Facebook has so much to offer, in addition to being a great way to keep in touch with your family and friends.
There’s a whole bunch of resources you can use to make your stew life easier. Have a look at the following groups:
- Stew Advice Groups: these are groups created by stews to advice and enlighten other stews about things they might struggle with whilst on the job
- Specific Topic Groups: these are groups that are not all yachting related but will explore different topics further (wine, spirits, eco-friendly yachting…)
- Yachting Crew Groups: groups created by other yacht crew to entertain and assist crew with their lives outside of yachting (generally not job-related queries)
- Yacht Job Groups: variety of groups created by yacht crew and agents to assist crew finding new jobs
1. Stew Advice Groups
Yacht Stewardess and Steward Tips
The best Facebook group of all times has to be “Yacht Stewardess and Steward Tips” run by the lovely Isobel Odendaal from SuperYachting South Africa (SYSA). This group welcomes stews from around the world to help each other out with questions they may have in their day-to-day jobs. Popular themes include “what are the best shoes/skorts/…” and “how do I remove this stain on this odd fabric”? Search in the group first before asking something, as stews have been asking each other for advice for years on an abundance of topics! Kudos to Isobel for maintaining a close eye on the group and thereby keeping it civilised and publicity-free.
Yacht Steward/ess Interior Product Supplies
Purser/Chief Stew Leanne Bailey’s group, allows you to do what you’re not allowed to do in Isobel’s group: ask for specific brand and company recommendations. So if you’re looking for new bed linen or that odd shaped martini glass that was already on board, try your luck here as companies are allowed to respond to your requests.
Super Yacht Provisioning around the World
This group is pretty similar to the above group, but not restricted to interior queries. Other crew can also recommend services from suppliers they have dealt with, so always worth keeping an eye on I’d say.
Table decor and ideas 4 Yacht Stews
I’m not exactly sure who launched this group, but its purpose is clear and though it’s not as busy as the above groups, you get some nice advice on table decorations and crew will often display their works of art too. It’s worth popping up in your feed now and again!
2. Specific Topic Groups
Wine Folly
From the authors of the Wine Folly book (get your copy on amazon) comes this page with loads of interesting facts and knowledge about wine. Want to learn about wine in an easy way, follow them and you’ll start picking up random facts straight away!
Tipsy Bartender
I was introduced to this page by one of my second stews and it’s actually pretty awesome. Follow them on Facebook and you’ll get recipes for different cocktails and shots on a daily basis. Great for inspiration!
Eco-Friendly Superyachting
If you’re interested in making things greener, this is a great group to follow with lots of useful tips and eco-friendly products.
3. Yachting Crew Groups
Molin Lars' Yacht Crew Groups
Molin Lars, together with a bunch of other people, administers a series of location-based groups where you can find like-minded people to organise events, ask about local restaurants and activities etc. You will also find posts from people looking for dayworkers. Job posts are not allowed.
Other Yacht Crew Groups
There are a few more groups like the above with a similar purpose, but they are run by other people. These include:
For Fun
And then there are a bunch of groups that are really just for our entertainment:
4. Yacht Job Groups
Molin Lars' Groups
Run by the same people as the Yacht Crew groups:
- Yacht Crew Jobs – place where agents and yachts will advertise open vacancies
- Yacht Crew CV – place where you can advertise yourself (be careful putting out personal information though, I highly recommend keeping your date of birth, passport details etc to yourself)
Glenn Shephard's Groups
Glenn is himself a superyacht captain and started a few different groups to help crew and captains find each other.
- Big Sailboat Jobs – place where captains and crew will advertise open vacancies (sail yacht only)
- Big Sailboat Available Crew – crew can post their availability on here
- Super Yacht Couples Jobs – a place for couples to post their availability and for agents and yachts to post vacancies (motor and sail yachts)
Job Groups by Crew Agents
There are a few more groups like the above with a similar purpose, but they are run by other people. These include:
- Crew Yacht Jobs (MED) by Cotton Crew
- Crew Yacht Jobs (Ft Lauderdale) by Cotton Crew
- Yacht Crew International by YCI
Other Groups
Then there are some groups that were created with a certain purpose but I’m not sure who runs them. (If you’re one of them, feel free to let me know!)
- Yachties with Great CV’s looking for Work – pretty self-explanatory but is really open to anything, including crew agents posting open vacancies
- Stew Wanted – similar as above but focused on stew positions
- SuperYacht Rotational Jobs – job board focussing on rotational positions that offer better than 5:1 rotation