About Chef Jobs on a Yacht
There are a number of jobs required on yachts, ranging from captain and first mate, to engineer, stewardess and chef. With the cost of chartering a mega-yacht ranging from $30,000 to more than $100,000 a week, the quality of the food onboard is of extreme importance and so the hiring of the right chef is paramount.
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Background
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Chefs on yachts normally have experience working as chefs in top-class restaurants and have the qualifications to go with it. Work onboard a yacht differs from work in a restaurant with the chef having the creative freedom to produce her own menus on a day-to-day basis. The chef may also find that she is the only one working in the kitchen, or galley, and that she is solely responsible for it and its cleanliness. Yacht chefs will provide the meals for all the guests and crew--three meals a day, seven days a week--and are in charge of provisioning.
Considerations
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To work as a chef on a yacht, you'll need to earn your STCW 95 (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping). This is a sea survival course that includes basic fire fighting and sea survival knowledge that is a legal requirement for all people employed on seafaring vessels. Courses can be taken at sailing schools across the world and will set you back around $800 to $1,400, depending on the location of the course.
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Finding Work
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The best way to get a job as a chef on a yacht is to join a crew agency. You'll find these in most of the world's major yachting centers such as Antibes in the South of France, Palma on the island of Mallorca and Fort Lauderdale in Florida. Your resume should be up to date and you should have a portfolio including sample menus, a range of different dishes and images of some of your creations for prospective employers to see. Another way to find work is to do the "dock walk" and simply hand out your resume to boats docked in the marinas.
Positions
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Chef positions on board yachts vary greatly from a cook on a small sailing vessel who will also be required to do some deck duties and stewarding, to world-class chefs preparing food for celebrities and multi-millionaires on some of the world's biggest yachts. The salary of a top chef on a mega-yacht is often second only to that of the captain. Salaries for chefs in the industry vary from $2,000 a month on the smaller yachts to $10,000 a month on the larger vessels.
Seasons
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Unlike other positions, such as deckhand or captain, the role of chef on board a yacht is only needed when there are guests, meaning that the work is seasonal. In the Mediterranean, you'll find work from May until September, and in the Caribbean, you'll find work between November and February. For year-round employment, chefs must travel between the two.
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References
- Photo Credit yachts in a marina image by Xavier MARCHANT from Fotolia.com
