Captain Mattia Djaza

“My father was a sea captain. So from three months old, I was literally sailing around the Mediterranean with my parents. We were on board for about six years and then my mum decided it was time for me to go to school and socialise with other kids, since I’d only been around adults my whole life! 

After school, I went to a maritime college. I was still sailing a lot with my father while I was there but I graduated fine and went to the Naval Academy in Livorno. I enjoyed it, but I realised pretty quickly that being in the Italian Navy with its grey ships wasn’t for me – so I went back to yachting and worked with my father who at that time was running a classic schooner chartering diving trips between Greece and Sudan. 

I remember saying to him that I felt I was wasting my time and not learning anything new and his response was always: “you have no idea how much you know already, but the time will come when you will understand.” It turned out he was right because, by age 24, I became first officer on a 24-metre sailing yacht and then at 26 I stepped onto a Benetti Classic as captain. It felt fantastic to hit that milestone at such a young age. 

After that, I moved onto a bigger yacht built by the Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi and then I moved to New Zealand to oversee the construction of the owner’s next yacht. By that point, I had a wife and two kids and it was a great experience for all of us. Even my wife got involved in the interior design of the boat. I was heavily involved in the build and the shipyard really respected my experience at sea. When it was finished, it really did feel like a yacht from the future. 

That’s when the real adventures started; that yacht was made for sailing and we voyaged to French Polynesia for the maiden trip. The engine was there for safety but we barely ever used it. We went everywhere; Easter Island, Galapagos – then we headed to the Caribbean and started racing in St Barts and Virgin Gorda.

Sometimes it can feel like motor yacht and sailing yacht captains are two different religions, so when the chance came to captain a motor yacht a while later, I jumped on it.  Lots of people assume that motor yachts require a higher skill level, but I would argue that the opposite is true. On a motor yacht, you’re stabilised – you don’t need to worry about the wind. 

Captaining the motoryacht coincided with Covid and we sailed around the Caribbean. I’ve never seen so few yachts in that part of the world over winter. It was fun because we kept bumping into the same four yachts over and over again! The owner put the boat on the market in 2022 and in the meantime I met the owner of Satemi, the yacht I’m on now. He literally offered me the job over lunch while we were having an informal chat about life, politics and everything in between. I’ve always been very lucky with my owner relationships – they’ve always been keen to teach me and help me get better and better – and some have even felt quite fatherly. 

I love captaining a motor yacht, but sailing will always be in my blood. Lately, I’ve started dreaming about it. Not the big boats but the tiny ones from when I was in my teens. Having said that, I’m still curious about what it would feel like to sail a really big ‘sailing yacht – something like Black Pearl.

I’ve now been at sea for most of my life, but I feel there is still so much to see, still so much to do. Technology might have changed the way we sail, but the sea still treats you the same. Every time we hoist the anchor and start the engine, I look at the horizon dreaming about what is next. I’m still seeking adventure, feeling the freedom that only the sea can give me.”