The captain you trust is the one most likely to walk

Rotation is standard, rest is not

The report, published in November 2025, surveyed 367 captains on yachts from 20 metres to more than 120 metres. Sixty-three percent now work a time-for-time rotation, roughly equal weeks on and off, a package that a decade ago was reserved for the largest boats. The catch sits in the leave data. Only 28 percent fully switch off when ashore, while 31 percent work occasionally during the break, 15 percent regularly and 16 percent very frequently, with the remaining 10 percent answering other. Simon Ladbrooke, a captain consultant at Quay Crew, warns that 'many Captains never truly switch off.'

For an owner that paradox is expensive. Rotation already means paying two senior people to cover one chair, the accepted price of keeping an experienced master on the programme. If the off-rotation captain is still fielding calls and crew problems from ashore, the owner is buying rest that is not being taken, and the fatigue it was meant to prevent still builds. The report ties that pattern straight to retention and, at the sharp end, to safety.

The biggest line in your budget is moving

Crew is the largest single line in most yacht operating budgets, and the captain sets the ceiling the rest of the package is built under. The report puts monthly base pay at roughly 6,000 euros on a 20 to 24 metre yacht, rising above 25,000 euros on a 100 to 119 metre boat. The steepest move this cycle came in the 70 to 79 metre bracket, up 7 percent against the 2023 survey, and benefits climbed too, with more than half of captains now flying business class on long-haul, a 4 percent rise on 2023.

The softer finding is how those rises happen. Fifty-three percent of captains get some annual increase, but only 13 percent have it written into a contract. For an owner that means pay is reset year to year through negotiation rather than a fixed schedule, which favours the captain holding a rival offer. A 7 percent shift at 70 metres does not stay at 70 metres either, because the captain's number pulls the rest of the roster up with it.

The gap an owner can close cheaply

Satisfaction is holding rather than climbing. Thirty-seven percent of captains call themselves very satisfied, while about a quarter sit neutral or dissatisfied. The report links that discontent to pressures the captains named themselves, among them heavy yacht usage, tight budgets and owner expectations that outrun what the programme can deliver.

The fix is cheap set against the boat. A pay review fixed in the contract and real cover funded during leave, so the off weeks are genuinely off, together buy the one thing a placement fee cannot, the captain an owner already trusts. The report calls rotation a step forward only half finished, and the owner who finishes it keeps his master rather than paying to find another.