Jason Hunter

“I didn’t come from a wealthy family – as such there was no real opportunity for university or anything like that, so the yachting industry has been a massive gift for myself and my family. We stumbled upon it in fortuitous circumstances. Both my brothers started working on the yachts in the 1990s when they left Cape Town after school to go travelling around Europe. At the same time, I got a job working as a bartender on a cruise ship out of the UK. At the end of the season, we compared stories and bank accounts and I decided to join them in the yachting world!

Back then it wasn’t the massive industry that it is today. My brothers introduced me to the captain and I got hired as a deckhand. After that, I was on and off the boats for eight years or so. I would work a season, then go and ski for six months, or work a season and then go surfing in Bali or Australia for a period. It was only when I got a promotion that I started taking the industry more seriously. The job gets more rewarding the more you progress.

An opportunity to raise standards

After I met my wife, I survived about four months on the yachts without her! We were writing letters and speaking in phone booths, and eventually I decided to come back to Cape Town and start a company I had been thinking about for some time. Most crew back then were only getting experience on sailing vessels which was great, but their product knowledge and their ability to add value on a motor yacht was limited. I figured there was an opportunity to train them up. I created a deckhand training manual and video content for people who wanted to join the industry. All the South African companies were just doing RYA (Royal Yachting Association) sailing qualifications, so I went and presented this course to them and they started referring students to me. There was nobody marketing the motor yachting industry back then. It was the first deckhand training course worldwide but obviously a lot more have sprung up since then.

When Covid hit we had a massive concern about brain fade and worried that crew were forgetting all the soft skills they’d learned, so we created an online training platform to keep all the information current and fresh. Post Covid, we realised that if we sent it out to crew before they even began training they would already have a nice idea of processes and procedures, so we invested a lot of money into turning it into part of what crew get when they sign up and join us. We sent drones and Go Pros out to film tender manoeuvres and all sorts. It means that our students can go and refresh their knowledge at any time.

There can be a delay between students completing their training and finding work because deck crew are increasingly committing longer term, so we sometimes send students off on  expedition cruise ships for six months so that they can get some related work experience. These boats are carrying about 250 passengers, but they still get practice driving tenders, going on kayak trips, interacting with guests and so on before they go on the real deal. We’ve also started an in-house apprenticeship programme because personal watercraft instruction on board superyachts has become a really handy skill on superyachts these days. 

An industry with space for everyone 

Creating the training division has been such a rewarding thing to do. The crew stay in touch with us long after they complete the course and we get a lot of satisfaction from seeing them succeed. The standards of professionalism in the industry are so high now – and so we set the bar as high as humanly possible too. When students approach me and say they want to work in the industry, I make sure they know exactly what it entails and that they are ready to put their best foot forward. They need to commit full tilt. Some of them are total rock stars – they take it really seriously and use their own money to put themselves through the training.

A former student of ours went on to feature in the TV show Below Deck and has since become an instructor – it was quite nice to have him come back and join us and explain to the students that the show is not at all realistic. The only thing to take away from it is perhaps some familiarisation with regard to what a superyacht looks like and the areas it travels to – anything else I would ignore completely. 

I never started Super Yachting South Africa to make money – it’s been great to have a successful business, but the reason I launched it was because I saw what the industry could do for someone who isn’t necessarily privileged but who has the right attitude. If you are willing to work incredibly hard you can really go and smash it, which is amazing. I am already prepping my 16 year-old son to join the industry!