Inside the secret world of Kiwis working on billionaires’ superyachts

Normally, for a dinner with that many courses, Collé would have been up at 5am to begin preparation. She was the only chef on board the boat.

Instead, she frantically grabbed crew members to help and descended into a panic-laced frenzy of cooking for the next few hours. The seven courses somehow made it to the table, and the kina carbonara was such a success it’s a dish she’s continued making.

Kiwi stewardesses Chelsea Twiss, Ellen Butler and Courtney Te Whiu loved working together inside the luxurious cabins.

It was a typical moment of madness for crew on board a super yacht; saying ‘no’, even politely, isn’t an option.

Coromandel-raised former chief stewardess Ellen Butler remembers being sent ashore with a hat full of cash to try and secure a table at a fully booked restaurant for a billionaire owner.

When Butler began working on super yachts as a 20-year-old stewardess, she found the owners “terrifying”.

After seven years, she’s worked for all sorts of billionaires from American NFL owners to Russian oligarchs, and brushed shoulders with countless celebrities whom she can’t name due to non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).

Life below deck might look luxurious but on most super yachts, 80% of the space is taken up by the guests’ quarters and crew live in just 20% of the whole boat.

Amber Collé is an experienced chef on board superyachts and runs Anchor & Apron, a business that specialises in yacht chef training.

Charter boats are known to experience more wild partying and unruly guests than privately-owned super yachts. The industry is full of stories of rooms left trashed and littered with condoms and drugs.

But, Collé says, that can lead to larger tips for the crew.

The seven-star service of super yachts involves tiny, finicky details that Butler says would seem insane to a normal housekeeper.

The crew has to be aware of guests’ every move on board. After a guest leaves a bathroom, a stewardess will hurry in to fold the end of the toilet paper roll into a neat diamond shape or fully dry the shower down after use.

Butler says she could never understand that last task as the shower “just gets wet again in 10 minutes”.

A guest might request that their champagne be poured exactly 2cm from the top of the flute every time.

She once worked on a super yacht where stewardesses were expected to maintain the illusion that they weren’t working on board by carrying only one coffee at a time, and moving in a relaxed manner.

“You’re like these little invisible fairies that keep everything ticking along,” she says.

New Zealand Superyacht Academy founder Alice Baker at the Ponsonby Cruising Club in Westhaven, Auckland. Photo / Annaleise Shortland.

High demand for Kiwi crew

NZ Superyacht Academy founder Alice Baker says captains are “calling out for more Kiwi crew”. This year, she’s trained 70 people at the academy and all of them have successfully secured jobs on vessels.

Honey Bryant, a 21-year-old Kiwi stewardess, recently returned to NZ from a four-month voyage on a super yacht sailing across the Caribbean Sea to holiday spots such as Florida and The Bahamas.

Leaving her coffee shop job for the high seas, she says, has led to her being exposed to an eye-opening level of wealth.

On one 60m yacht, the polished interiors of the guests’ cabins were decorated with silk Hermès pillowcases and Louis Vuitton blankets. Every room and surface appeared untouched.

Baker has seen some ridiculous antics from wealthy guests in her time.

She once witnessed a Russian billionaire on a super yacht in Greece shun the five-star chef on board, instead sending a helicopter to land to pick up a kebab for his dinner.

Baker says Russian oligarchs who have grown up with staff their whole life often won’t look at or speak to crew members which can be especially jarring for Kiwis who aren’t used to such treatment.

Lure of money and billionaire perks

Kiwis are drawn to super yacht work because of the opportunity to earn good money, have long holidays and the lure of luxury travel.

A starting stewardess’ salary is about $5500 to $6000 per month and that’s not including opportunities for generous tips.

Bryant has heard of crew members each being tipped $35,000 for a three-week voyage on a charter yacht.

Collé was taken for a trip in a private plane by a kind billionaire owner and another time got to bring her whole family on a yacht for a week.

She’s heard of similar perks happening to her friends in the industry, with one stewardess being taken out in a billionaire’s submarine.

A superyacht at anchor in Croatia. Photo /123rf

The super yachts stop at ports all over the world and there’s the chance to see faraway destinations such as Alaska or the Maldives without having to pay for flights or accommodation.

“I would never with my own money have been able to go and see those places, let alone see them from a millionaire’s point of view,” Bryant says.

Collé began in the industry as a stewardess after working on golf resorts in NZ. At 21, she fell in love with the lifestyle during a Mediterranean season, and soon realised her passion lay in dreaming up high-end meals in the kitchen.

Chef work appealed to her because of the higher pay and long holidays in the off-season. This year, Collé will get to spend six months off with her family and friends in the NZ summer.

During a stint working on Michael Hill’s 40m yacht, The Beast, Collé caught fresh fish every day with an all-Kiwi crew and made ceviche with fresh snapper marinated in zesty lime juice.

Butler says not all owners are intimidating and some end up being friends with the crew, making the whole boat a fun environment.

“We worked for a really, really nice American owner and he treated us like family and wanted to spend time with the crew playing beer pong or SingStar,” she says.

There are also the quiet moments on board a yacht late at night when only the crew are awake and get to experience the world away from land.

Collé says life at sea offers plenty of beauty and peaceful moments.

On clear nights, the stars hang low and bright above the deck, and there are streaks of light-blue bioluminescence rippling through the water around the hull as the boat surges forward.

“It’s pitch-black all around you but the stars light up the whole sky. You just feel really small, it’s like being on the top of a big mountain,” Collé says.

“It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Murder in murky international waters

The largely unregulated super yacht industry operates in murky international waters and carries a level of risk.

It can be hard to secure a first job on a super yacht without previous experience and prospective workers often go dock walking – asking captains on docked boats for a spot on board – in popular ports such as Antigua and Monaco.

Superyachts in Port Hercules, Monaco, on the French Riviera. Photo / Getty Images

Bryant says young crewmates are at risk of being taken advantage of if they don’t conduct thorough research into a vessel and its owner.

In July, Bryant’s boat was at a port in the Caribbean when she heard that 20-year-old South African stewardess Paige Bell had been allegedly murdered on a 45m super yacht at a port nearby in The Bahamas.

Bell was found dead in the engine room of the yacht just days away from her 21st birthday. A 39-year-old engineer on board, Brigido Munoz, was charged with her murder.

The murder shocked the super yacht community and resulted in a petition to make criminal checks mandatory for crew.

“You hear a lot of things about sexual assault and sexual harassment on board with crew members or guests… it can be quite scary,” Bryant says.

She says the combination of a super yacht being at sea and thousands of miles from land, not having an HR department and the owners’ staggering wealth and power means things can “get brushed under the rug”.

Young South African stewardess Paige Bell’s death on a superyacht shocked the yachting community. Photo / Facebook

Stewardesses can be asked to swap out photos or hide the pictures of family members when mistresses are coming on board a super yacht, or as Butler puts it, “sending the wives on one tender and the mistresses coming in on another tender”.

“They bring prostitutes on the boat and that kind of stuff… I’ve heard loads of horror stories like that, which I think is terrible to deal with. I would probably walk off a boat if they brought prostitutes on,” Collé says.

“A lot of people just turn a blind eye and say, ‘I’m here to do my job’ which is fair enough, I mean lots of industries in the world can be corrupt… but I think for your own sanity I just like working on a boat where it’s a family-oriented boat.”

Crew relationships, partying and influencer lifestyle

The flashy glamour of super yachts has seen a rise in the number of crewmates working side-hustles as social media influencers by posting Day-In-The-Life-Videos and TikTok’s about their lives on boats.

Every super yacht is different but most crew have a “work hard, play hard” mentality, Collé says. The partying and hungover shifts are part of the lifestyle of super yacht workers but there are also ‘dry boats’ where drinking is not allowed.

Cramped conditions and CCTV surveillance on yachts can cause mayhem for the crew if they return from a drunken escapade and break something on board, Collé says.

As seen on the popular reality TV show Below Deck which follows the lives of super yacht crew, it’s not uncommon for crewmates to hop into and out of relationships.

NZ Superyacht Academy founder Alice Baker cares deeply about protecting young people entering the industry and is planning to train recruits in self-defence techniques. Photo / Annaleise Shortland.

Butler met her fiancé in a shipyard and the couple joined a super yacht crew together, working and travelling the world.

“If you’ve got a solid relationship, people will want you on board and they’ll want to make it work for you. My fiancé now is actually the captain of the boat that first hired us, which is great,” she says.

Collé says the close quarters of cabins make it “way to easy to get caught doing something”. It’s also a place where tensions can flare up after 14-hour shifts but most of the time crew keep a lid on their tempers, unlike on the TV show, because they can’t afford to throw tantrums. They’ve got work to do.

Vanity and excessive waste in a billionaire’s playground

The industry prides itself on impeccable standards and crewmates’ looks also come under scrutiny.

Stewardesses can be expected to wear perfectly pressed uniforms, have their hair neatly styled and wear flawless make-up in up to 40C heat.

It’s a vain industry, Butler says, and there’s an unspoken requirement that workers are “young, fit and attractive”.

Bryant says there are “old-fashioned” attitudes with stewardesses having to attach a photo to their CVs. She’s also heard of “creepy captains” requesting young females present photos of themselves in bikinis when applying for jobs.

Butler says she worries about young students joining boats without having done prior checks, and she tries to warn new recruits to join well-established programmes.

“Sometimes, you know, you’re doing an Atlantic crossing for two weeks and you can’t get off the boat. So, you need to make sure that you’re comfortable with your environment,” she says.

Owners can also yell and swear at the crew and feel entitled to treat them how they like, Bryant says, but it’s not something she’s personally experienced.

The fuel consumption, marine pollution and food waste from the decadent habits of guests on board can be unnerving to witness for crew.

Butler says she’s seen owners fly private jets back to countries to pick up single items they’ve forgotten.

Even if the crew try to properly sort out rubbish or reduce food waste, they can arrive at a European port only to find it doesn’t have adequate recycling facilities.

Baker is passionate about making sure crewmates are properly looked after and don’t end up in dangerous situations.

She says super yacht staff can be targeted by criminal groups because of the assumption they are carrying lots of cash from tips.

At the Ponsonby Cruising Club on Auckland’s Westhaven Drive, Baker is now planning to teach self-defence classes as part of the seven-day course she offers to new recruits at the NZ Superyacht Academy.

She’s also teaching recruits about the importance of budgeting and saving as despite the good pay, it can be easy for crew to blow all the money on European holidays abroad or the designer labels they’ve been surrounded by on yachts.

‘It’s not like Instagram’

Bryant’s family own a dive business in Niue and were previously yachties which meant she was well-prepared for the workload on super yachts, but she thinks people need to know it’s not like what it looks like on Instagram.

She says the job involves being on your feet all day and unglamorous jobs such as cleaning toilets and folding underwear. But there’s also the opportunity to visit exotic locations around the world.

It can be lonely too. Bryant did find herself getting homesick in her first season away but says the intensity of the work helped because she had so little time to think about her family and friends back home.

A few years on from leaving the industry, Butler has successfully set up Coromandel Weddings – a bridal business – alongside her best friend who worked with her on super yachts.

“We always say if we can deal with a billionaire we can deal with a bride,” she jokes.

She believes the success of their business is a credit to some of the lessons in hard work and organisation they learned on super yachts, and she would encourage any young person to take a leap into the industry.

After completing her culinary training in the South of France to become a yacht chef, Collé’s business Anchor & Apron is aiming to help more staff and new recruits transition into chef work on boats.

Often people assume that becoming a chef on a yacht requires a rigorous qualification but that isn’t the case, she says.

“A lot of the time they just want delicious, home-cooked meals, and instead of really elaborate meals, it’s actually about making simple, delicious fresh things. I think that’s often because guests are very health-conscious,” she says.

Next year, Bryant is returning to work a Mediterranean season and says she will continue the yachting lifestyle for the foreseeable future.

However, she’s grateful to be back on dry land for the NZ summer.

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