Why yachting CVs are their own thing
Captains and chief stews look at hundreds of CVs every season. They scan them fast — sometimes in less than thirty seconds — and they are looking for very specific things in very specific places. A standard corporate CV with paragraphs of prose, no photo, and no clear vessel table will simply lose to the well-formatted yachting CV next to it.
The industry has converged on a format that works: a single page, photo top-right, profile summary, vessel table, certificates list, references. Stick to this format. Originality in the format works against you — originality belongs in your cover letter and how you interview, not in your CV layout.
The photo
Your photo is the first thing anyone sees. It should be a clean head-and-shoulders shot, current within the last year, taken against a plain background (white wall, blue sky, or boat side). You should be in uniform if you have one — white polo or black polo with a logo, hair tied back, no sunglasses, smiling but professional.
No selfies. No party photos cropped. No filters. No photos with another crew member half-cropped out. If your only available photo is bad, it is worth paying for a proper photo session in a crew hub — there are photographers in Antibes, Palma, and Fort Lauderdale who do crew headshots specifically.
Header and contact details
Your name in a clean larger font at the top, with role and key visa status underneath ("Stewardess — South African passport, B1/B2 valid, ENG1 valid"). Then a simple contact block: phone (with country code), WhatsApp number if different, email, current location, and nationality.
Do not include your home address. Captains do not need it, and you do not want a CV with your home address floating around the industry forever. Date of birth is conventional in yachting CVs but optional in some jurisdictions — include it if you are comfortable.
Profile summary
Three to five lines of clean prose that tells the captain who you are, what you are looking for, and what you bring. Avoid generic phrases ("hard-working team player who loves the sea"). Be specific: years of experience, departments worked, vessel sizes, owner or charter, the cruising grounds you know, and the role you want next.
Example structure: "Senior stewardess with 4 seasons on charter motor yachts 40–60m, experienced in silver service and wine pairing (WSET 2), looking for chief stew or sole stew role on a 35–50m private or low-charter program, Med-based, available from April 2026."
Vessel experience table
The heart of the yachting CV. A clean table of every boat you have worked on, in reverse chronological order, with these columns: vessel name, length, build year, flag, role, dates, captain (with permission), and a one-line description of the program.
For each boat, the program description is what tells the next captain whether your experience is relevant. "M/Y EXAMPLE, 52m, Feadship, Cayman flag — Charter (12 weeks/season Med + Caribbean), 8 interior, sole laundry stew" tells the captain everything in one line. Do not pad with bullet points under each boat. Save the detail for the interview.
Daywork — how to show it
If you have done daywork at the start of your career, group it. Do not list every boat you waxed for a day. Instead, a single block: "Daywork — Antibes & Palma — February to April 2024 — Interior detail, exterior wash, silver polish on yachts 30–80m." Include three or four named boats you worked on as referees if you can.
The captain wants to see you have spent time on real boats and know what good looks like. Listing 27 separate single-day jobs makes the CV look fragmented; one well-summarised block looks professional.
Certificates and licenses
List your certificates with issue date and expiry date. STCW Basic Safety Training, ENG1 medical (or equivalent), and then everything role-specific. For interior: WSET levels, silver service course, barista course, floristry, beauty therapy. For deck: tender ticket, PWC, dive certs, ICC, OOW or higher tickets. For engine: AEC, MEOL, Y4 through unlimited. For galley: chef qualifications, allergen training, ServSafe.
Keep this section clean and dated. A captain glancing at expiry dates can tell at a glance whether you are current. If something has expired, remove it or note "refresh booked for [date]."
References — how to do them right
Three references is the standard. Always ask the person before you list them, and always check they still answer the phone number you have. A reference who does not pick up is worse than no reference at all.
For each reference: name, role at the time, vessel name, dates you worked together, and current phone and email. Captains are typically referenced by other captains; interior crew often have a chief stew and a captain; deck and engine reference each other and captains. If you have not had three formal positions yet, a head of department from a temp role and a captain from a daywork stint are valid.
What to leave off the CV
A yachting CV is short for a reason. Leave off:
- Long lists of hobbies (one or two relevant ones is enough — diving, sailing, languages).
- Childhood schooling — high school name and grad year is plenty; university only if relevant.
- Old jobs unrelated to yachting (one line if needed, no detail).
- Generic skills lists ("Microsoft Office, communication, teamwork").
- Salary expectations or rotation preferences (those belong in the cover letter or conversation).
- Reasons for leaving previous boats (those come up in interview).
The cover note that goes with it
Almost every CV submission is accompanied by a short email or message. Three short paragraphs is enough: what you are applying for or what you are looking for, why your background matches, and your availability. Sign off with your phone and WhatsApp.
Do not paste your whole CV into the email body. Attach the PDF, name the file properly ("Surname_Firstname_Stewardess_CV.pdf" — not "CV2.pdf" or "Final_FINAL_v3.pdf"), and keep the message tight. Captains read these on phones between other tasks.
How often to update it
Update your CV every time something changes — new boat, new role, new certificate, new reference. Save dated versions ("CV_2026_03.pdf") so you can always go back. Even when you are happily on a boat, send the latest version to your agencies once a season so your file is current if a great role opens up.
A CV that gets refreshed regularly looks like an active, organised candidate. A CV last updated three years ago tells the captain you are either not really looking or you have not been organised enough to refresh it.
Tailoring to the role (lightly)
You do not need a wildly different CV for every application, but small tailoring helps. If you are applying for a chief stew role, your profile summary should mention chief stew experience or readiness front and centre. If the boat is heavy-charter, mention your charter experience in the summary. If it is a sailing yacht, lead with your sailing background.
Do not lie or stretch — captains call references and they catch this fast. But emphasising the relevant parts of your real experience for each application is professional, not deceptive.
A few visual rules
Final formatting checklist:
- One page, ideally. Two pages maximum for senior officers and captains with long histories.
- Clean modern font (Calibri, Helvetica, Open Sans). No script fonts.
- Plenty of white space — no walls of text.
- Save as PDF, never as Word.
- Filename clean and named with your surname first.
- Test it opens on a phone before sending — many captains will open it on iPhone first.