enough Yachting celebrates movement. The next project, destination, launch and show are always approaching. That relentless forward focus can make it difficult to recognise what has already been achieved. Meeli admits that this tendency is part of her own personality. During a build, attention naturally falls on what remains unfinished. The same mindset can follow someone throughout a career, creating the impression that readiness is always one more project away. At some point, however, looking forward must be balanced by looking back. “You sometimes have to look behind as well to see what’s already been achieved.” That is not ego. It is an acknowledgement that competence deserves to be recognised, including by the person who earned it. For Meeli, Monaco itself became a measure of that change. Ten years earlier, the scale of the show felt overwhelming and intimidating. Over time, it became familiar. The people around her were no longer a distant industry establishment. They were colleagues, collaborators and friends. The Missing Route From Yacht Crew to Shoreside Expert The route from onboard operations into an independent shoreside career is far less defined than the industry often admits. Experienced interior professionals may move into recruitment, yacht management, agencies or supply businesses. Yet a top operational professional may understand workflow, service, maintenance, storage and human behaviour at an exceptional level while finding no obvious route into the decisions that determine those realities. The industry frequently discusses glass ceilings and the need for greater inclusion. Meeli identifies another barrier: the glass walls separating operational expertise from the shoreside disciplines that would benefit from it. “If you are only working on board and you are a top, top professional operationally, there is no path for you to become an independent yachting professional on the shoreside.” The word “only” is revealing. Working onboard is sometimes treated as a narrow form of experience when it is anything but. Crew understand the finished yacht as a living environment. They know where elegant concepts support real use and where they create daily obstacles. They see how guests move, how service unfolds, where equipment must be accessed and what happens when spaces designed in isolation collide with operational demands. As wider YIR reporting has explored, even excellent crew cannot compensate indefinitely for a badly functioning yacht. That knowledge affects efficiency, maintenance, guest experience and the long-term success of the yacht. Without a recognised bridge into shoreside work, much of it remains locked onboard. Why the Shipyard Became the Bridge For younger crew, a new build in Northern Europe may not resemble the yachting lifestyle they imagined. Shipyards can mean cold weather, industrial surroundings and long days far removed from palm trees and glamorous destinations. They can also provide one of the most valuable educations available in the industry. Meeli’s time in shipyards connected her with project managers, designers, suppliers, contractors and builders. It allowed her to see not only how individual departments work, but how the wider construction ecosystem fits together. Those relationships eventually became the framework supporting her move ashore. New-build experience gives operational professionals a working vocabulary beyond the vessel. It shows them how decisions are made and where their knowledge can prevent problems before they reach the water. A Genuine Network Is More Than a Contact List Networking is one of the industry’s most repeated pieces of advice, but the word has been diluted by transactions. Collecting names, scanning badges and exchanging digital details is not the same as building a professional community. Meeli is clear that the network that matters is genuine. It grows through competence, visibility, consistency and a real interest in the work. “It is key, and a genuine network... figuring out what you want to do, and then just be passionate. Be seen, be passionate.” That distinction matters for anyone planning a shoreside transition. Opportunities develop when people ashore understand the value someone brings because they have seen it demonstrated over time. Meeli’s network did more than open doors. It helped her understand the industry as a whole and gave her the confidence to position herself within it. What began as relationships formed through shipyard work became a community capable of supporting an independent business. Holistic Is Not a Trend. It Is the Point The name Holistic Yacht Interiors initially prompted some hesitation from others. Would “holistic” sound too esoteric? Would people assume the business was concerned with chakra alignment and deep breathing rather than yacht projects? Meeli’s response carries the humour of someone comfortable with her own positioning. She could organise those things if required, she joked, but they were not the core business. The intended meaning is practical. Holistic means whole. Spatial design, construction, operations and the people responsible for each cannot function as separate worlds. Meeli’s approach takes a 360-degree view of the yacht and connects stakeholders before decisions harden into expensive realities. If the business arrived slightly ahead of the industry’s appetite for that thinking, the gap is closing quickly. Across yacht design and construction, there is growing recognition that technical achievement and visual beauty are not sufficient on their own. A yacht must also work for the people living, serving and operating within it. Operational Experience in Yacht Design: The Missing Link The disconnect between build and operation is not a new problem. As Meeli observes, it may be closer to a white elephant: widely recognised, rarely confronted directly and expensive to ignore. Her goal is not to displace designers, project managers or builders. It is to connect their expertise with the operational knowledge too often absent from the room. The most valuable contribution may be precisely that missing link, someone able to translate what happens onboard into useful input before a space is built or refitted. “The ambition is that in the near future, nothing gets built or refitted without operational know-how and input. That’s the mission.” That mission reaches beyond interiors. It proposes a more intelligent model for yacht development, one in which lived experience is treated as design intelligence rather than feedback collected after delivery. As Meeli returns to the Monaco Yacht Show in 2026, she does so with more than the idea first planted there years ago. She returns with the experience she insisted on gaining, the network she built authentically and a business created to solve a problem the industry can no longer afford to overlook. Monaco may be where the vision began. Full circle does not mean returning to the same place unchanged. It means coming back ready to move the industry forward. Operational knowledge is too often invited into a yacht project after the most important decisions have already been made. Meeli Lepik explains why experience gained onboard belongs at the heart of yacht design, construction and refit from the very beginning.

Wealth is easy to display and harder to define. A large house, bright sports car or five-star itinerary can prove that someone has money, but none reveals whether that person controls their own time. For real estate investor and private money lender Jon Schoeller, that distinction changes the meaning of financial freedom. In his twenties, Schoeller believed success meant earning more, buying more and proving his doubters wrong. By his early thirties, he and his wife, Rhianna, had built businesses, invested in real estate and become financially free. Adopting their daughter then brought the purpose behind all that work into sharper focus. Money remained important, but no longer as a scorecard. Its value lay in the time, choice and security it could create. “Financial freedom is not actually the ability to say yes to everything. It is the ability to say no to the things you don’t want to do.” Financial Freedom Begins With Knowing What Is Enough Freedom cannot be built around a target that never stops moving. A person reaches one income goal, expands their lifestyle and soon needs a larger income to maintain it. What looked like progress becomes a more expensive version of the same dependency. Schoeller is not arguing against beautiful homes, travel or expensive possessions. The important question is whether a purchase supports a life someone genuinely values or simply advertises success to other people. Enjoyment and performance can look identical from the outside while producing entirely different lives. That question carries particular weight in yachting. Crew can earn strong incomes while working inside one of the world’s most visible expressions of wealth. Constant exposure to larger yachts, luxury destinations and apparently limitless spending can distort what a normal life should cost. Unless crew define enough for themselves, years of valuable earnings can disappear into a lifestyle that becomes increasingly difficult to leave. “You don’t want money to have everything. You want money to have options.” The Hedonic Treadmill Makes More Feel Normal Lifestyle inflation rarely arrives through one reckless decision. It grows through upgrades that each appear reasonable. A higher income justifies a better car, which changes expectations around the house and holidays. What once felt exceptional becomes normal, and normal eventually feels insufficient. Schoeller explains the pattern through an ordinary television. After using a 45-inch model for roughly 15 years, he could afford almost any replacement and initially wanted the largest screen his living room could hold. Instead, he chose a 65-inch television. The decision was not really about screen size. Moving immediately to the maximum would have created one dramatic improvement before establishing a new baseline. This is the hedonic treadmill: people adapt quickly to better circumstances, then begin searching for the next upgrade. Buying the most someone can afford today can quietly reduce the choices available tomorrow. The BMW That Changed the Meaning of Success Schoeller learned that lesson much earlier through a more expensive purchase. At 21, his first business was doing well and he traded a 1992 Honda Civic hatchback for a white BMW 335i with a red interior. After spending nearly an entire day securing the financing, he drove away with tears in his eyes. The car appeared to confirm that the young man from a trailer park, whom others had underestimated, had become successful. The emotion faded quickly. Schoeller owned a moving company and spent most days working from a box truck. During the five or six months he owned the BMW, he drove it only about 3,000 miles. The car and insurance cost more than $1,000 each month, while much of his limited time around it was spent cleaning it or worrying about damage. The BMW looked like freedom but behaved like another obligation. Schoeller realised that every month or two he was spending the equivalent of an international trip on something that mostly sat outside losing value and creating stress. He sold it and lost roughly $8,000, yet still considers it one of his best investments because the loss clarified what he wanted. He and Rhianna redirected the money towards their first trip abroad, beginning a pattern of travel that later became central to their family life. The lesson was not that cars are bad or travel is inherently better. The BMW communicated success to strangers. The journeys created memories for the people who mattered. Raising a Child Who Understands Value Financial security creates a different challenge when raising a child. Parents who struggled often want to remove every difficulty from their children’s lives. Schoeller and Rhianna do not believe their daughter should struggle simply because they did, but they also know that money can remove consequences she needs in order to grow. When their daughter wanted to buy something but had lost her wallet, Schoeller could easily have paid for it. He chose not to. If losing money never changed the outcome, responsibility would remain an abstract idea rather than a lived lesson. Confidence and self-discipline develop through manageable problems, not by having every frustration cleared away. “I am not raising a daughter. I am raising a woman.” Their daughter can enjoy opportunities her parents never had while still learning that choices carry consequences. Comfort without personal capability is not freedom. It is dependency with better surroundings. Private Money Lending Requires More Than Capital Schoeller supports this philosophy with a practical investment strategy. Through hundreds of property transactions, he has operated as both a real estate borrower and private money lender. Lending can provide exposure to real estate without requiring him to manage tenants, repairs, utilities or contractors. In a typical transaction, a private lender provides capital for an operator to purchase and renovate a property. The borrower repays the principal with interest when the property is sold or refinanced. The arrangement may sound passive, but passive should never be confused with automatic or risk-free. Schoeller begins by assessing the borrower. He looks for experience, a credible track record, resources beyond the individual project and evidence that previous lenders were repaid. He wants to know how someone behaves when a deal goes badly, not only how they present the deals that succeeded. Only then does he examine the property, including its purchase price, renovation budget, comparable sales and likely value after the work. He also describes using a closing attorney, promissory note, deed of trust, clear title, insurance and first-lien positioning where appropriate. Precise requirements vary by transaction and jurisdiction, making independent professional advice essential. Collateral can reduce risk, but it cannot eliminate it. Values can fall, costs can rise and borrowers can default. The possibility of an attractive return should therefore be the end of the analysis, not the beginning. Sustainable Wealth Is Built in the Middle Schoeller helped create the More Than Money community after years of completing his own real estate deals. The name reflects a deliberate rejection of the luxury cars and rapid results often used to sell financial education. That marketing resembles a fitness advertisement showing only the before-and-after photographs. The hidden middle contains the research, patience, mistakes and repeated work that produced the result. It is also where judgement develops and sustainable wealth is built. A first deal does not need to be spectacular. It needs to be understood. A repeatable skill that can be used for decades is more valuable than one exceptional result that encourages carelessness. Entrepreneurship Is Not Automatically Freedom Schoeller also rejects the idea that owning a business is always better than having a job. If someone earns enough, enjoys their work, has manageable stress and still has time for family, leaving simply to pursue the image of entrepreneurship may reduce their freedom. Rhianna continues working as a nurse anaesthetist because she spent years qualifying and genuinely enjoys the profession. When her shift ends, she is not responsible for operating the hospital. A business owner may control their calendar in theory while remaining responsible for staff, bills, customers and problems at every hour. Schoeller has walked away from profitable projects when they began competing with his family. He left a successful real estate YouTube channel because he could not sustain it alongside the family channel he and Rhianna were building. He has also stepped away from Instagram when social media began controlling too much of his attention. Those decisions do not reflect diminished ambition. They show that the ambition achieved its purpose. Financial freedom gave Schoeller the power to protect his time rather than monetise every available opportunity. The real measure of wealth is not whether someone can buy the house, car or yacht. It is whether they can decline work that no longer fits, leave when their family needs them and enjoy what they have built without becoming trapped by the cost of maintaining it. The strongest financial position is not being able to afford everything. It is no longer being owned by anything. This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal or tax advice. Real estate investor and private money lender Jon Schoeller explains why financial freedom is measured not by what you can buy, but by the time, choice and security your money creates.

Superyacht recruitment is supposed to connect the right people with the right vessel. Too often, speed, price and secrecy take priority over fit, safety and accountability. The superyacht industry knows how to scrutinise crew. Certificates, sea time, references, appearance, online conduct, visas and medicals can all be examined before somebody steps aboard. Turn that same scrutiny towards the yacht itself and the picture becomes far less rigorous. Does it pay its crew on time? Is the leadership competent? Is harassment tolerated? Why does the vessel have a revolving door of employees? Too often, those answers circulate through whispers and private messages rather than any reliable system, leaving crew and recruiters to make career-changing decisions in the dark. Laura-Kate Brown, Manager at Seven Seas Recruitment, understands both sides of that equation. She entered yachting straight from sixth form 14 years ago, arrived in Antibes with almost no idea what the work involved and landed her first position aboard what is now motor yacht Loon. She went on to work aboard exceptional yachts, progress through the interior department and experience what she describes as the good, the bad and the ugly of life onboard. There were brilliantly run yachts and extraordinary crews. There were also toxic teams, toxic owners and vessels she would never recommend to somebody else. That experience now informs how Brown recruits. She is not simply filling vacancies. She is deciding where people may live, work and spend almost every waking hour for months at a time. That makes recruitment more than a transaction. It makes it a duty of care. A CV Cannot Tell You Where Someone Will Thrive The recruitment market moves at extraordinary speed. When a crew member leaves unexpectedly, a yacht may need a replacement before the next owner or charter trip begins. Recruiters are expected to find somebody qualified, available and ready to travel almost immediately. At the same time, competition for entry-level positions has intensified. Brown recently received close to 500 applications within days of advertising a single deckhand role. Strong candidates with genuine longevity and good references are treated like gold dust, while the same CV may be submitted to a yacht by several agencies racing to claim the placement. Speed matters, but it cannot replace judgement. An energetic stewardess who loves events, themed dinners and elaborate table settings may be exceptional on a busy charter yacht. Place that same person aboard a quiet private vessel where the owners want discretion and routine, and the role may become frustrating for everyone involved. The candidate has not suddenly become incompetent. The placement was wrong. “I want to be placing crew on a boat who are happy.” That requires knowing more than what appears on a CV. It means understanding the yacht, the programme, the leadership, the personalities already onboard and the kind of life the candidate is actually trying to build. Recruiters Must Be Willing to Say No Much of yacht recruitment is focused on protecting the employer from a bad hire. Far less attention is given to protecting the crew member from a bad employer. Brown says Seven Seas Recruitment has refused to work with vessels when there have been credible concerns about unpaid wages, harassment or toxic behaviour. A recruiter may be told one story by a captain or chief stewardess while hearing something very different from former crew. Ignoring those warnings may secure a placement fee, but it can also send somebody directly into an unsafe or damaging environment. “I have actually refused to work with a few vessels because I refuse to place someone in that environment.” That should not be considered radical. It should be the minimum expected of any company responsible for placing people at sea. Confidentiality is essential in yachting, particularly where owners and guests are concerned. It cannot become a blanket excuse for hiding illegal conduct, non-payment, harassment or abuse. An NDA protects legitimate privacy. It does not erase an employer’s duty to provide a safe and lawful workplace. Good crew cannot repair a yacht that is poisonous from the top down. They can only endure it, leave it or be damaged by it. The Reality Television Version of Yachting Has Consequences For many people now entering the industry, reality television and social media provide their first impression of life aboard a superyacht. The result is an uncomfortable collision between entertainment and reality. Television sells conflict, parties, tips and crew drama because that is what keeps viewers watching. Professional yachting depends on discretion, discipline, privacy and work taking place quietly in the background. Brown remembers 20-hour days and months without a day off. The job was not about drinking with guests or treating the yacht like a floating playground. It was about delivering an exceptional experience for people paying for the highest level of private service. The entertainment version can attract candidates expecting quick money, glamorous travel and instant access to a luxury lifestyle. The real version demands humility, stamina and an acceptance that the yacht is somebody else’s private property, not a backdrop for building a personal brand. Social media has complicated that boundary further. Some yachts now actively employ content creators, videographers and drone operators, but authorised marketing is very different from crew publishing private spaces, unsafe practices or identifiable details without permission. A day-in-the-life post may appear harmless. On the wrong vessel, it can expose the yacht, the owner and the crew member responsible. Yacht Recruitment Cannot Become a Race to the Bottom Yachting has seen a proliferation of recruitment platforms, apps and small agencies promising faster placements and lower fees. Some are capable businesses. Others are launched by people who assume that having worked aboard a yacht is enough to qualify them to recruit for one. It is not. Professional recruitment depends on relationships built over years, knowledge of individual vessels, background checks, reference verification and the ability to recognise when a technically qualified candidate is wrong for a particular crew. That work is largely invisible. A cheaper agency may appear to offer the same result because both ultimately send a CV. The difference becomes apparent when a placement fails, the candidate leaves within weeks and the yacht begins the entire process again. Brown is candid about the pressure to discount fees when a competing agency offers to do the work for less. She is equally clear that expertise loses its value if experienced recruiters allow the market to treat it as interchangeable with automated CV forwarding. The true cost of recruitment is not the invoice. It is the disruption, lost time, damaged morale and repeated turnover created by getting the decision wrong. More Certificates Do Not Automatically Create Better Crew New crew are often told that another course will make them more employable. Brown regularly sees candidates arrive with collections of qualifications they did not need and may never use. Required certification matters. So does technical training for somebody progressing towards a specialist or senior role. But courses cannot manufacture character, self-awareness or the ability to live constructively with other people. Life aboard is unusually intimate. Crew work together, eat together, socialise together and often share cabins. There is no commute home after a difficult day and little opportunity to escape a personality clash. That makes humility, adaptability and communication operational skills rather than pleasant extras. Crew must be able to listen, read the room and accept that the method used on a previous yacht may not suit the vessel they have just joined. Experience should bring useful knowledge, not a running commentary about how everything was done on the last boat. A candidate who arrives ready to learn may ultimately offer far more value than somebody carrying additional certificates and an ego that prevents them from fitting into the team. Seven-Star Expectations Cannot Rest on Frozen Salaries Yachting expects crew to deliver what is frequently described as seven-star service. Yet Brown says some entry-level salaries remain close to what she saw when she joined the industry 14 years ago. Captain James Battey, founder of the Yacht Workers Council, recognises figures from when he entered yachting more than two decades ago. The expectations have not remained frozen. Crew are increasingly asked to bring broader technical abilities, content skills, additional certifications and greater flexibility while maintaining the traditional demands of service, privacy and availability. Recruiters can challenge an unrealistic salary, but the final package remains in the employer’s hands. Advertising an outdated wage is uncomfortable for the agency, particularly when the yacht is seeking an exceptional candidate in an increasingly expensive world. An oversupply of applicants may allow employers to resist change for a while. But filling a vacancy is not the same as retaining good crew. If yachts want professionalism, loyalty and long-term commitment, the employment package must acknowledge what those qualities are worth. Crew Morale Is Part of the Owner Experience The industry often treats crew wellbeing as something separate from yacht operations. It is not. Exhaustion, poor communication and unresolved tension do not remain below deck. They affect service, decision-making, safety and the atmosphere felt by everyone aboard. Brown speaks openly about periods when her own mental health suffered at sea and how much difference honest communication might have made. A crew member arriving in the mess looking withdrawn may be angry with nobody. They may have slept badly, received difficult news from home or simply reached the limit of what they can process that day. Without communication, colleagues fill the silence with assumptions. Battey uses regular check-ins so the team understands where everybody is mentally before the day begins. He also argues that yachts should explore rotating complete teams rather than continually changing individuals, allowing established crews to leave, return, train and work together as a functioning unit. “Crew make the experience. End of.” A remarkable yacht filled with unhappy people will struggle to deliver remarkable service. A strong crew can make even a difficult programme feel controlled, warm and effortless. Morale is not a soft benefit. It is part of the product the owner is buying. Accountability Must Run in Both Directions Crew should be expected to prove their experience, maintain valid certification and answer for their professional conduct. But accountability cannot stop at the gangway. The same principle must apply to yachts, recruiters, management companies, training providers and the wider network of businesses serving the industry. The Yacht Workers Council Professional Registry is intended to bring verified career records, sea time and greater transparency into a system that has long relied on scattered documents and personal networks. Battey also sees a role for structured reviews, with both crew and yachts able to provide feedback and businesses retaining a right of reply. This is not an invitation for gossip or defamation. It is a way to recognise good employers, identify repeated problems and give organisations the information needed to improve. Bad crew should not be allowed to move endlessly between vessels without scrutiny. Bad yachts should not be able to replace departing crew without questions being asked. Good recruiters, employers and service providers should benefit from the reputations they have earned. “You can’t fix something you don’t know.” Recruitment cannot repair a toxic owner, compensate for weak leadership or make an outdated salary competitive. What it can do is stop feeding broken systems. It can ask harder questions, protect candidates, defend the value of genuine expertise and refuse placements that should never be made. The superyacht industry is right to demand exceptional crew. It must now become equally serious about creating yachts worthy of employing them. Laura-Kate Brown of Seven Seas Recruitment examines why yacht recruitment must look beyond CVs to crew welfare, vessel culture and accountability.

Ocean research has always been shaped by time. Scientists can descend with increasingly sophisticated equipment, deploy remotely operated vehicles and gather extraordinary volumes of data, but the amount of time a person can spend working directly on the seafloor remains tightly constrained. Every conventional dive is governed by depth, gas supply, decompression requirements and the need to return safely to the surface. The DEEP Vanguard underwater habitat changes that equation. Installed 17 metres beneath the surface at Tennessee Reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Vanguard provides a dry living environment for four crew members on missions lasting five days or more. It is the first new crewed underwater habitat of its kind to be built in the United States in four decades and a working demonstration of what becomes possible when scientists are given more than a brief window into the ocean. The project brings together two disciplines that are often treated separately. Dr. Dawn Kernagis, DEEP’s Director of Scientific Research, has spent her career exploring underwater environments and studying how humans perform under extreme physiological stress. Norman Smith, DEEP’s Chief Technology Officer, brings more than 35 years of experience developing technology for human spaceflight, deep-water operations and other environments where engineering failure cannot be treated as an acceptable variable. Together, their work places the human back at the centre of ocean research, not as a replacement for technology, but as the point at which observation, judgement and technology meet. The Scientific Value of Staying Underwater For most scientific divers, the working day is defined by the clock. A diver descends, carries out a tightly planned series of tasks and returns to the surface before physiological limits are reached. Even when multiple dives are possible, every descent and ascent consumes valuable time. Vanguard is designed around saturation diving. Once the occupants’ tissues have become saturated with the breathing gases used at depth, they can remain at the same pressure and move between the habitat and surrounding environment without decompressing after every excursion. They complete a single controlled decompression at the end of the mission. That distinction transforms what a scientific team can accomplish. Instead of planning work around short bottom times, researchers and restoration specialists can spend six, seven or eight hours outside the habitat before returning to a dry living space. “You can really amplify that time at the bottom and the capabilities of the scientists or the restoration technicians that are down there.” The value is not simply that one dive becomes longer. It is that the work gains continuity. A scientist can observe a reef through changing conditions, return repeatedly to the same site, adjust an experiment after seeing its first results and respond to unexpected behaviour in real time. Tasks that would normally be divided across several dives, teams or days can become part of one continuous research programme. Kernagis understands that difference personally. In 2016, she served as an aquanaut on NASA’s NEEMO 21 mission, living and working underwater while participating in research designed to support future human spaceflight. Living beneath the surface, she explains, changes a researcher’s relationship with the environment. The ocean is no longer somewhere visited for a few minutes. It becomes a place that can be watched, questioned and understood over time. A Working Habitat, Not an Underwater Spectacle Vanguard is not designed as a luxury underwater room or a novelty experience. It is a working habitat built to support scientific, engineering and operational missions. The system includes a living chamber, a dive centre, a moon pool and a substantial foundation that anchors the habitat to the seafloor. A surface support buoy supplies breathing gases, electrical power and communications through an umbilical cable, keeping the subsea crew connected to the team above. Speaking at the opening of DEEP Station Florida, Smith described the stage Vanguard had reached at the time. “Vanguard is installed. It’s operational. We’re diving on Vanguard day after day, weather permitting.” That moment was significant because it showed that the concept had moved beyond computer renderings and workshop prototypes. The habitat had entered real open-ocean testing, allowing its systems, procedures and human factors to be evaluated in the environment for which it was designed. Vanguard also functions as a proving ground for a much larger ambition. DEEP is developing the technology, operational knowledge and training systems needed for longer missions and larger subsea habitats. Lessons learned from every component, dive and crew rotation can feed directly into the development of future systems. This makes Vanguard both a useful platform in its own right and a bridge between the historic era of underwater habitats and a new generation of permanent ocean infrastructure. Reef Restoration Beyond the Limits of a Dive Its location at Tennessee Reef gives Vanguard immediate scientific relevance. The Florida Keys support one of the world’s most important coral reef ecosystems, but the region faces mounting pressure from rising ocean temperatures, disease, water quality changes and extreme weather. The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary’s science needs include understanding reef condition, evaluating restoration techniques and improving the long-term monitoring of marine habitats. Extended human presence could add a powerful new capability to that work. Coral restoration is often labour-intensive. Teams may need to clean, attach, inspect, photograph and measure individual coral fragments while documenting changes over time. The deeper the work takes place, the more conventional diving limits restrict what can be achieved during each visit. A habitat allows restoration specialists to spend far longer at the site. It could also help research teams investigate deeper reef environments that may play an increasingly important role in the survival and recovery of coral ecosystems. Kernagis sees another opportunity in the relationship between human researchers and robotic systems. Autonomous vehicles, remotely operated vehicles, sensors and machine-learning tools can gather information at a scale no individual diver could match. Humans, however, remain exceptionally good at recognising context, adapting to unexpected situations and making decisions when conditions do not match a pre-programmed plan. “How do you optimise that teaming and really leverage the capabilities of the humans and the capabilities of the robots?” The most effective future is unlikely to involve choosing between people and machines. It will depend on assigning each the work it performs best. Robotic systems can survey broad areas, carry instruments and collect continuous measurements. Scientists living nearby can interpret what those systems find, investigate anomalies and change the research plan without waiting for another expedition to be organised. Engineering Where Failure Cannot Be Casual Building a habitat that keeps people alive underwater demands a particular kind of engineering culture. Smith’s background spans human spaceflight, remotely operated systems and complex offshore technology. Hardware he helped develop has operated aboard the International Space Station for nearly two decades. That experience shapes an approach based on redundancy, maintainability and careful control of every interface between the crew, the habitat and its surrounding environment. The similarities between a subsea habitat and a spacecraft are more than metaphorical. Both must provide breathable air, manage power and communications, control environmental conditions and protect their occupants from an environment in which small failures can escalate quickly. Vanguard has also required contributions from a much wider industrial network. Smith estimates that more than 100 people and contractors across Florida were involved in manufacturing components, integrating systems and carrying out the installation. Companies with expertise in subsea engineering, marine construction, diving operations and classification all played roles in moving the habitat from design to deployment. “The people you don’t see are the people who built it.” That point matters for the wider blue economy. Ocean innovation is rarely the product of a single organisation. It depends on engineers, welders, vessel operators, divers, researchers, fabricators, universities, regulators and specialist contractors working across an interconnected supply chain. Projects such as Vanguard create a visible focal point for that network, but the capability behind the project is distributed across an entire regional economy. Why the Route to Space Passes Through the Ocean The connection between ocean and space exploration runs throughout the Vanguard programme. Underwater habitats have long been used to prepare astronauts for missions beyond Earth. Neutral buoyancy can simulate aspects of weightlessness, while an isolated habitat creates operational conditions in which teams must manage limited resources, communications, fatigue and risk. During NEEMO 21, Kernagis experienced that connection directly. Her mission included a live communication link between aquanauts underwater and astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The environments are very different, but many of the human demands are shared. Crews must live in confined spaces, maintain complex life-support systems, perform technically demanding work and communicate clearly when assistance cannot arrive immediately. Research carried out through Vanguard could therefore generate knowledge that travels in both directions. Studies of physiology, cognitive performance, team dynamics and human-machine collaboration may improve underwater operations while contributing to the preparation of crews for future missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. The ocean is not merely an analogue for space. It is a frontier with its own scientific urgency, economic importance and extraordinary complexity. The tools developed for one extreme environment can nevertheless make exploration of the other safer and more effective. A Florida Project With a Global Horizon Vanguard’s location places it within one of the most concentrated marine research and innovation ecosystems in the United States. South Florida brings together universities, marine technology companies, research institutions, conservation organisations, shipyards, vessel operators and a workforce with extensive experience in subsea environments. That concentration of knowledge is one reason the region is increasingly recognised as a centre for ocean innovation. The development of South Florida’s blue economy will depend on connecting those capabilities rather than allowing research, industry and economic development to advance in isolation. Organisations such as the Marine Research Hub of South Florida are helping strengthen those connections, creating pathways through which scientific knowledge can move into commercial development and practical application. Vanguard offers a tangible example of what that ecosystem can produce. It combines advanced engineering with marine science, creates demand for specialised skills and provides a platform through which universities, conservation groups and technology developers can test ideas in a real underwater environment. The immediate work is happening in the Florida Keys, but the underlying need is global. Coastal communities, governments and marine industries around the world require better information about ocean change. They also need new tools for restoration, monitoring, training and responsible use of marine resources. A proven habitat platform could support work in many of those areas. DEEP Vanguard Is Only the Beginning DEEP describes Vanguard as a launchpad rather than an endpoint. The knowledge gained from the habitat will contribute to Sentinel, DEEP’s planned larger-scale subsea habitat system. While Vanguard supports four people for missions of five or more days, Sentinel is intended to enable longer and more extensive human presence beneath the surface. The ambition extends beyond professional researchers. Kernagis also sees the potential to connect students directly with missions, allowing classrooms to communicate with aquanauts, observe experiments and experience ocean science as something unfolding in real time. That visibility could prove as important as the engineering itself. The next generation of marine scientists, technicians and explorers will need opportunities to see themselves in the work before they can imagine building careers around it. “We’re building this out for the next generation. This is just getting things started.” For much of modern history, the ocean has been treated as somewhere humans enter temporarily, gather what they can and then leave. Vanguard proposes a different relationship. Not ownership of the ocean, and not escape from the surface, but the ability to remain long enough to pay closer attention. The ocean does not become less difficult because humans decide to stay. What changes is our capacity to meet it on its own terms, with the time, infrastructure and discipline required to understand what is happening beneath us before it is too late to respond. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ POWERED BY MARINE RESEARCH HUB ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The Blue Economy is powered by the Marine Research Hub of South Florida, connecting research, industry and economic development to advance innovation, strengthen Florida’s Blue Economy and help move research-based solutions into real-world application. DEEP Vanguard is bringing human presence back to the seafloor, giving scientists the time and infrastructure to study, restore and understand the ocean from within it.

Yacht owners know the cost of fuel, refits, compliance and maintenance because each arrives with an invoice. Crew turnover is harder to see. Its cost is dispersed across recruitment, travel, onboarding, disrupted service and the operational knowledge that walks off the passerelle when an experienced person leaves. Captain Kelly J. Gordon has spent 20 years in yachting and approximately 15 years in command. On the 43-metre yacht she currently leads, members of her wider team have worked with her for four, five or six years. That continuity is not accidental. It reflects authentic leadership, practical support and a willingness to advocate for the resources crew need to perform well. Before entering yachting, Gordon was a chemistry professor. Education remains central to her approach to command. Courses, qualifications, counselling, crew transport and appropriate accommodation all return to the same question: what does this team need to succeed and remain committed? “In order to keep them, we have to invest in them.” The Cost That Never Appears as One Invoice When an experienced crew member leaves, an owner does not simply replace a name on the crew list. The newcomer must learn the vessel, understand the owner’s preferences, build trust with colleagues and absorb the systems that keep the yacht operating seamlessly. Recruitment fees, travel, uniforms, visas, medical examinations and handover periods all carry a price. Reduced efficiency during the transition carries another. If the departure involves a senior crew member, the replacement may also want to restructure the department or purchase different equipment. The expense can quickly exceed the cost of the professional development that might have retained the original person. This relationship can also be seen in the industry’s wider leadership and crew turnover problem and in the importance of documented systems that protect the owner experience. Gordon adds another dimension to that equation: experienced crew carry knowledge capital that even the most thorough handover cannot fully replace. Owners increasingly value seeing familiar faces when they return onboard. Familiarity creates confidence, protects privacy and allows service to feel intuitive rather than rehearsed. Yet that continuity cannot be demanded in the name of loyalty while investment in the people providing it remains optional. Why Superyacht Crew Training Is an Investment Securing owner support for superyacht crew training begins with translating professional development into terms familiar to ownership: value, risk and return. Gordon understands that owners and their representatives have a responsibility to scrutinise expenditure. A request built only around goodwill presents a cost; a properly constructed case explains what the course will enable, why the individual is worth retaining and what the yacht stands to lose if that person leaves. “Any time you can put some numbers in front of them and let the numbers speak for themselves, you’ll get them on board.” For Gordon, using numbers does not reduce a crew member to a calculation. It reveals the expenses that tend to remain hidden when training is declined. Recruitment, travel, onboarding, reduced efficiency and the loss of vessel-specific knowledge all belong on the other side of the ledger. Once those costs are considered, funding a qualification can become the more commercially disciplined decision. Her own results strengthen that argument. Crew members who remain for years develop an understanding of the vessel, the owner’s expectations and the rhythms of the wider team that no brief handover can reproduce. As they grow in responsibility, the return is felt in stronger capability, steadier service and fewer disruptions to the programme. This is not a case for approving every course or treating professional development as an unchecked entitlement. Gordon’s approach is more exacting: assess the relevance of the training, the commitment of the crew member and the value it creates for the operation. The budget may make the price of a course immediately visible, but that visibility should not be mistaken for greater expense. That discipline is also why Gordon favours arrangements that protect the owner’s financial commitment while giving trusted crew a meaningful route forward. A Corporate Model Reworked for the Yacht One member of Gordon’s crew had spent years working aboard private yachts and lacked several qualifications that became necessary when the vessel moved into commercial operation. The required courses would cost thousands. The alternative was to recruit someone who already held the relevant tickets, but doing so would mean losing a trusted crew member who understood the yacht, its standards and the people onboard. Gordon drew inspiration from corporate tuition-assistance programmes. The owner would fund the courses, the crew member would commit to remaining with the yacht for an agreed period, and an early departure would activate a repayment provision under their agreement. The proposal was approved. “You pay for my course, I give you time back.” The arrangement created value on both sides. The owner gained a more qualified and committed crew member. The individual received access to development that might otherwise have been financially out of reach. The yacht retained someone whose knowledge and trust had already been earned. The principle is more important than the precise structure. Training requests can be considered according to their purpose, operational value and the commitment attached to them, rather than being restricted by an arbitrary annual allowance. Training Cannot Come at the Expense of Recovery Investment carries responsibilities on both sides. Gordon protects crew leave while recognising that career progression also requires commitment from the individual. On her current Mediterranean-based programme, most crew have the winter off. In that environment, completing some professional development during the off-season may be reasonable. Her previous vessel completed 25 weeks of intensive charter each year. Gordon recalls taking only ten days of leave across two years. Asking exhausted crew in those circumstances to surrender their limited time ashore for additional coursework would not have been responsible. The contrast matters. A substantial seasonal break is not equivalent to a few precious weeks in which to rest, reconnect with family and recover from the demands of life onboard. There can be no responsible one-size-fits-all training policy. The yacht’s schedule, the crew member’s workload and the purpose of the qualification must all be considered. Training sits within a wider operational chain connecting safety, welfare, leadership and retention. For Gordon, supporting crew does not mean removing personal responsibility from career development. It means making decisions that reflect the genuine demands already being placed upon them. It also requires captains to communicate the realities of life onboard and, when necessary, to say no. Shore-based offices go home at the end of the working day. Crew live, work and sleep alongside the same colleagues for months at a time. Those making decisions ashore cannot account for an operational reality that has never been properly explained to them. Owners who want the same trusted faces onboard must create the conditions that allow those people to stay. Training forms part of that commitment, alongside adequate rest, suitable living arrangements, mental health support, visible progression and leadership prepared to advocate with evidence. The cost of training is easy to identify because it appears in the budget. The cost of turnover is dispersed throughout the operation, making it easier to overlook, but no less substantial. The question is not whether a yacht can afford to invest in its crew. It is whether it can afford the consequences of choosing not to. The most expensive crew-training decision may be deciding not to fund it. Captain Kelly J. Gordon reveals the hidden cost of losing experience, continuity and trust.

By the time Hope Hicks reached out to Ryan Melogy, he had already spent years pushing for answers from a maritime system that seemed built to withstand pressure. He had reported what happened aboard the Maersk Idaho. He had followed records, filed requests, published survivor accounts, and forced questions into places where they had not been welcome. The Coast Guard had charged the man he had reported, and Maersk had eventually been fined for failing to pass his report to the Coast Guard, but the wider change Ryan had been fighting for still had not arrived. Then Hope Hicks contacted him. Her story did not create the problem. It exposed the scale of it in a way the industry could no longer manage through general statements, internal language, or carefully controlled concern. For years, sexual harassment and assault at sea had been discussed in categories, acronyms, statistics, and policy language that could make even serious harm sound administrative. Hope’s account cut through that. It was direct, specific, recent, and impossible to soften into abstraction. For Ryan, it also arrived at a moment when the work had become almost unsustainable. Maritime Legal Aid and Advocacy had already drawn in survivor stories at a pace he had not been trained or prepared to carry. He was still dealing with the consequences of his own case while trying to understand how many others had been failed by the same structures. The work had become personal, legal, investigative, and emotional all at once. Hope’s decision to come forward changed the direction of that fight. It brought public attention, media pressure, congressional scrutiny, and eventually helped move the conversation from exposure into action. That is the territory at the heart of Buried At Sea: The Fight For Accountability. This is where the story stops being only about what was hidden. It becomes about what happened once people could no longer pretend not to see it. Buried At Sea: When One Story Forces A System To Respond Institutions often survive uncomfortable truths by making them vague. The maritime industry has its own language for this. Sexual assault and sexual harassment become SASH. Abuse becomes misconduct. Failure becomes a gap. A survivor becomes a complainant. A pattern becomes a concern. Each term may have a place in policy, but when language becomes too broad, it can also become a way of keeping the human reality at a distance. Hope Hicks’ story resisted that distance. It was not a general discussion about safety culture. It was not a statistic in a report. It was a first-person account from a current student at the US Merchant Marine Academy, describing what had happened to her while assigned to sea. That mattered because it put a face, a timeline, and a human voice to a problem that had too often been treated as something everyone knew existed, but few wanted to confront directly. When the story began to spread, the response followed the familiar path of institutional pressure. Media picked it up. Maritime outlets amplified it. Public statements were issued. Congress took notice. People who had previously spoken in broad terms were forced to look more closely at the specific failures Ryan had been documenting through Maritime Legal Aid, including the lack of enforcement around reporting requirements and the records that suggested dangerous people had been allowed to continue working at sea. This is where accountability begins to move from principle into consequence. Not because the system wakes up one morning with moral clarity. Systems rarely do that. They move when the cost of staying still becomes harder to defend. The Safer Seas Act And The Work Behind The Change The Safer Seas Act was not born out of one conversation or one headline. It came after years of survivors speaking, advocates pushing, journalists reporting, records being gathered, and lawmakers being forced to confront what had been left outside earlier maritime safety reforms. Cruise ships had already received attention through legislation that addressed certain safety and reporting concerns for passengers. Non-passenger vessels had not been treated with the same urgency. Cargo ships, training vessels, offshore operations, and other parts of the maritime world were operating in spaces where young cadets and seafarers could be isolated, vulnerable, and far from meaningful protection when something went wrong. Ryan’s work helped connect those dots. He had already been examining the history of 46 USC 10104, the reporting law he discovered while studying for his chief mate exam. He had filed FOIA requests, reviewed records, and questioned how a law requiring sexual assault allegations aboard US-flagged vessels to be reported to the Coast Guard could exist for decades without appearing to produce meaningful enforcement. When Hope’s story drew attention, that existing body of work became harder for lawmakers and regulators to ignore. The Safer Seas Act did not solve everything. No single piece of legislation could. But it strengthened reporting, expanded oversight, introduced requirements around cameras on many US commercial vessels, addressed master key control, and gave the Coast Guard stronger authority around credentials in cases involving sexual assault and sexual harassment. For an industry that often speaks fluently about safety while struggling to confront power, that matters. It matters because enforcement is the point where a policy either becomes protection or reveals itself as decoration. Crew do not need another document telling them they matter if the system does nothing when they are harmed. Cadets do not need another promise if the person they report can continue working. Survivors do not need institutions to express concern while quietly calculating liability. They need systems that act. Why Written Protection Is Not Enough Maritime is an industry built on rules. It understands certification, compliance, inspection, licensing, reporting, insurance, liability, and consequence. It can track maintenance, fuel, crew hours, weather windows, passage plans, and operational risk with extraordinary attention to detail when the vessel, owner, cargo, schedule, or asset is at stake. The question this series keeps returning to is why human harm has so often been handled differently. A reporting law should not depend on whether a company wants scrutiny. A regulator should not become active only when public pressure becomes inconvenient. A survivor should not have to become the investigator, advocate, media strategist, and emotional anchor of their own case before the system begins to respond. Yet that is often what happens when accountability is weak. The burden moves downward. It lands on the person with the least power and the most to lose. That dynamic is familiar across maritime sectors, including yachting. Crew are told to report through proper channels, but those channels may lead straight back into the hierarchy they are afraid of. They are told to trust management, but management may be more directly tied to the owner, captain, or programme than to the crew member seeking help. They are told to document, but they may not understand how their own messages, timing, words, or emotional state could later be used against them. They are told there are protections, but they may not know where those protections actually begin or end. Written protection matters. Legislation matters. Policy matters. But none of it means enough without enforcement, access, independence, and consequence. What This Means For Yacht Crew For yachting, the relevance of Ryan’s work is not theoretical. In the final part of Buried At Sea, the conversation moves directly into the private yacht world through a case involving a crew member who was sexually assaulted while working on board. The legal structure was familiar to anyone who understands how yachts are often arranged: foreign flag, offshore entities, layered ownership, employment agreements through separate jurisdictions, insurance questions, and a vessel operating across multiple territories. To crew, that kind of structure can feel like a wall. Many assume that if something happens on a foreign-flagged yacht, outside their home country, under a complicated ownership arrangement, there is nothing they can do. That assumption is understandable, but it is not always correct. Ryan’s point is important. Jurisdiction is not the crew member’s job to solve alone. A seafarer who has experienced harm should not have to understand flag state law, corporate ownership, insurance provisions, base of operations, maritime liens, or vessel arrest before asking whether they have options. That is the lawyer’s work. In the yachting case discussed, the legal team looked beyond the paper structure. They examined the vessel’s connections, including where it operated, where it was financed, where it was insured, where it chartered, where it repaired, and whether there was a meaningful connection to the United States. That investigation led to legal action against the vessel itself, including the arrest of the yacht through the maritime court system. For crew, that matters because it challenges one of the industry’s most damaging assumptions: that complexity equals protection for the powerful and helplessness for everyone else. It does not always. Sometimes the route is difficult. Sometimes it is uncertain. Sometimes it requires lawyers willing to look harder than others have. But difficulty is not the same as impossibility, and yacht crew should be very careful about accepting “there is nothing you can do” from people whose first instinct may be to protect the programme, the vessel, or the reputation around it. The Insurance Question Yachting Cannot Ignore One of the most uncomfortable points raised in the yachting case is insurance. Ryan explains that, in that matter, the yacht’s insurance specifically excluded sexual assault and sexual harassment, and that his research suggested this was common. If that reflects wider industry practice, it raises serious questions for owners, captains, managers, insurers, and crew. Insurance exclusions are not small print in a world where crew live where they work. They are signals. They show what an industry recognises as possible, what it chooses to cover, and what it may leave exposed when the harm is not theoretical anymore. For owners, this should be a serious conversation. If a yacht carries sophisticated coverage for machinery, liability, operations, guests, tenders, toys, crew medical needs, and disruption, but leaves major gaps around sexual assault or harassment, then what exactly is being protected? For captains and managers, it raises practical questions about duty of care, reporting, crew accommodation, cabin arrangements, hiring decisions, alcohol culture, disciplinary action, and what happens when something is reported on board. For crew, it is another reason not to assume that the polished surface of a yacht means the protection underneath is adequate. Luxury does not equal safety. A well-run itinerary does not equal accountability. A respected programme does not guarantee that the system will know what to do when one crew member harms another. Document, Report, And Get Proper Advice The advice Ryan gives to crew is not romantic, and it should not be. Document what is happening. Report through the proper channels. Tell the truth. Understand that anything written, texted, emailed, recorded, or shared may become part of a legal record later. And if the response is not adequate, speak to attorneys who understand maritime abuse, harassment, assault, injury, and jurisdiction. That last point matters because not every lawyer will know how to look at a yacht case properly. A lawyer unfamiliar with maritime structures may see a foreign flag, a foreign entity, or an incident outside the United States and assume there is no route forward. A lawyer who understands the industry may ask different questions. Where does the vessel really operate? Where is it financed? Where is it insured? Where does it charter? Where does it repair? Where are the commercial ties? Is there a claim against the vessel itself? Are there avenues through civil action, criminal reporting, licensing, or regulatory pressure? Crew should not be expected to know those answers before making contact. They should also not be misled into thinking that reporting is simple. Once someone reports serious harm inside any organisation, including a yacht, they may become a problem for that organisation. That does not mean they are wrong to report. It means they need to understand the environment they are stepping into and avoid walking that road alone if the matter is serious. This is not about encouraging panic. It is about encouraging preparation. There is a difference. The Fight For Accountability At Sea The final chapter of Buried At Sea is not a neat ending, because accountability at sea is not a neat process. It is slow, contested, expensive, emotionally punishing, and often resisted by the very systems that claim to support safety. But it is possible. Hope Hicks’ story helped force a wider response. Ryan’s records and advocacy helped bring long-ignored failures into view. Congress acted. The Safer Seas Act strengthened protections. Cases have been brought. Licences have been surrendered. Yachts have been arrested. Survivors have found lawyers, language, and routes forward that many had been told did not exist. None of that means the work is finished. It means silence is less secure than it used to be. For yachting, that is the lesson worth carrying forward. The industry cannot keep treating abuse, harassment, assault, psychological harm, and retaliation as unfortunate exceptions while relying on structures that make reporting difficult and accountability uncertain. It cannot ask crew to speak up while leaving them exposed to systems that protect the vessel first. It cannot hide behind flags, management layers, insurance gaps, or jurisdictional confusion and still claim to take crew welfare seriously. At sea, accountability has to be more than a statement. It has to reach the cabin door, the crew mess, the bridge, the engine room, the management office, the insurer, the courtroom, and the regulator. The question is no longer whether people are willing to speak. They are. The question is whether the industry is willing to listen before it is forced to. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SUPPORTED BY Moore Dixon ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Moore Dixon provides global insurance support designed for yacht crew, including medical cover for emergencies, routine care, and practical protection when the unexpected happens. 🌐 mdbl.im In Buried At Sea: The Fight For Accountability, maritime lawyer and former seafarer Ryan Melogy examines how survivor testimony, legal pressure, congressional attention, the Safer Seas Act, and yachting jurisdiction are reshaping the fight for accountability after abuse at sea.

There are yacht shows that fill a calendar, and then there are events that help define the rhythm of an industry. Cannes belongs firmly in the second category. Set against the unmistakable backdrop of the French Riviera, Cannes Yachting Festival has long occupied a particular place in the world of luxury boating. It is glamorous, certainly, but to reduce it to glamour would be to miss its real importance. Cannes is where shipyards reveal new work, where buyers move from interest to understanding, where brokers, builders, designers, equipment specialists and service providers meet at the beginning of the season, and where the direction of the market becomes visible not in theory, but on the water. For Constance Brément, Show Director of the Cannes Yachting Festival, the responsibility is both operational and deeply human. The 2026 edition, taking place 8 to 13 September in Cannes, will bring together hundreds of boats, exhibitors and visitors across one of the most recognisable waterfront settings in Europe. Behind that polished arrival, however, is an extraordinary act of coordination. Before the show opens, the installation has already begun. Boats need to be positioned, exhibitor spaces prepared, pontoons planned, services aligned and the visitor journey shaped so that the experience feels seamless once the gates open. For guests walking the show, Cannes may feel effortless. For the team behind it, that feeling is the product of months of structure, pressure and precision. Constance understands that pressure from more than one side. Before stepping into leadership of the festival, she spent years experiencing Cannes from the exhibitor perspective, representing major brands and navigating the expectations, objectives and commercial weight that come with a show of this scale. That background gives her a rare advantage. She knows what exhibitors need because she has stood where they stand. She understands the importance of visibility, qualified visitors, meaningful connections and a show environment that supports real business rather than simply beautiful presentation. Now, her role is wider. She is not representing one brand or one segment. She is helping serve the industry as a whole. A Festival Built Around Experience, Business And Emotion Cannes Yachting Festival is not designed for one type of visitor. That is part of its strength. A prospective owner may arrive to compare boats in person. An existing owner may be looking for a refit partner, a tender, new technology, interior design expertise or equipment that extends the life and pleasure of a yacht they already love. A charter client may come for inspiration. A broker may come to understand what clients are asking for next. A shipyard may come to reveal not just a model, but years of design, engineering, craftsmanship and commercial strategy. This range matters because modern yachting is no longer a single conversation. It is ownership, charter, lifestyle, technology, design, refit, sustainability, family use, personal freedom and the evolving expectations of a younger, more informed generation of buyers. Cannes brings those conversations into the same physical environment, allowing visitors to compare, touch, question, step aboard and feel the difference between one vessel and another. That cannot be replicated by a screen. Digital research has changed the way clients arrive at boat shows. Buyers are often better informed before they set foot on the pontoons, with more knowledge of models, layouts, performance, materials and competing options. Yet that has not diminished the importance of the physical show. If anything, it has made the in-person experience more valuable. At Cannes, information becomes tangible. A client can move from renderings to decks, from specifications to sightlines, from marketing language to conversations with the people who actually build, sell and support the vessel. In luxury, confidence is rarely created by information alone. It comes from proximity, atmosphere, trust and the ability to experience detail first-hand. That is where Cannes continues to hold its power. The Changing Face Of The Yacht Buyer Constance speaks about a market that has moved beyond the post-pandemic boom into a more measured phase. Some sectors are more challenged than others, but premium segments, superyachts and highly customised boats continue to show strength. The mood is not one of simple expansion. It is more nuanced, more selective and, in many ways, more mature. Buyers are still there, but expectations are evolving. Younger clients are entering the market with different priorities. They are not always drawn to yachting for the same reasons as previous generations. For many, the appeal is not only ownership as status, but ownership as experience. A yacht becomes a way to step outside daily life, to wake in a bay, to work from somewhere more beautiful than an office, to bring family and friends together, to travel slowly, to connect with the elements and to live differently for a while. That shift is important. The language of luxury is changing from possession to use. From speed alone to purpose. From display to experience. From a yacht as an object to a yacht as a way of living. This is particularly visible in the rise of what Constance describes as slower cruising. The idea is not that speed has disappeared as a desire. For some owners and some programmes, speed remains essential. But alongside it, there is growing interest in longer journeys, comfort on board, autonomy, flexibility, range, efficient cruising, more thoughtful use of space and a deeper relationship with the sea. A yacht is increasingly expected to support different kinds of life. It may need to host family for longer periods. It may need proper workspace. It may need spaces that shift between privacy, entertaining, wellness, water sports and quiet retreat. It may need to feel less like a product and more like a private world. That expectation is reshaping design. Innovation That Has To Mean Something Innovation in yachting can be an easy word to overuse, but Constance frames it with an important distinction. For innovation to matter, it must be useful. Useful for the environment, certainly, but also useful for owners, captains, crews, maintenance, efficiency, comfort and the real experience of using a boat. The yacht of tomorrow, in her view, is likely to be smarter, more connected and more efficient. Artificial intelligence, data, energy management, speed optimisation, predictive maintenance, lighter materials, modularity and more sustainable construction processes are all part of that wider movement. The industry is not looking at sustainability in isolation. It is increasingly connecting sustainability with better usage. That is the more interesting direction. A lighter yacht may be more efficient. Better maintenance systems may reduce waste, downtime and cost. Smarter energy use may improve both environmental performance and owner experience. Refit may extend the life of an existing yacht rather than pushing owners toward replacement. Innovation, at its best, does not ask the owner to sacrifice pleasure. It makes the pleasure more intelligent. This is where Cannes becomes more than a showcase. It becomes a map of where the industry is heading. The Festival’s Innovation Route and awards help bring attention to the companies and ideas shaping that future. For Constance, that visibility matters because the future of boating will not be built by one large idea alone. It will be built through many improvements across materials, propulsion, design, digital systems, maintenance, construction, comfort, autonomy and the way people actually use their yachts. Luxury yachting has always depended on detail. Its future will depend on whether those details become smarter. Cannes As A Place Of Discovery What makes Cannes distinct is not only the scale of the event, but the way scale is held within a setting that still feels emotionally connected to yachting. The show stretches across iconic harbours, yet it remains walkable, navigable and deeply tied to the city itself. Visitors are not moving through an anonymous exhibition hall. They are moving through Cannes, with the Mediterranean beside them and the industry’s finest work gathered along the water. That atmosphere matters more than the industry sometimes admits. Luxury clients are not only evaluating technical data. They are evaluating feeling. They are asking what kind of life a yacht might open up, what kind of places it might take them to, what kind of memories it might help create, and whether the vessel in front of them fits the person or family they imagine themselves becoming on the water. Cannes gives that imagination a physical setting. For new buyers, it offers comparison. For experienced owners, it offers renewal. For shipyards, it offers a stage. For service providers, it offers connection. For the wider industry, it offers a concentrated view of where demand, design and expectation are moving next. That is why the show remains essential. Cannes Yachting Festival 2026 And The Future Of Luxury Boating The 2026 Cannes Yachting Festival arrives at an important moment. The industry is becoming more informed, more international, more discerning and more conscious of how yachting fits into wider lifestyle, sustainability and ownership conversations. At the same time, the emotional pull of the sea remains unchanged. That balance between business and feeling is what Constance Brément seems particularly attuned to. She speaks about exhibitors needing efficiency, visibility and the right visitors. She speaks about guests needing inspiration, clarity and a journey that makes them want to return. She speaks about innovation, sustainability and future direction, but also about the emotion of opening the show, the work of the team and the enduring magic of stepping aboard. That combination is what makes Cannes powerful. It is not only a marketplace. It is not only a luxury event. It is not only a boat show. It is where the industry brings together craftsmanship, technology, design, ambition and emotion in one of the most recognisable yachting settings in the world. For Constance, the invitation to visitors is simple in spirit, even if the event behind it is complex in execution. Come to Cannes to discover the finest creations in international boating. Come to understand the richness of the industry. Come with a dream, and leave with a clearer sense of the life that yachting can make possible. Because people do not buy a boat simply to own a boat. They buy into the experience, the freedom, the discovery and the private world that opens once they step on board. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PRESENTED BY International Yacht Register ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ International Yacht Register provides luxury yacht charter, ownership and advisory services for clients seeking trusted guidance, exceptional yachts, discreet support, market knowledge and access to the global yachting lifestyle. iyr.net Constance Brément, Show Director of Cannes Yachting Festival, brings a rare insider perspective to the 2026 edition in Cannes, where luxury boating, innovation, international shipyards and the emotion of stepping aboard come together on the water.

Superyacht crew vetting has become one of the most important conversations in a sector built on privacy, proximity, discretion, and trust. Yachts are not ordinary workplaces. They are private assets, floating homes, high-value operational environments, and, in many cases, places where crew work closely around owners, guests, children, families, colleagues, and sensitive information. For years, much of the industry has relied on attitude, appearance, paperwork, references, and word of mouth when bringing people onboard. Those things still matter, but they are no longer enough on their own. That is the gap Conrad Empson saw first-hand. Conrad, Founder and Managing Director of CrewPass, began his career in yachting in 2014 as a deckhand before progressing to bosun and eventually moving ashore in 2018. Like many crew, he valued what the industry gave him. The structure, discipline, lessons, people, and pressure of life onboard shaped him. Yet his later work in superyacht security made him look back at the hiring process with a very different set of eyes. The question that sat behind CrewPass was uncomfortable but necessary: how can someone be welcomed onboard one of the world’s most valuable private assets, placed close to owners, guests, children, and fellow crew, without a proper understanding of who they are? Superyacht Crew Vetting Is A Safety Issue, Not An Admin Exercise The traditional image of breaking into yachting is familiar. New crew walk the docks, hand out CVs, make a good impression, show enthusiasm, present their certificates, and hope someone gives them a chance. That route has created careers for thousands of people, but it also exposes a weakness in the system. A good attitude on the dock does not tell a captain, recruiter, owner, or management company enough about who is being invited into a confined working and living environment. Conrad’s point is not that yacht crew should be viewed with suspicion. It is that safety onboard has to include the people being hired, not only the equipment being used. Yachting already takes risk seriously in many operational areas. Crew work at height. Tenders are launched and recovered. Guests are moved between yacht and shore. Engineers handle technical systems. Interior teams work inside private spaces. Captains are responsible for safeguarding everyone onboard. Yet in many cases, the person stepping onto the yacht may only have been checked through references they supplied themselves, certificates required for the role, and whatever impression they gave during the hiring process. That is not a full safety picture. Onboard, trust is not abstract. Crew share cabins, work long hours, handle guest privacy, move around valuable assets, and operate inside environments where personal boundaries and professional responsibility sit very close together. When hiring is treated too casually, the risk is carried by everyone, not only the employer. Why CrewPass Was Built From A Security Perspective CrewPass was created to make background checks more practical for the yachting industry, but its foundation was not bureaucracy. It was security. After leaving boats, Conrad worked for Marine Guard, a superyacht security company, where conversations around onboard threats and background checks kept returning to the same issue. Yachts were investing in security, but crew checks were not always treated with the same seriousness. The challenge was not simply identifying the problem. It was building a product the industry would actually use. Standard background checking models do not fit yachting neatly. Crew come from multiple countries, may have lived in several jurisdictions, travel constantly, and move between yachts, agencies, management structures, and employers. A system designed for a conventional shore-based employee living in one country does not automatically work for a global crew market. That is why CrewPass was built as something crew could hold and share. The idea was to create a credential that sits with the crew member, much like an STCW or ENG1, allowing them to show that checks have been completed and securely share that information with recruiters, captains, management companies, and employers. Instead of waiting for each employer to decide whether a background check should happen, crew could arrive with evidence already in place. That model benefits more than one side of the hiring process. Crew can stand out by showing they have taken due diligence seriously. Recruiters can present candidates with stronger supporting information. Employers can move faster with greater confidence. Captains and managers can reduce uncertainty before someone steps onboard. For an industry that often needs to move quickly, that matters. Trust Cannot Depend On Guesswork One of the more difficult truths in the conversation is that the old system has often depended on confidence more than evidence. Captains and recruiters are experienced people, and many have good instincts. They can read CVs, assess attitude, speak to references, and judge whether someone appears suitable for a role. But instinct should not be asked to do the job of verification. The industry has long accepted references as a normal part of recruitment, but even references have limits. A candidate naturally puts forward the people most likely to speak well of them. Social media can create an impression, but it is not a professional screening process. A polished CV can tell a story, but it does not always tell the whole story. CrewPass sits inside a broader shift toward professionalising yachting. As owners, charter guests, managers, and crew expect higher standards, the industry has to examine the systems that support those standards. Safety cannot be limited to operational procedures. It has to include the people entering the environment. That does not mean every past mistake should automatically exclude someone from a role. It means the right people should have the right information in order to make a responsible decision. There is a difference between judgement and ignorance. One is an informed choice. The other is a gamble. Building A Company Around A Problem The Industry Had Normalised One of the hardest parts of building any new product in yachting is that the industry can become deeply used to doing things the way they have always been done. When Conrad began shaping CrewPass, the question was not only whether the problem existed. It was whether the market would recognise that it was a problem worth solving. That required validation. Conrad spoke to recruiters and tested whether a more structured approach to background checks would provide value. The response was positive because the problem was real. Recruiters could see the advantage of being able to say that a candidate had already completed criminal checks, certificate checks, and other screening steps. Employers could see the benefit of receiving a candidate who was not only qualified on paper, but already checked through a system designed for yachting. The business lesson is clear: a product can be clever, but it only works if it solves a problem people are ready to acknowledge. CrewPass did not try to sell a generic background-checking service into a specialised industry. It had to build around the way yachting actually works: international crew, fast-moving hiring, multiple stakeholders, privacy requirements, and a need for information to be securely shareable. That is where the product becomes more than a check. It becomes part of a professional ecosystem. The Cost Of Making Safety Accessible There is also a human side to the business story. Conrad wanted CrewPass to be accessible to crew, particularly because entry into yachting is already expensive. Training, certificates, medicals, travel, accommodation, and the uncertainty of finding a first job can all place pressure on new crew before they have even started earning properly. In trying to make background checks easier to afford, CrewPass introduced a payment plan that allowed crew to pay monthly rather than upfront. The intention was good. The cash-flow reality was brutal. Background checks can carry significant costs depending on jurisdictions, government access fees, suppliers, and the complexity of each person’s background. CrewPass carried the cost of the checks upfront, while crew paid over time. When large numbers of crew signed up, the company could face major supplier bills long before the monthly payments came close to covering them. It was an expensive lesson in the difference between creating value and building a sustainable payment model. That matters because it shows the tension at the heart of many yachting solutions. The industry wants higher standards, but those standards have to be built in a way that works commercially. Safety and professionalism cannot survive on good intentions alone. They need systems that are useful, trusted, and financially viable. AI, Digital Footprints And The Next Layer Of Crew Screening The conversation around CrewPass does not stop at background checks. Conrad is also looking closely at how artificial intelligence is changing the way information can be understood and used. In yachting, much of the visible AI conversation has so far been fairly surface-level: writing emails, generating posts, summarising content, or producing the occasional questionable image for LinkedIn. Conrad’s view is that the deeper shift has not fully hit the industry yet. CrewPass is already exploring AI through digital footprint technology, using publicly available online information to build a fuller picture of a person’s profile. Conrad describes it as a social media check on steroids, capable of pulling together information from LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and other online activity to create a broader view of who someone appears to be online. That is both powerful and sensitive. Used properly, this kind of technology could help employers and recruiters understand risk, consistency, behaviour, and public-facing history more effectively. Used badly, it could become invasive or misunderstood. The challenge for yachting will be the same as in every other industry: learning how to use AI responsibly, transparently, and within clear boundaries. The technology is moving quickly. The standards around it need to keep up. Why AI Could Change More Than Recruitment Conrad’s interest in AI goes beyond screening. Like many founders, he has seen how tools such as Cursor are changing software development itself. For companies like CrewPass, that shift is significant. In the past, building software required design teams, developers, product managers, long timelines, and substantial budgets. Today, AI-supported tools allow technically curious founders and teams to build, test, adjust, and launch ideas much faster than before. That changes the barrier to entry. For crew with ideas, side projects, or solutions to problems they have experienced onboard, this is important. The industry is full of people who understand real operational problems because they have lived them. Historically, many of those people could not afford to turn ideas into software. Now, the gap between identifying a problem and building a first version of a product is becoming much smaller. That does not mean expertise no longer matters. It means access is changing. Yachting has often been slow to modernise because the people closest to the problems did not always have the tools, funding, or technical support to build solutions. AI may not solve that completely, but it does change the starting point. Professional Yachting Needs Professional Systems The bigger issue sitting underneath CrewPass is not simply background checks. It is whether yachting is ready to hold itself to the professional standard it increasingly claims. Owners, guests, crew, recruiters, captains, and managers all benefit from a safer and more transparent hiring process. Good crew benefit when they can prove their professionalism. Good employers benefit when they can make informed decisions. Recruiters benefit when they can present candidates with stronger verification. The industry benefits when trust is supported by structure rather than assumption. Yachting will always rely on human judgement. No platform, certificate, AI tool, or background check can replace experience, leadership, or common sense. But judgement is stronger when it is supported by better information. That is what CrewPass represents. It is part of a wider movement away from informal systems that rely too heavily on chance, and toward a more mature industry where trust is earned, verified, and protected. Because welcoming someone onboard a yacht is not a small decision. It affects the owner. It affects the guests. It affects the captain. It affects the crew sharing cabins, watches, departments, and daily life. It affects the safety culture of the vessel itself. Superyacht crew vetting is not about suspicion. It is about responsibility. And in an industry built on trust, responsibility is exactly where the conversation should begin. Superyacht crew vetting is no longer a background admin task. Conrad Empson, Founder and Managing Director of CrewPass, explains why background checks, crew-held credentials, onboard trust, and AI are becoming part of the wider conversation around safety and professionalism in yachting.

Rachel Browne does not measure luxury in spectacle. As General Manager of Hermitage Bay, she speaks instead about privacy, recognition and the rare comfort of being cared for before a request has to be voiced. In a hospitality landscape increasingly crowded with elaborate proofs of status, that restraint may be the resort’s clearest statement of confidence. Set within 140 acres of tropical gardens on Antigua’s west coast, Hermitage Bay occupies a secluded cove where forested hills descend towards pale sand and clear Caribbean water. The all-inclusive property’s 30 villa suites are distributed between the beach and hillside, creating the sense of a private settlement rather than a conventional resort. For those arriving by yacht, the geography presents an unusually persuasive proposition: anchor in the bay, tender directly ashore and move from life onboard into an intimate island retreat without surrendering the privacy that made the yacht appealing in the first place. The point is not to replace the yacht experience. It is to expand it. Hermitage Bay offers owners, charter guests, captains and crew a way to bring Antigua ashore with very little friction, whether for lunch on the sand, a night in a private pool villa, a celebration away from the vessel or a restorative pause before the next passage. An Arrival Measured in Minutes, Not Formalities The best luxury arrivals feel less like logistics and more like choreography. At Hermitage Bay, guests approaching by sea can be welcomed at the shoreline and guided directly into the property. Those arriving by air can be met airside, fast-tracked through immigration and customs, and transferred to the resort in roughly 35 minutes. A charter guest can therefore land in Antigua, spend a night ashore and join the yacht from the bay the following day, without turning the transition into an endurance test. For a captain or charter broker, this matters. Guest experience is often won or lost in the spaces between the headline moments: the airport queue, the vehicle transfer, the tender coordination, the wait for a room, the question nobody anticipated. Hermitage Bay’s scale allows those transitions to be handled personally, with the resort team able to meet guests at the point where the yacht’s own service ends. The shorthand is irresistible. A yacht can arrive in the bay, lower the tender and have guests eating lobster with their feet in the sand half an hour later. The greater achievement is that the journey can feel unhurried even when it is remarkably efficient. Hermitage Bay and the Luxury of Being Known Following an extensive renovation, the resort reopened with redesigned villa suites, a refreshed Garden Spa, new dining concepts and a stronger connection between the buildings and their surroundings. Beachfront villas sit only steps from the water, while hillside villas disappear into dense greenery and open onto private pools, outdoor showers and broad views across the Caribbean. The setting is undeniably seductive, but Browne is careful not to confuse scenery with hospitality. “For us, luxury is not about excess,” she says. “It is about authenticity, privacy, exceptional service and creating meaningful moments.” That distinction helps explain why Hermitage Bay has moved beyond the language of hidden gem and into the upper tier of international hospitality. The property holds Two MICHELIN Keys for what the guide describes as an exceptional stay. Condé Nast Traveler selected it for the 2026 Gold List and awarded it the publication’s Triple Crown, recognising its appearance across the Hot List, Gold List and Readers’ Choice Awards. Awards can confirm standards, but they cannot manufacture intimacy. With only 30 villa suites, the resort remains small enough for a returning guest to be remembered and for a first-time visitor to feel recognised. This is luxury expressed through continuity rather than ceremony. A Resort That Fits the Yacht Itinerary Hermitage Bay becomes most interesting to the yachting community when it is viewed not as a destination competing with the yacht, but as an extension of the itinerary. Owners and charter guests can come ashore for an afternoon, remain overnight or use the property before and after a charter. Fly-in guests can recover from the journey in a private villa before joining the vessel. Birthdays, anniversaries and family occasions can move from the yacht to the beach without losing their sense of exclusivity. Crew can step away from the operational intensity of the vessel and return genuinely rested rather than simply having spent a few hours off duty. The resort’s intimate size also makes personalisation practical. Dietary requirements can be discussed directly with the culinary team. Wellness sessions can be incorporated into the day. A private dinner, garden visit or fishing excursion can be shaped around the guest rather than selected from an inflexible programme. There is also a subtle psychological advantage. A yacht delivers freedom, but even the most exceptional vessel remains a working environment for the crew and a shared environment for everyone onboard. A villa behind the palms, a table on the sand or an open-air treatment room above the shoreline creates a different kind of privacy. For one night, no one needs to hear the generator, watch the weather window or wonder when the tender is returning. The Island at the Table Food at Hermitage Bay is designed to connect the guest to Antigua rather than insulate them from it. Executive Chef Desroy Spence, an Antiguan native who has spent close to two decades with the property, builds menus around local character, seasonal ingredients and the produce grown in the resort’s organic kitchen garden. Guests can walk through the garden with the culinary team, gather herbs and produce, and return for a cooking demonstration. A day on the water can become dinner when mahi-mahi, snapper or another catch is brought back for the kitchen to prepare. Menus can be adapted around dietary needs without making the guest feel as though they have become a complication. The experience moves easily between settings. Sushi at the Tree Bar accompanies the late afternoon light. The beach club places Caribbean seafood and live island rhythms beside the water. Private dining allows a celebration to remain entirely its own. None of it needs to compete with the yacht’s galley. It offers something different: a meal grounded in the island beneath the guest’s feet. The Culture Behind the Service Browne’s understanding of hospitality begins with the team. Many employees have remained at Hermitage Bay for more than a decade, creating the kind of institutional memory that cannot be installed during a renovation or taught in a service manual. Her leadership is built around compassion. When a member of staff needs attention, the schedule can wait. Browne’s view is straightforward: people who feel recognised and cared for are better able to offer that same care to guests. The resulting service feels personal because it comes from a culture, not a script. This is particularly relevant to yachting, where service is often discussed in terms of precision, discretion and anticipation. Those qualities matter, but they become more powerful when they are supported by genuine human connection. A guest may admire the villa, the plunge pool and the view, yet what remains is often the person who remembered a preference, noticed a difficult day or quietly made something easier. Hermitage Bay’s renovation was guided by the principle of Ubuntu, often expressed as “I am because you are.” It is an unusually appropriate philosophy for a resort whose strongest asset is not a building or amenity, but the relationship between people and place. Antigua, Reconsidered Antigua has never lacked yachting credentials. The island’s harbours, sailing history and winter season have made it a natural gathering point for generations. From 4 to 9 December 2026, the Antigua Charter Yacht Show will celebrate its 65th anniversary at Nelson’s Dockyard, bringing captains, brokers, yachts and industry professionals back to one of the Caribbean’s most established maritime destinations. Hermitage Bay offers a quieter counterpoint to that energy. It is close enough to belong within the itinerary, yet sufficiently removed to feel private. The protected cove, direct beach arrival and small number of villas allow the resort to serve as a discreet shore base before, during or after the intensity of the show and the charter season that follows. Browne describes the property in a single line: guests come for the beauty, but return because of how Hermitage Bay makes them feel. That sentiment is easy to dismiss as hospitality language until one considers what the most discerning yacht guests actually value. Beauty is expected. Privacy is assumed. The rarest luxury is to feel understood without having to explain oneself. For the owner considering another night at anchor, the captain refining an Antigua itinerary or the charter broker searching for a shore experience worthy of the yacht, Hermitage Bay presents a compelling answer to a simple question: what is waiting beyond the tender? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FEATURED RESORT HERMITAGE BAY, ANTIGUA ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Hermitage Bay is a secluded, all-inclusive Caribbean retreat where yacht owners, charter guests and crew can move seamlessly from the water to a private experience ashore. 🌐 hermitagebay.com ✉️ concierge@hermitagebay.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PRESENTED BY CITY HOME ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CITY HOME is the new Fort Lauderdale home of Yachting Unplugged. Through CITY HOME on the Water, the company brings furniture, bedding, décor, appliances and design support to yacht owners, captains and crew. 🌐 cityhome.com Beyond the tender lies one of Antigua’s most private addresses. With only 30 villa suites, Two MICHELIN Keys and direct arrival from the water, Hermitage Bay offers yacht owners and charter guests a deeply personal expression of Caribbean luxury.

In the world of private wealth, the most significant decisions are rarely made in public view. They are shaped quietly, through trusted relationships, careful structuring, long-term thinking and an understanding that the asset itself is only one part of a much larger picture. Yacht ownership belongs firmly in that world. For an ultra-high-net-worth family, a yacht is not simply an acquisition. It is a private environment, a family space, a mobile residence, an expression of lifestyle, and in many cases, a legacy decision. It carries the obvious markers of luxury, but behind the beauty of the vessel sits something far more complex: ownership structures, succession planning, privacy, tax considerations, finance, operational costs, management, crew, advisors, cruising plans, family priorities and the question that should come before everything else. How will this yacht actually be used? Nick Walker, Director at Imperium Group, understands that question from a perspective that is unusually complete. His career brings together private client work, family office services, financial structuring and a genuine life on the water. Before yachts and family offices became part of the same professional world for him, he had already crewed in a Round the World Yacht Race, run an RYA sailing school in Mallorca, completed charter and delivery work, and built the kind of maritime experience that cannot be learned from a spreadsheet. That matters because yachts are not passive assets. They move. They employ. They require judgement. They carry people, expectations, privacy and responsibility. They are deeply personal, often emotional, and always operational. A family office may help structure the ownership, support the administration and coordinate the wider advisory landscape, but the yacht itself will ultimately be judged by something much more human: whether it enhances the life of the family it was meant to serve. The Family Office As A Trusted Structure Around Private Wealth Imperium Group works within the private client and family office world, supporting families across wealth, structuring, succession planning, luxury assets, lifestyle and long-term legacy. This is not a transactional environment. It is built on confidence, discretion and relationships that often extend across generations. For Nick, that trust is central to the work. Families are not simply asking for help with numbers, paperwork or structures. They are placing meaningful assets, personal priorities and long-term family interests into the hands of advisors expected to understand both the technical and the human side of wealth. That distinction is important. In the UHNW world, technical competence is assumed. What separates a trusted advisor from a service provider is the ability to understand context. A yacht may sit inside a legal or financial structure, but the reasons behind ownership are rarely only legal or financial. It may be about family time, privacy, freedom, access, adventure, legacy or a way of stepping outside the demands of a highly visible life. The best advice begins by understanding that. Why A Yacht Is Different From Other Luxury Assets Nick is clear that a superyacht should not be treated as a conventional wealth-management asset. It may sit within a family’s broader asset base, and it can certainly be structured intelligently, but at its core it belongs in the world of lifestyle and passion assets. That does not make it less serious. It makes it more layered. A yacht is not comparable to an artwork on a wall or a classic car in a collection. It is a living operation. It has crew, movement, maintenance, regulations, logistics, charter considerations, seasonal planning, refits, management, flag implications and constant decision-making around how, where and why it will be used. The purchase price is only the opening chapter. The true ownership experience is shaped by annual running costs, crew quality, operational planning, compliance, management, maintenance and the owner’s own clarity of purpose. This is where the wrong advice can become expensive in more ways than one. A yacht bought without the right questions asked at the beginning can quickly become a source of frustration rather than pleasure. At this level, a poor fit does not just waste money. It undermines the very experience the yacht was meant to create. The Questions Serious Owners Should Ask First Before a family begins looking seriously at vessels, Nick returns to two essential questions: how and where. How will the yacht be used? Will it be purely private? Will it charter? Will it serve as a family retreat, a place to host guests, a mobile office, a platform for exploration, or a vessel built around children, privacy, wellness, sport, diving or remote cruising? Where will it be used? The answer changes almost everything. Mediterranean summers, Caribbean seasons, long-range exploration, northern cruising or expedition-style itineraries each point toward different vessels, different structures and different operational requirements. These questions are not cosmetic. They influence the type of yacht, the flag, the ownership structure, the tax position, the management, the crewing, the cruising programme and the long-term reality of ownership. For some prospective owners, the most intelligent first step may not be purchase at all. It may be charter. Chartering allows a family to understand what they genuinely value on board before committing to the scale, responsibility and structure of ownership. It reveals how they like to spend time at sea, what kind of spaces matter, how much range they need, whether privacy outweighs entertaining, and whether the dream they imagined is the one they actually want to live. That is not hesitation. It is sophistication. The Advisory Circle Around Serious Yacht Ownership The strongest ownership journeys are rarely built around one advisor. They are created through alignment between the family, the family office, broker, lawyers, tax advisors, yacht managers, captain, designers and other specialists who understand their part in the process. Nick’s view of the broker’s role is especially important. A great broker is not simply someone who can sell a yacht. A great broker understands the client, the wider context of ownership and the many moving parts that must come together for the decision to be right. Pressure has no place in this environment. If a yacht is being pushed toward a client rather than chosen with genuine conviction, something has already gone wrong. The best outcomes happen when the desire belongs to the client, and the advisory team is there to test, refine, structure and protect that decision. The same principle applies to yacht management. Governance, safety and compliance are essential, but they are not enough on their own. Serious owners need a tailored approach, not a standardised system placed over a highly individual lifestyle. No two families use a yacht in exactly the same way, and no two owners require the same level of involvement, privacy, access or support. True luxury is not noise, pressure or excess. It is precision. It is discretion. It is the feeling that every detail has been considered before it becomes a problem. The Human Reason Behind The Asset What makes Nick’s perspective valuable is that he does not reduce yacht ownership to either glamour or administration. He understands the structure, but he also understands the sea. He understands the asset, but he also understands why people become emotionally attached to it. That combination is rare. For some families, a yacht becomes a place where generations gather away from public life. For others, it becomes a platform for exploration, a place to work privately, a way to entertain with discretion, or a means of creating experiences that could never be replicated on land. In private wealth, time is often the most protected luxury. Time with family. Time in nature. Time without interruption. Time to move through the world on one’s own terms. A yacht, when chosen and managed well, is one of the few assets that can create that kind of time. It is not simply owned. It is lived through. A More Refined Conversation Around Ownership Yacht ownership at the highest level requires a different kind of conversation. It should begin long before the purchase, before the shortlist, before the emotional pull of a particular vessel takes hold. It should begin with purpose, structure, use, location, family priorities and the right people around the table. Nick Walker brings a perspective that speaks directly to that world. His work with private clients and family offices, combined with his maritime background, gives him a clear understanding of what yacht ownership can be when it is approached properly: not just a luxury acquisition, but a carefully considered part of a family’s life, legacy and private world. For ultra-high-net-worth families, the yacht is never only the yacht. It is the structure behind it, the people around it, the purpose beneath it and the experiences it makes possible. That is where the real value lies. Nick Walker, Director at Imperium Group, brings a private client and family office perspective to yacht ownership, exploring how luxury assets, structure, discretion and long-term legacy shape decisions at the highest level.