yacht captain female

A day in the life of a superyacht captain

It’s easy to think that a captain’s job is to drive a superyacht to glamorous locations and drop the anchor in idyllic anchorages, but as Kelly Gordon and other captains will tell you, that’s only a tiny part of the role.

For Kelly Gordon, captaining a superyacht was something she never imagined until she had already started a career as a chemistry professor when a chance encounter at a party on a large motor yacht changed everything. Now, having uncovered her passion for the sea and having achieved the ultimate position as a superyacht captain, Gordon is not only a role model for female crew who want to pursue a career on the deck and engineering side of superyachts, but is also an active advocate of crew mental health. But what exactly does a superyacht captain do, and is it just about driving the yacht from A to B and making sure the crew keep it in top condition?

The simple answer, says Gordon, is no – and in fact the role of a modern yacht captain is highly complex and multifaceted. Take Gordon’s current command, for example – a 33-metre private yacht that cruises extensively with the owning family on board. “My responsibilities of course encompass safely operating and navigating the boat – that’s the technical side of it,” Gordon begins. “But actually the smallest element is navigation and operation, and the far bigger side is crew management. I spend a tremendous amount of time with the crew, making sure everyone’s got what they need.

“Along with that too,” she continues, “is making sure that the owners and their family have what they need, and understanding what their plans are. Where do they want to go? What are they wanting to do? It’s about making sure they are always well cared for.”

A day in the life of a superyacht captain

Changing landscapes

The early days of yachting were, in some ways, a much simpler time. Yachts on average were smaller, and captains and crews often came from a sailing or boating background. There were elements that a captain had to understand and undertake, such as holding a recognised commercial skipper’s ticket, keeping logs, managing the yacht’s accounts and so on. But as the fleet has grown and as yachts have grown, so too have the duties expected of captains.

“As a captain, especially the larger and larger you go in terms of yacht, you become the CEO of a company in a way,” Gordon offers. “But you’re doing what you’re trained to do. To operate and navigate the yacht actually ends up being the smaller percentage of what you do, and the day-to-day is emails, paperwork, schedules, plans, maintenance if you’re in the shipyard, and whether you charter or are private you still need to know where the boss or potential guest wants to go, and show them a good time.”

Paper tigers

One thing that has definitely changed over time is the increasing burden of paperwork related to regulatory elements such as the International Safety Management code (ISM) and in some cases the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS). “The biggest change I’ve seen since I started is a regulatory change,” offers Captain Steve Osborne . “I find myself spending more and more time on more and more paperwork. There’s a lot of delegation you can do, but you have to really start to understand a lot of the legal frameworks of where you’re going [with the yacht] and be a bit more cautious and pay a bit more attention, because rules have changed over time and are a bit more stringent now.”

Gordon agrees that the burdens have increased, but also argues that there are benefits. “The paperwork has grown, but I think it’s a good thing,” she asserts. “I actually think there probably can stand to be a little more regulation in the industry. When I talk to my buddies who are working on commercial vessels and I see how things are done – granted, they have their own sets of issues as well – I think it’s good that we take a page or two out of their book.”

Mind over matter

One of the biggest elements of being a superyacht captain is being able to look after a superyacht crew, and that means not only nurturing and mentoring crew members but also, increasingly, being aware of other issues that can arise – particularly when crews are living in close quarters and working long hours.

“The driving-the-boat bit is easy, that’s our bread and butter,” says Captain Matthew Pownell-Jones. “It’s the other stuff that no one actually teaches you – how to care about the crew, how to listen to someone who has maybe just joined the crew and has a problem that no one knows about. The crew is a floating family, and if that’s the way you think of it then that’s how I feel a team works well.”

It’s something that Gordon has put front and centre not only of how she runs her own yacht and crew, but also of raising awareness in the industry of the importance of mental health considerations. “I’m pretty hard-charging in the mental health space for crew and the yachting industry,” she says. “I’m determined that we will see change, and will see a better and safer workplace for crew, both in terms of general safety on board and also in terms of mental safety.

“I’m not that old – I am only 42 – and just over the course of my life and in my 15 years in this industry I’ve seen it change in terms of being able to talk about it, and it being accepted as a conversation and as part of our overall health. It’s so important because on board we don’t work a nine-to-five then clock out and get to go home to our safe space.”

Guest appearance

For all the paperwork, planning and crew management, there is of course the part that makes superyachting what it is – yacht owners and yacht charterers enjoying what a superyacht offers and the places it can take them. It’s perhaps the final piece of the puzzle for an experienced superyacht captain.

“For private cruising or for yacht charter alike, first of all, you want to make sure the yacht is clean and ready to present to the boss or the guests and that each crew member knows who’s doing what,” Gordon enthuses. “If it’s a little booze cruise, the stews need make sure all the drinks are on board and that the yacht interior looks pretty nice and warm and fuzzy. My engineer has to make sure everything’s operating and working, and then the guys on deck make sure that everything’s taken care of on the exterior.

“Then with me, it’s communicating back and forth with the family or the charter guests as to where they want to go or what they want to do, and then communicating that to my crew. And when it gets busy and the days get long, with the crew potentially on call, I try to balance everything by making sure everyone is getting breaks, and offsetting the crews’ functions so that there’s always someone up with the guests and always someone getting some rest to be able to relieve whoever’s on duty.

“People ask me that the best part of my job as captain is outside being able to utilise my skill of navigation and operation of the yacht,” she concludes, “and my favourite part of the job is also the most difficult part – and that’s the crew. I love them to death. My current boat is a happy, fun, loving, playful, hard-working professional boat, but it’s taken a long time to put that together. If you work at it as a captain and you put the time in and invest in finding and mentoring, you can create that.”

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Cruising and Chartering

Captain Kelly Gordon Leads by Example

By Kristin Baird Rattini
July 22, 2022

For a farm girl from Indiana to become a superyacht captain is an Everest goal, a dedicated pursuit of an extraordinary achievement. When Kelly Gordon stepped on board an 80-foot Sanlorenzo in Beaufort, North Carolina, for a party—her first time on a boat larger than an 18-foot runabout—she knew instantly that she’d found her life’s calling.

That boat’s name: Everest .

Thirteen years after earning her license, Gordon, 40, is captain of an even grander 2017 Sanlorenzo: the 106-foot Freddy , which charters out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Gordon credits years of hard work, determination and the mentorship she received from Everest’s captain for her standing as one of the few female captains in the industry. She now aspires to inspire other women to not just join the crew but to lead it.

Curiosity and a Thirst for Knowledge

The turquoise waters of the Exumas, Gordon’s favorite cruising grounds, are a world away from the corn and soybean fields of Elwood, Indiana—population 8,288. Gordon loved working her family’s 40 acres and looking after their menagerie. She left high school at 15, worked as a veterinary technician and started college at 17, with her sights set on becoming a veterinarian. She completed a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and was lured to Beaufort by a stipend to pursue a master’s degree and teach chemistry before continuing on to vet school.

Those plans changed when she stepped aboard Everest . The boat’s owner, Dan Meggitt, offered her a tour. “I said: ‘Where’s the engine room? That’s got to be the best part of the boat,’” she recalls. “His eyes got big with surprise.”

“I saw the similarities between the boat engines and the engines in the heavy farm equipment that I grew up with,” Gordon continues. “It felt so familiar yet so different. I said, ‘I want to do this.’ Dan said: ‘You think so? Then come back tomorrow.’”

She did—and worked for Meggitt on Everest for the next eight years, running charters along the East Coast and to the Bahamas.

“He could see my curiosity and thirst for knowledge,” Gordon says. “He insisted I spend as much time as I could in every department. He told me: ‘You have to be in the engine room. You have to learn your systems. When you hire an engineer or contractor, you need to be able to have an intelligent conversation about what’s going on and not get the wool pulled over your eyes.’”

During what she calls her “baby captain” days aboard Everest , Gordon took one of her most memorable cruises: to Cuba in February 2016.

“We lost our transmission and limped into port on one gear,” she recalls. “Trying to deal with visas to fly out to bring back a long list of parts was a nightmare. So, I got myself a mechanic and a translator. I thought, ‘If they can keep these old cars on the road with minimal supplies, they will be able to help me with the transmission.’”

The mechanic came up with a one-part solution that allowed Everest to make it back to the United States. “The people of Cuba made that experience,” she says. “Whatever I needed to do, they were there to help.”

I’m Really Doing This

In 2017, Meggitt transitioned out of the industry, and Gordon pivoted to delivering boats ranging from 70 to 160 feet. “Delivering that 160-footer was a surreal moment,” she says. “I felt like: ‘Wow, I’m really doing this. After so many years of hard work and determination, I am doing what I wanted to do.’”

She brought on two crewmembers who are still with her: chef and jack-of-all-trades Shane Hughes and deck stew Gianna “Gi” Mesi. “Gi is one of the brightest young women in the industry,” Gordon says. “She is working her way up the ladder on the deck.”

The trio gelled as a team while crewing for three summers on a 75-foot private yacht in Chicago, and especially while navigating the inland waterways to deliver boats between Florida and Chicago.

“I was coming around the bend from the Ohio River into the Mississippi River, and it looked like a miniature ocean,” Gordon says. “You had waves, swells, trash, trees, refrigerators, buoys on the wrong side of the river and lots of commercial traffic. It took all three of us to get through situations like that.”

At every stop, Hughes was constantly mistaken for the captain. “He’d say: ‘No, I am low man on the totem pole. These two women are running the boat,’” Gordon says. “You learn to laugh about it and feel proud when they realize you are the captain.”

Word got out about the female captain. When Gordon pulled into Heritage Harbor in Ottawa, Illinois, the marina manager asked if she’d meet with a local young woman named Macy who’d been awaiting her arrival and aspired to be a captain herself.

“That was a pivotal moment for me,” Gordon says. “I didn’t realize how much of an influence I could have on young women.”

Coming Full Circle

During the past year, Gordon has taken command of two separate helms. In June 2021, three different sources contacted her within 24 hours about the captain position aboard Freddy . “It was meant to be,” she says with a laugh. “To captain another Sanlorenzo felt like everything was coming full circle for me.”

She took Freddy into the boatyard for extensive upgrades to the interior and chiller system. “Vendors have thought that Freddy is a newer boat than she actually is, so that has been rewarding,” she says.

The captain thrills every time she takes Freddy to the Bahamas, where she has made close friends over her more than a decade in the industry. “My energy, vibe and whole face change as soon as I see Nassau on the horizon,” she says. “Highbourne, Compass and Staniel cays are where my people are, and I love making each of those stops.”

Gordon’s second “helm” is a mentorship program through her personal website ( captainkellyjgordon.com ) that connects the growing number of Macys who reach out to her from all over the world with the current generation of female crew.

“We need to help these young women who are so passionate about getting into the industry,” she says. “Mentorship was so important to me and my career. I want to pay it forward.”

While many charters in the Northern Exumas don’t venture past Staniel Cay, Gordon is proud to take her guests one stop farther south. She anchors in Little Bay at Black Point. She then takes Freddy’s 2021 Boston Whaler 320 Vantage down to Little Farmer’s Cay so guests can swim with turtles and visit an above ground cave. They then stop at Musha Cay to collect sand dollars.

Room to Grow

According to the She of the Sea 2021 “Diversity and Inclusion in Yachting” report, women account for: 1.9 percent of captains, 3.9 percent of chief officers, 0.5 percent of engineers, 8.6 percent of deck crew, 18.9 percent of galley crew, 86.4 percent of interior crew, and 2.1 percent of captain candidates.

Helping Hand

During a February stop at Pig Beach in the Exumas, Gordon noticed a piglet that wasn’t doing so well. She found some baby formula on Freddy and drew on her veterinary skills to get the piglet back on its feet. Her crew recorded the moment on video. “It says everything about me—the pigs, the beach and the boats,” Gordon says.

Like most captains, Gordon travels light. However, one fixture aboard Freddy is an old-school compass given to her by her sister, Brandee Gordon. Engraved on the back is the message, “Let your mind be free when you’re at sea.”

More: Cruising & Chartering , June 2022 , People , Sanlorenzo
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