If you want to get a job on a yacht and you have never stepped foot in an engine room or polished a single stanchion, this is the guide I wish someone had handed me on the dock. A strong yacht crew CV and a smart dayworking plan are the two things that turn a hopeful green hand into paid crew, and both are completely learnable. You do not need a rich uncle or a maritime degree. You need one clean page of paper, the right certificates, a pair of comfortable shoes, and the nerve to walk the docks and knock. This piece walks you through how to write a yacht CV that captains actually read, how dayworking and dock walking really work in 2026, what rates to expect, and how to build an online profile that gets you found before you even show up.
I have been crew, I have run interiors, and I have sat with captains while they flicked through a stack of forty CVs in under ten minutes. What follows is the honest version, not the polished brochure version. Read it top to bottom, do the work, and you can be earning inside a season.
Create your free crew profile and let hiring captains find you while you are out walking the docks.
Create your free crew profileBefore you ever step aboard, your CV is doing the work for you. It sits in a WhatsApp group, in a crew agent inbox, or pinned to a noticeboard in a crew house, and it either opens a door or gets skipped. Captains and chief stews are busy people during season. When a boat needs a body for a charter turnaround, nobody has time to read three pages of your gap year in Thailand. They scan. They decide in seconds. So the whole game is making those seconds count.
Here is the core truth about how to write a yacht CV that most guides bury: the yacht CV is not a normal resume. It is a one-page, photo-forward marketing document built for fast scanning by people who hire quickly and fire quickly. Everything below serves that single goal. If your CV is longer than one page, if the photo is bad, or if the certificates are hidden at the bottom, you are already behind the person standing next to you on the dock.
One page. Not one and a half. Not two if you have lots to say. One. This is the single most broken rule in green crew CVs, and breaking it marks you instantly as someone who has never worked in the industry. Space is tight on a boat and it is tight on your CV. If you cannot fit yourself onto one page, you are telling a captain you cannot prioritize, and prioritizing is most of the job.
The one-page format has become a recognizable standard, and captains expect it. When yours looks like the others in structure but sharper in content, you read as someone who did their homework. Use a clean, readable font. Keep margins sensible. White space is your friend because it makes the page scannable. Do not cram nine-point text edge to edge to fit more in. If it does not fit, it is not important enough to include.
A yacht CV carries a photo. This surprises people coming from office backgrounds where photos are frowned on, but in yachting it is standard and expected. The reason is simple and a little uncomfortable: crew live on top of each other in tight quarters, guests see you constantly, and appearance is part of the service product. Captains and chief stews want to see that you present well before they invest an interview in you.
Get the photo right. Head and shoulders, plain background, natural light, a genuine and friendly expression. Men, clean shaven or neatly groomed. Women, natural and tidy, minimal jewelry. Collared shirt or a plain crew-style polo in a solid color, ideally white or light blue. No sunglasses on the head, no beach selfies, no group crops where you have clearly cut out your ex. No party photos. A phone shot against a white wall in good light beats a moody professional portrait every time, because it looks like you and it looks like the version of you that will show up to work.
When a captain picks up your CV, their eyes go to a few places in a predictable order. Your photo. Your name and the position you are applying for. Your certificates, especially STCW and ENG1. Your availability and location. Then, if you have made it past that filter, your experience and the little details that show who you are. Build your page in roughly that order and you are feeding them what they want in the sequence they want it.
At the top, put your name, the role you are seeking (for example "Deckhand / Green Crew" or "Junior Stewardess"), your nationality, your current location, your visa or passport status, and your availability. That last one matters more than you think. "Available immediately" on a CV during season is a magnet. If you are already on the dock in Antibes with your kit ready, say so loud and clear near the top.
Use the table below as your build sheet. Work through it top to bottom, fill every relevant row, and cut anything that does not serve the one-page goal. This is the skeleton of a yacht CV that reads professional even when your experience is thin.
| Section | What goes in it | Green-crew tip |
|---|---|---|
| Photo | Head and shoulders, plain background, friendly, well groomed | Solid collared shirt, natural light, looks like the real you |
| Header | Name, target role, nationality, location, visa status, availability | Put "available immediately" if it is true |
| Profile line | One or two sentences on who you are and what you offer | Lead with attitude and reliability, not just skills |
| Certificates | STCW Basic Safety Training, ENG1 medical, plus any extras | Include issue dates and expiry so they are current |
| Sea miles | Passages, watches kept, crossings, mileage totals | Even delivery trips and sail training count, log everything |
| Experience | Yacht roles, then relevant shore roles (hospitality, trades) | Frame past jobs around service, teamwork, physical work |
| Skills | Practical abilities: RIB handling, watchkeeping, wine service, carpentry | Be honest, captains test claims fast |
| Interests | Two or three genuine lines that make you a person | Watersports, cooking, fitness read well for boat life |
| References | Names, roles, contact details, permission granted | Ask first, warn them a call may come at any hour |
Store your certificates, sea miles, and references in one free crew profile and send a clean link to any captain who asks.
Create your free crew profileTwo documents open the door to most entry-level yacht work, and you need both before you seriously walk the docks. Without them, a lot of captains cannot legally or practically take you on, no matter how keen you are.
STCW Basic Safety Training is the baseline. It is a short course, usually run over about five days at a maritime training center, and it covers personal survival techniques, fire prevention and firefighting, elementary first aid, personal safety, and social responsibility. Some centers add proficiency in security awareness. You come out able to jump into a survival suit, put out a small fire, and not panic in an emergency. Almost every commercial yacht requires it. Budget for the course and the travel to a training town, and get it done early. Our STCW certification guide for yacht crew breaks down each module, the costs, and where to take it, so read that before you book.
ENG1 is your seafarer medical fitness certificate. An approved doctor checks your eyesight, hearing, general health, and confirms you are fit to work at sea. It is a straightforward exam for most young, healthy people, but it does screen for a few conditions that can disqualify you, so do not leave it to the last minute. The certificate is typically valid for two years. List its expiry on your CV so a captain can see at a glance that you are ready to sail.
Beyond those two, extra tickets sharpen your CV depending on department. A Powerboat Level 2 certificate helps deckhands because tender driving is a daily task. Food hygiene and barista training help interior crew. A basic first aid or medical care top-up helps everyone. Do not go bankrupt collecting certificates before you have earned a wage, but one or two well-chosen extras can be the tiebreaker between you and the next green hand.
Sea miles are proof you have actually been on the water and did not fall apart. Captains like to see them because green crew who have kept a night watch on a rough crossing are a known quantity, while someone who has never left the dock is a gamble. You build miles through sail training courses, yacht deliveries, crossings, and any passage where you were part of the working crew rather than a passenger.
Keep a simple record from day one: date, vessel, route, distance, and your role. A delivery from Palma to Gibraltar, a Biscay crossing, a week of RYA sail training, all of it counts and all of it belongs on your CV as a short mileage summary. If you have zero miles right now, that is fine, plenty of green crew start there, but grabbing a delivery trip or a mile-building course before season gives you something concrete to point at.
I have seen the same errors sink good candidates over and over. Avoid these and you are ahead of most of the dock.
Going over one page. Already covered, but it is the number one killer, so it earns a second mention. Cut ruthlessly.
A bad or missing photo. No photo reads as either inexperienced or hiding something. A party photo reads as a liability. A blurry dark selfie reads as careless. Fix the photo.
Typos and sloppy formatting. Attention to detail is the whole interior department and half of deck. A CV with spelling mistakes tells the chief stew you will leave fingerprints on the glassware. Proofread it, then have someone else proofread it.
Burying the certificates. If STCW and ENG1 are hidden in a wall of text at the bottom, a scanning captain misses them and assumes you do not have them. Put them where the eye lands.
Waffle and buzzwords. "Hardworking team player with a passion for excellence" says nothing. Replace it with concrete detail: "Two seasons in high-volume hospitality, comfortable on my feet for fourteen-hour service days, RYA Powerboat Level 2." Specifics beat adjectives.
Lying. The yachting world is tiny and gossip travels fast. If you claim silver service experience you do not have, you will be exposed on day one and blacklisted through the crew network. Stretch the truth on a small boat and the whole dock hears about it. Be honest about being green, and sell your attitude instead.
Wrong file format. Send a PDF, always, named clearly like "Jane-Smith-Stewardess-CV.pdf". A Word file that reformats itself on someone else's screen looks broken. A photo of a printout looks desperate. PDF, clean filename, done.
When you send your CV, whether by email, WhatsApp, or through a crew platform, it needs a short cover message. Not a formal cover letter with three paragraphs of your life story. A cover letter that long on a WhatsApp message will not get read. Keep it to a few tight lines.
A good cover message names the person if you can, states the role you want, confirms you are on the ground and available, and points at your two headline strengths. Something like: "Hi Captain, I am a green deckhand based in Antibes, available immediately, STCW and ENG1 in hand, RYA Powerboat Level 2, two seasons of physical outdoor work. CV attached. Happy to daywork any time this week. Thanks, Sam." That message respects their time, hits every filter, and offers to prove yourself for free. It gets replies.
Match your tone to the channel. Email can be a touch more formal, WhatsApp stays short and direct. Always attach the PDF even in a chat, because a captain may forward it to the chief stew or the first officer, and you want the clean document traveling with your name on it.
Post your availability on YSN and let captains message you when they need crew this week. It is free for crew, always.
Create your free crew profileHere is the secret that the glossy articles skate over: most green crew do not land a permanent job by sending CVs into the void. They land it by dayworking. Dayworking means you turn up, work a single day or a few days on a yacht for cash or an agreed rate, and prove yourself with your hands instead of your paperwork. It is a paid audition, and it is the single most reliable route from green to crewed.
Why does dayworking work so well? Because it removes all the risk from the captain. Hiring permanent crew is a commitment, and green crew are unproven. But taking you on for a day to help with a wash down, a provisioning run, or a deep clean before charter costs them almost nothing and shows them exactly how you work. If you are early, tidy, hardworking, and easy to be around, that day turns into a week, and that week turns into "we have a spot opening up, do you want it?" That is how the majority of first jobs happen.
Dayworking is busiest in the run-up to and during season. Boats prepping for charter, boats that just finished a charter and need a heavy turnaround, boats short a body because someone quit or got sick, all of them reach for daywork help. Your job is to be standing on the dock, available and visible, when that need hits.
Rates vary by port, boat size, and the work, but there are rough norms. Entry-level daywork in the main Mediterranean hubs typically runs somewhere around 100 to 150 euros per day for green crew, often cash, sometimes with lunch included. In the Caribbean and the United States yards, expect a broadly similar band in dollars, commonly around 120 to 180 dollars per day depending on the port and the season. Skilled daywork, if you have a specific trade like varnishing or detailing, pays more. Do not haggle hard as a green hand. The point of daywork is the door it opens, not the day rate itself. Show up, do the work, and the money follows through the permanent job.
Dock walking is exactly what it sounds like. You walk the marina, boat by boat, CV in hand, and ask crew whether they need daywork help. It feels awkward the first few times and then it becomes routine. This is how to get a job on a yacht when you have no contacts: you make contacts, one passerelle at a time. Dock walking and dayworking are the two halves of the same strategy, and together they beat almost every other method for green crew.
There are unwritten rules on the dock, and breaking them gets you a bad reputation fast. Follow these and crew will actually help you.
Never step aboard uninvited. The passerelle is the boundary. You stand on the dock and you call out politely, or you wait for someone on deck to notice you. Stepping onto a boat without permission is a serious breach and will get you turned away instantly.
Dress like crew. Plain polo, shorts or plain trousers, boat shoes or clean deck shoes, no flip flops. You are asking to work, so look ready to work. No sunglasses on when you speak to someone, no earphones in.
Go early, not at guest time. Early morning is prime dock-walking time, when crew are doing wash downs and prepping. Never disturb a boat with guests aboard. If you see guests on deck or a chef running provisions in a hurry, move on and come back later.
Be brief and cheerful. "Morning, any daywork going this week? Here is my CV, I am local and available immediately." Hand it over, thank them, move on. Do not linger, do not launch into your life story, do not argue if they say no.
Take a no gracefully and remember faces. A no today is a maybe next week. The deckhand who brushed you off might be the one who calls when they are suddenly short a body. Every interaction is a small deposit in the network. Be the person people are happy to see again.
Keep printed CVs and a digital link ready. Carry a small stack of printed one-pagers in a folder so they stay crisp, and have your online profile link ready to text on the spot. Some crew prefer paper, others will just say "send it to me," and you want to satisfy both in ten seconds.
Location is everything in yachting. You cannot dock walk from your bedroom back home. You have to be physically present in a hub during the right window. The table below lays out the main dayworking and dock-walking spots, when they are hot, and what to know.
| Location | Region | Peak dayworking window | Notes for green crew |
|---|---|---|---|
| Antibes | South of France | March to June, then all summer | The classic green-crew starting point, big crew scene, many crew houses |
| Palma de Mallorca | Spain, Balearics | March to June | Huge refit and charter fleet, strong daywork market in spring |
| La Ciotat | South of France | Year round, refit heavy | Big refit yard, good for trade and detailing daywork |
| Fort Lauderdale | Florida, USA | October to April | The American hub, needs a valid visa, busy in winter |
| Fort Lauderdale to Caribbean | Caribbean season | November to April | Boats stage in Florida then cross, catch them in the yards |
| Genoa and Viareggio | Italy | Spring refit season | Build and refit yards, quieter crew scene, less competition |
| Golfe-Juan and Cannes | South of France | Summer | Close to Antibes, walkable extra marinas on a slow day |
Yachting runs on two big seasons, and timing your arrival is half the battle. Show up at the right moment and boats are hiring in a hurry. Show up two months late and every spot is filled.
The Mediterranean season runs roughly May through September, with guests aboard through the warm months. But the hiring happens before that. The smart green crew arrive in Antibes or Palma in March or April, when boats are coming out of winter, prepping for charter, and taking on crew. That spring window, roughly March to June, is when dayworking is hottest and permanent spots open. If you wait until July, the fleet is crewed and cruising, and you are too late for that season.
The Caribbean season runs roughly November through April, centered on the islands with Fort Lauderdale as the main staging and yard hub in Florida. Boats crew up in the autumn, so October and November are the window to be on the ground in Florida. A big note for non-American crew: you need the right visa to work or even to dock walk in the United States, so sort that out well ahead. Some crew chase both seasons, Med in summer and Caribbean in winter, which keeps them working year round once they are established.
The practical takeaway is simple. Arrive early in the season hub, before the rush, with your certificates done and your CV ready, and give yourself several weeks of runway to dock walk and daywork before boats finish crewing up. Turning up broke with two days of budget left is a recipe for panic and bad decisions.
Set your location to your season hub and captains nearby can find you the moment they need a hand. Free for crew.
Create your free crew profileWhen you arrive in a hub like Antibes or Palma, you stay in a crew house. These are shared houses full of other crew, some working, some looking, all plugged into the same network. A crew house is not just cheap accommodation, it is an information exchange. The person in the next bunk got a daywork gig this morning and heard the boat needs a second person tomorrow. The house WhatsApp group pings with "anyone free for a turnaround Saturday?" You hear about work before it ever reaches an agency.
Crew house managers often know captains and pass names along. Living in one signals you are serious and on the ground. It also keeps your morale up during the slow days, because dock walking alone in a strange town is hard, and doing it alongside people in the same boat, sometimes literally, makes it bearable. Budget for a few weeks in a crew house as part of your startup cost. It pays for itself in leads.
You have two broad channels for finding yacht work, and the smart move is to use both rather than betting on one.
Crew agencies are recruiters who match crew to yachts. You register, they hold your CV, and they put you forward when a matching role comes in. Agencies are more useful once you have a season or two behind you, because captains often ask agencies for experienced, proven crew. As a total beginner, you will register with several agencies, and you should, but do not sit at home waiting for them to call. The good ones will keep you on file, and one may come through, but agencies rarely place raw green crew into their first job. Register, stay polite and in touch, and keep working the other channels.
Finding work direct means dock walking, dayworking, crew house networking, and online crew platforms where captains post and search themselves. This is where green crew actually break in. Direct contact lets a captain see your attitude, which is the thing they hire green crew on. An agency filters you out on paper for lacking experience, but a captain who watched you scrub a deck all day hires you on the spot.
The winning approach combines them. Register with agencies for the roles they suit, and pour your daily energy into direct contact and dayworking for your first break. Once you have real yacht time on your CV, the agencies start returning your calls, and the whole thing gets easier.
Yachts are divided into departments, and green crew enter through the bottom rung of one of them. Pick the department that fits you, and tailor your CV and your daywork pitch to it. Here is the honest breakdown.
The deck department runs the outside of the boat: cleaning and maintaining the exterior, driving tenders, handling lines, watersports toys, and helping the officers on watch. Entry role is deckhand. This route suits people who like physical outdoor work, do not mind heat and repetition, and want a path toward driving and eventually a mate or captain ticket down the line. Helpful extras: RYA Powerboat Level 2, watersports instructor tickets, any carpentry or painting skill. On a daywork basis, deck is the easiest department to get a foot in, because wash downs and turnarounds always need hands.
The interior department runs the inside: guest service, housekeeping, laundry, table setting, bar and wine service, and keeping the interior spotless. Entry role is junior stewardess or steward, sometimes just "stew." This suits people with a hospitality background, an eye for detail, and genuine warmth with guests. Silver service, barista skills, floristry, and cocktail knowledge all help, but a strong hospitality CV and a great attitude get you started. Interior daywork spikes around charter turnarounds, when boats need deep cleaning and detailing before guests arrive.
The galley is the kitchen, run by the chef, sometimes with a cook or a crew chef on smaller boats. This is a specialist route. You do not usually walk into a chef role green, but if you have real culinary training or professional kitchen experience, a crew chef or cook position on a smaller yacht is a genuine entry point. Green crew without cooking background occasionally start as a galley hand or provisioning helper, but most beginners come in through deck or interior instead. If food is your thing, lean into any professional kitchen time on your CV hard.
The engineering department keeps the machinery running: engines, generators, watermakers, air conditioning, electrical, and plumbing. Entry can be as a junior deck-engineer combo on smaller boats, and it favors people with a mechanical, electrical, or trade background. This route rewards formal engineering tickets, which are a longer study path, but if you already have trade skills from shore, they transfer well and set you apart. Even on deck, being the person who can fix a jet ski or troubleshoot a pump makes you far more hireable.
Whichever department you choose, aim your whole pitch at it. A deck CV highlights physical work and boat handling. An interior CV highlights service and detail. Do not send a generic CV that tries to be all things, because it reads as someone who does not know what they want.
Tag your target role on YSN so captains hiring deck, interior, galley, or engineering crew find the right person. Free crew profile.
Create your free crew profileYachting runs on who you know, and the good news is that you can build a network from zero in a single season if you show up right. Every deckhand you daywork alongside, every stew in your crew house, every captain who watched you work, all of them are nodes in a web that eventually delivers your next job. Crew move between boats constantly, and when they land somewhere new that needs a body, they think of the reliable, easy person they worked with last month. That person should be you.
Networking as green crew is not schmoozing. It is being genuinely good to work with. Turn up early. Do the grim jobs without complaint. Learn names. Say thank you. Stay in touch without being needy. Join the crew WhatsApp groups for your hub and actually read them. Be the person others recommend, because a recommendation from working crew carries more weight than any CV. Reputation compounds. Guard it from day one, because the industry is small and it remembers.
Dock walking is the ground game, but in 2026 the smart green crew work both the physical and the digital sides. A strong online crew profile means captains and chief stews can find you when they search, message you directly, and check you out before an interview. Think of it as your CV working around the clock while you sleep, walk the docks, or cross an ocean with no signal.
A good profile mirrors your CV but does more. It holds your photo, your target role and department, your location and availability, your certificates with dates, your sea miles, and your references, all searchable and always current. When a captain filters for a "green deckhand, STCW, available now, Antibes," you want to be in that result. Keep it updated obsessively. Change your location the day you arrive in a new hub. Flip your status to available the moment you are free. Add every new certificate and every logged sea mile. A stale profile is worse than none, because it tells a captain you are not really in the game.
Pair the profile with a tidy, professional social presence. Captains do look. Lock down or clean up the party photos, and keep anything public looking like the reliable crew member you are selling. The goal is that whatever a hiring captain finds, online or on the dock, tells the same consistent story: presentable, keen, ready, easy to work with.
For the deeper playbook on getting hired once your profile is live, read yacht crew jobs: how to get hired, and if you are starting from absolute zero with no sea time at all, our guide on how to get a yacht job with no experience covers the mindset and the first moves in detail.
Need a body for a turnaround or a full-season hire? Search qualified, available crew by role, location, and certificate, free.
Find qualified crew freeLet me tie the whole thing into a plan you can actually follow. First, get your certificates sorted: STCW Basic Safety Training and ENG1, done and in hand, before you travel. Second, write your one-page, photo-forward yacht CV using the checklist above, and get it proofread until it is perfect. Third, build your online crew profile so captains can find you while you work the docks. Fourth, time your arrival to the season, spring for the Med, autumn for the Caribbean, and land in a hub like Antibes, Palma, or Fort Lauderdale several weeks before the rush. Fifth, move into a crew house and plug into the network. Sixth, register with a few agencies but do not wait on them. Seventh, dock walk every morning and take every daywork job you can, treating each one as the paid audition it is. Do that, keep your attitude bright and your work sharp, and the permanent job comes. It always does for the crew who put in the work.
None of this is glamorous at the start. You will scrub, polish, carry, and sweat for day rates while the sun cooks the dock. But the people who push through those first weeks are the ones cruising the Med by midsummer with a real yacht job and a growing network. Your CV opens the first door. Your hands keep it open. Go and get it.
Create your free crew profile, upload your CV and certificates, and be found by hiring captains this season.
Create your free crew profilePrefer to manage it on the go? Get the YSN app and update your availability from the dock.
One page, always. This is the firm standard in yachting, and going over it marks you as inexperienced. Captains scan CVs in seconds during season, so cut everything that does not directly help you get hired. One clean, well-organized page with a good photo beats two dense pages every time.
Yes. Unlike office resumes, a yacht CV carries a head-and-shoulders photo, and captains expect it. Crew live in tight quarters and are visible to guests, so presentation is part of the job. Use a friendly, well-groomed photo with a plain background and a solid collared shirt. No party shots, no sunglasses, no group crops.
Two are essential for most entry-level roles: STCW Basic Safety Training and the ENG1 seafarer medical. STCW is a short safety course covering survival, firefighting, and first aid. ENG1 confirms you are medically fit for sea work. Get both before you dock walk. Extras like RYA Powerboat Level 2 help deck crew, and food hygiene helps interior crew.
Dayworking is when you work a single day or a few days on a yacht for an agreed rate, usually helping with cleaning, turnarounds, or provisioning. It matters because it is a paid audition. Most green crew get their first permanent job by impressing a captain during daywork, not by sending CVs. It removes the captain's risk and lets your attitude do the selling.
Green-crew daywork in the main Mediterranean hubs runs roughly 100 to 150 euros per day, often cash and sometimes with lunch. In the Caribbean and United States yards, expect a similar band, commonly around 120 to 180 dollars per day depending on port and season. Skilled trade daywork pays more. As a beginner, focus on the door it opens rather than the day rate.
Time your arrival to the season. For the Mediterranean, arrive in March to June, before the summer rush, in a hub like Antibes or Palma. For the Caribbean, be on the ground in Florida around October and November, and sort your United States visa first if you are not American. Boats crew up before the season starts, so early birds get the jobs.
Use both, but lean on direct contact for your first job. Agencies suit crew with a season or two of experience, since captains often ask them for proven hands. As a total beginner, register with several agencies but pour your daily energy into dock walking, dayworking, crew house networking, and an online profile. Once you have real yacht time, agencies become far more useful.
Pick the one that fits you. Deck suits people who like physical outdoor work and want a path toward driving and command. Interior suits those with a hospitality background and an eye for detail. Galley is a specialist route best suited to trained cooks. Engineering rewards mechanical and trade backgrounds. Deck and interior are the most common entry points for green crew, and deck is often the easiest for daywork.