How yacht crew placement works

Crew placement is the business of putting qualified seafarers in front of a yacht that needs them, and of standing behind the placement afterwards. It covers permanent positions, rotational berths, seasonal and delivery work, and single days of day work in a busy port. This page sets out how the service is usually organized and how it is usually charged. It states no rates and recommends no agency.

What a placement service doesLink to this section#

The visible part is sourcing: an agency maintains a pool of registered crew, advertises a vacancy and puts forward a shortlist. What distinguishes agencies is the screening around it: checking that certification is genuine and current, that the seafarer's medical fitness certificate is in date, that sea time claimed is evidenced by discharge records, and that references come from named people who held the position they are cited as holding. Interviews, trial periods and a handover to the captain or the management company follow.

MLC 2006 and recruitment and placement servicesLink to this section#

The Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 sets minimum standards for seafarers' working and living conditions, and it addresses recruitment and placement directly rather than speaking only to the shipowner. In outline it expects a placement service operating in a state that has ratified the Convention to be regulated or licensed there, to keep proper records of the seafarers it places, to satisfy itself that a seafarer has had the chance to examine an employment agreement before signing it, to operate a complaints procedure, and to hold protection against the financial consequences of a placement failing. It also proceeds from the principle that the cost of finding work falls on the employer rather than on the seafarer, which is why a reputable agency invoices the yacht and not the crew member. How this applies to a given agency depends on where it is established and which flag the vessel flies, so it is a question to ask rather than to assume.

How placement fees are usually structuredLink to this section#

Fees appear in a small number of recognizable shapes:

• A percentage-of-salary model, where the fee is a share of the crew

member's agreed gross salary over a stated period, most often the first year of employment.

• A flat placement fee per role, sometimes banded by seniority or by

department.

• A retained search for senior positions, paid in stages across the search

rather than only on placement.

• A day rate or hourly charge for temporary, seasonal and day-work

placements, frequently invoiced together with the crew member's pay.

Most agreements pair the fee with a replacement or guarantee term: if the placement ends inside an agreed window, the agency replaces the crew member or refunds part of the fee. What that window is, and what it covers, varies enough to be worth reading rather than assuming. This page names the models and gives no numbers: rates differ by agency, by role and by market, and belong in a quotation for a specific vacancy.

Payroll administration as a serviceLink to this section#

Many agencies and management companies also run crew payroll, a separate service from placement and priced separately. It typically covers acting as employer of record or as paying agent, paying net wages in the currencies crew are paid in, handling social security and pension contributions where they arise, issuing and holding seafarer employment agreements, and keeping the records an inspection may ask to see aboard. The appeal is that one counterparty carries the administrative burden of a crew drawn from several countries; the questions to ask are who is legally the employer, which jurisdiction's rules the arrangement assumes, and what happens on termination. See what a yacht management company does for how payroll usually sits within a wider management scope.

Should a crew member ever be charged for being placed?Link to this section#

Under the approach the Maritime Labour Convention takes, the cost of finding work sits with the employer, and a service that charges seafarers for placement itself falls outside that expectation. Charges for something a seafarer separately chooses to buy, such as a training course, are a different question.

Who employs the crew, the agency or the yacht?Link to this section#

Either, depending on the structure. An agency may introduce a candidate who is then employed by the owning company, or it may act as employer of record and second the crew member to the vessel. The employment agreement settles it, not the introduction that preceded it.

What should a crew shortlist come with?Link to this section#

Verified certification, an in-date medical fitness certificate, references the agency has taken itself, and a plain statement of what it checked and what it is passing on unverified. The last of those is the one most often left out, and the one an owner relies on when something goes wrong.

Where can an owner put these questions to an agency?Link to this section#

This page is informational rather than advice. Tell us what you are looking for. Introductions to crew placement agencies are not yet made through this site; an inquiry asking for one is held until they are, and nothing here ranks an agency.