yacht crew horror stories

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The spookiest ghost ship stories from around the world

To get you in the mood for Halloween 2021, BOAT rounds up the best spooky stories of haunted ghost ships through the years, from the disappearing crew of Carroll A. Deering to the mystery of Mary Celeste ...

Although the earth's warming temperatures mean that the Northwest Passage  is now free (albeit not easy) to sail through, this was not always the case. The search for the elusive passage claimed the lives of many ambitious sailors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; keen to find an alternate trade route to Asia, their ships would become lodged in Arctic ice, sealing their fate in the Great White North. The Octavius was one of many to meet such a fate, but the grim scenes found on board was what made the story of this ghost ship particularly terrifying.

The three-masted schooner departed from England in 1761, but was found off the coast of Greenland in 1775. Her captain had, unluckily decided to try and use the then nonexistent Northwest Passage (which superyacht  Rosehearty has since cleared) to return home. The five men who boarded the derelict ship in 1775 were confronted with a ghostly sight; the entire 28-man crew was below deck, but frozen to death. The icy figure of the ship's captain was discovered sitting at his desk, writing in his logbook, pen still in hand. The last logbook entry was in 1762 - the ghost ship and her crew had been lost at sea for 13 years before being found.

SS Ourang Medan

One of the most notorious ghost ship stories, the tale of the SS Ourang Medan is shrouded in mystery. The legend goes that in 1947 a cargo ship off the coast of Indonesia put out a distress call with the words: “All officers including captain are dead lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.” Before help could arrive, a second message was radioed in with just two words: “I die.”

Rescue workers who boarded the ship discovered to their horror that the crew members were indeed deceased with their bodies contorted and arms outstretched as if fending off an attacker, but without any signs of injury. An engine room fire then caused the ship to be abandoned and eventually sink, taking its ghastly secret, and any chance of an autopsy investigation, to Davy Jones’ locker.

Later reports contradicted this supernatural tale, however, with a 1948 newspaper article citing a survivor who blamed the deaths on a leak of its deadly cargo — sulphuric acid. What’s more, there is no record of the SS Orang Medan in Lloyd’s Registry, leading some to conclude that this ghost story is pure fabrication.

Mary Celeste

No ghost ship compendium would be complete without the tale of the brigantine Mary Celeste . Her fate has passed into maritime myth thanks in large part to a short story by Dr Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer and creator of Sherlock Holmes . What we do know is that the Mary Celeste had sailed from New York on November 7, 1872 bound for Genoa with a cargo of alcohol. Almost a month later on the afternoon of December 5, she was spotted drifting somewhere between the Azores and Portugal by Dei Gratia , another brigantine on an Atlantic crossing.

Captain Morehouse of the Dei Gratia knew Captain Briggs of the Mary Celeste to be a capable sailor and was suspicious. He ordered a boarding party to the Mary Celeste and his crew found a deserted ship in seaworthy condition. Captain Morehouse split his crew and sailed the Mary Celeste to Gibraltar. To this date, the fate of Captain Briggs, his wife, child and crew of seven remains unsolved. Whether Briggs abandoned ship because of bad weather or whether there is a more sinister reason for their disappearance, will never be known.

This more recent tale concerns the catamaran Kaz II , which was found deserted off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The 9.75 metre yacht was seen drifting by a helicopter on April 18, 2007 a few days after she had set off from Airlie Beach, Queensland. When she was boarded on April 20 the maritime authorities found everything normal but no crew. Food was on the table, a laptop was on and the engine was running. The only indication of something out of the ordinary was a ripped sail.

Conspiracy theories as to the fate of the three men, inexperienced sailors in their 50s and 60s, abounded, ranging from pirates, insurance fraud and even paranormal activity. A coroner’s court found something far more prosaic – that the three friends had drowned after falling overboard as a result of their lack of nautical nous, though one cannot say for certain as their bodies have never been found.

The body of German sailor Manfred Fritz Bajorat was found slumped over the desk of his yacht Sajo in early 2016. The grim discovery was made by fishermen when they boarded the drifting yacht off Barabo in Surigeo del Sur province. After a post-mortem was carried out, local police said there were no signs of foul play and it was believed Bajorat died of natural causes, possibly a heart attack. It is thought his yacht had been adrift for many months before it was discovered and the dry, salty conditions on board had caused his body to mummify.

The Flying Dutchman

The most iconic ghost ship in maritime culture is certainly The Flying Dutchman . The legend tells that this haunted ship is unable to make port and is cursed to sail the seas forevermore. The fable of this Dutch man-of-war ship first appeared in the seventeenth century. The supposed captain of the ghost ship was apparently inspired by stories of Barend Fokke, whose exceptionally fast trips from the Netherlands to Java were presumed to be aided by the devil.

Sightings of the phantom ship, which apparently occur in bad weather, are supposed to be bad omens for those who pass her. The most famous report of The Flying Dutchman was by King George V, who apparently saw her all aglow along the coast of Australia as they were sailing in the Bass straight. The ship has become a famous trope in literature, art and movies since; she inspired Richard Wagner's opera of the same name, and more recently made an appearance in the 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest .

Carroll A Deering

The fate of the crew of five-masted schooner Carroll A Deering , which ran aground off North Carolina in January 1921, was investigated by no less than five US government departments. In the process, it became one of the most infamous maritime mysteries of all time. The ship was returning to Norfolk, Virginia after delivering a consignment of coal to Rio de Janeiro. The captain, W B Wormwell, had been drafted in on the first leg of the journey due to the illness of the original captain and was said to have an uneasy relationship with the crew. Thus, mutiny was suspected as the most likely reason when the Carroll A Deering was found deserted after being boarded by rescuers on February 4, 1921. The ship’s navigation equipment and lifeboats had gone but, to add the mystery, food had been prepared for the next meal.

Japanese ghost ships

The Japanese Coast Guard has reported around 200 instances of ghost ships over the last few years. However, unlike the Bermuda Triangle, the boats have been found, and with human cargo on board. One such recent incident happened off Fukui, a port city on the main Honshu island. The decomposing corpses of seven people were found on a drifting wooden fishing vessel in mid-December last year. The Japanese authorities are said to be puzzled by the fate of the ‘fishermen’ but one theory for this and the other floating ghost ships is they were defectors from the totalitarian North Korean regime across the treacherous sea to the west.

Auspiciously timed, this ghost ship was last seen leaving a port in Tawain on Halloween, 2002. The 20-metre boat was then found abandoned in the Timor Sea, within an 80 nautical mile range of Australia's Rowley Shoals. The fishing boat's owner had last been in touch with the captain in December of that year, but by January 2003, High Aim 6 was discovered unmanned. Strangely, the vessel was found with its engines fully fuelled and running, with all of the crew's personal belongings and provisions on board. There were also no apparent signs of struggle or damage above or below deck. The mystery remains unsolved; the only information the authorities received was from a single crew member they had managed to track down and take into custody. He claimed that the crew of High Aim 6 had mutinied, but no reason was given as to why.

HMS Resolute

HMS Resolute was a British Royal Navy ship found in 1854, abandoned and adrift, off the coast of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic . She had originally been sent to find the remains of another lost expedition, that of Sir John Franklin's to locate the then frozen Northwest Passage, but met a similar fate. HMS Resolute had become lodged in an ice floe and abandoned by the crew, of whom no trace was ever found.

An eerie scene met those who had discovered the ghostly ship in 1855; the captain's cabin remained undisturbed with a teapot, bible and glasses full of liquor on the desk. A British Flag had been left draped over the chair of the ships's commander, Captain Kellett. HMS Resolute was eventually retrieved and retired in 1879. Her timbers were used to construct the Resolute desk, which has been used by almost every American president in the Oval Office since the 19th century.

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Life and death on a superyacht: 'If something goes wrong, they can just raise the anchor and leave'

Crewing can seem a glamour-filled job. But at least three young Brits have lost their lives, as Rupert Neate reports

I f Dirk Zimmerman’s boss fancies a fresh tomato salad, the 35-year-old German hangs up his chef’s apron, dons a headset and takes to the skies. Zimmerman, who has been working on superyachts for more than a decade, has lost count of the number of times he’s been sent out on a ship’s helicopter or seaplane to source food, from courgettes in Oman to truffles in Argentina or vine tomatoes from a nearby Pacific atoll.

“It might shock you to know how much money some people spend privately,” he says as he prepares sushi in the professional-grade kitchen on the 60-metre St David, moored in Monaco. “But to be able to take a helicopter and fly two hours somewhere to get the boss’s preferences makes his day.”

As the rich become even richer – 145 more dollar billionaires were minted last year – orders for new superyachts (longer than 24 metres) have hit a record high. More than 500 are being built in shipyards around the world, and with many requiring at least 100 staff, superyachts now employ more than 37,000 people. Britain’s seafaring history has made it the biggest source of employees; crewing on a superyacht is so popular among young adventurers that Southampton Solent University now offers degree-level training at its Warsash Superyacht Academy . Every spring, dozens of young Brits decamp to Antibes on the Côte d’Azur, the unofficial centre for superyacht crew recruitment, where you can wander along the docks looking for opportunities.

While it is a dream job for some, other deckhands and chefs have horror stories of working punishing hours. Accidents, injuries and deaths are also commonplace, with union leaders believing working on superyachts to be more dangerous than life on oil rigs; over the past few years at least three young Brits have died while serving their billionaire bosses. Because many superyachts continually float around the world ( this is marketed to some as a way to avoid being registered in any country and hence to avoid paying tax), their crews may not be afforded the same legal protections as those on land. Families complain about a lack of assistance and sympathy from owners and those in charge of the vessel. None of the owners attended the three British men’s funerals.

M ichael Hanlon, 22, left Cumbria for his dream job as a deckhand and watersports instructor on 62-metre superyacht Faith, owned by the Canadian fashion billionaire Lawrence Stroll , in March 2013. Less than a month later, and before he’d had a chance to spend any of his first $3,500 (£2,600) monthly pay cheque, he was dead.

Michael, known as Milo to his friends and family, had returned exhausted from a night out to the vessel docked in Antibes on the French Riviera. He had done two shifts back to back, working night and day, then gone to local bars to celebrate sailing across the Atlantic. Faith had been locked up for the night, and Michael climbed to its top in an attempt to get inside via an unofficial emergency entrance. An inquest found he fell from the top deck, hit his head on the quay and drowned. His body was recovered the next day.

Jacob Nichol, from Cornwall, died last summer, aged 24, two years after he suffered severe brain injuries after falling from superyacht Kibo, while cleaning it as it was docked in a Majorcan port. Jacob, the yacht’s third assistant engineer, had been hanging in a harness when he fell and fractured his skull. His sister, Jenade Moon, said he had never been asked to clean the boat before: his job focused on engine maintenance. The owner of the £90m yacht, Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut – until last month owner of Waterstones, and friend of Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich – was not on board at the time.

After 10 days in a coma in a hospital in Palma, Jacob was repatriated to Shropshire, where he needed constant care. In September an inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death. “Our beautiful Jacob has sadly passed away,” his family said. “A young, bright, intelligent, kind soul has left us after an excruciating two years.”

In 2010, Robin Black received a call from the captain of the £15m sailing superyacht Burrasca , on which Black’s son Will was bosun, or officer in charge of crew and equipment. At the time, it was moored at the Monaco yacht show in Port Hercules, the annual beauty parade held in the industry’s global hub. The captain told Black that Will, 28, hadn’t been seen since the night before, when the rib he was piloting (a small boat used to ferry passengers to and from the yacht) collided with another boat. He thought Will may have been knocked overboard.

By the time Robin, Will’s mother Judith and his sister Rosanna, now 37, arrived in Monaco to join the search, the yacht had left. “The captain said: ‘Don’t worry, we threw some flowers over the side and gave his belongings to the police,’” Rosanna says, fighting back tears as she describes “the worst days of our lives”. “I couldn’t comprehend that the boat had gone before Will was found and before we got there,” she says. “How could they just leave a family to deal with the death of one of their crew, and the police and paperwork and everything? I can’t believe that if something goes wrong – if someone dies – they can just raise the anchor and leave.”

The family don’t know who owns Burrasca, though he is thought to have been a Russian billionaire (owners do not have to declare themselves). He was not on board at the time of the accident. The yacht did not request divers to look for Will’s body, leaving the captain of another superyacht, who was a friend, to pay for search and recovery divers. But they were unable to find Will, who had not been wearing a life vest.

Will’s life was not insured. “But it’s not about money,” Rosanna says, “it’s about respect for another life.” She says that the owner didn’t and doesn’t seem to have cared. A spokesman for the yacht’s management did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment.

If something goes wrong on a superyacht, it can be incredibly difficult for crew and their families to understand which laws and rights apply. Vessels are often operating in international waters, their day-to-day operations run by management companies on behalf of often unidentifiable owners; their yachts are registered via offshore companies in places such as Panama or the British Virgin Islands.

To add to the confusion, superyachts can be registered with another country and fly their flag, even if the yacht is not based there. At the time of Will’s death, Burrasca was registered in St Vincent and the Grenadines. There was no British inquest, and local authorities recorded this report of the accident: “Mr William Black was on tender duty between the mothership at anchor and the shore. The anchorage was very crowded. Returning to the mothership, the tender hit an unattended vessel that was anchored in the bay. The tender was found drifting with no one on board… Mr Black’s body was not found.”

Will, who had always wanted a life of adventure, had worked his way up from a deckhand on smaller boats to an officer on Burrasca. He’d recently begun his role as bosun on the 55.7-metre yacht and Rosanna says he was passionate about his job. “Will had found his calling. He worked hard, but he played hard, too, and always came back with the most amazing stories,” she says as she shows me photos of Will on a night out with 50 Cent and Jamiroquai . “We still get letters from some of the families he worked for. They send cards for Uncle Whale, as he was called,” she says. “He had a huge personality and everyone loved him.”

Despite the circumstances of his death, Rosanna says she would not discourage others from joining the superyachting world. “I would just tell them to make sure they’re always on top of safety, and to find out who the owner is before they join.”

I t’s shorts, T-shirts and deck shoes weather at the Monaco yacht show, as I weave my way through champagne receptions, passing Ferraris and Aston Martins for sale on the quayside. This year’s display of yachts is collectively worth more than £2bn; the combined annual spending on the world’s 6,281 superyachts could wipe out all developing countries’ debts.

There are so many superyachts docked for the show that Top Shop boss Sir Philip Green ’s £100m Lionheart has been forced out of its mooring into the Bay of Monaco. The 110-metre Jubilee, which was built for the late emir of Qatar, is on sale for $300m.

On board the six-cabin St David, which is on sale for just under £20m , Zimmerman is preparing canapes for a party. He says the industry keeps many people in well-paid employment, adding that he can’t envisage going back to work on land, as “the pay cannot compare. I have three children, and working here pays for their education.” But, he adds, newbies have to decide early on whether they can sit by and watch their billionaire bosses spend vast amounts enjoying themselves, while appearing not to care about those around them. “It’s a compromise that everyone has to make – can you accept it?”

Liz Brasler, 29, is chief mate, or second-in-command, of one of the yachts in the harbour. She won’t say which but “it’s one of the bigger ones”. She has worked her way up the ranks from deckhand since 2006. “It can be great fun but it’s also exhausting, delivering the highest standards invisibly, magically, with no apparent fuss,” she says. “Owners expect the best in the world. They want to go wherever, whenever, and demand the highest standards without delay. Money is not a problem for them.”

For most of her career, Brasler, who is South African, bunked with colleagues in small cabins; now she has a cabin of her own. But while she has more privacy, she says she can’t remember the last time she had seven hours’ sleep while on charter or at sea.

Has she ever woken up to find an A-list actor on board? “Oh yes, quite often. You can’t get all excited every time you see Tom Cruise . It is a glamorous life. I’ve met some of the most famous people you can imagine. [But] they pay to be invisible – the richest of the rich are sometimes the most discreet.”

The billionaires’ superyacht designer of choice, Andrew Winch , knows all about the needs of the super-rich. We speak on Cloud 9 , the 74-metre, £59m yacht he designed for the Australian retail tycoon Brett Blundy ; this is the first time he has stepped aboard since he handed it over. Winch, who has designed yachts in a London studio since 1986, created Madame Gu , the 2014 motor yacht of the year, and Phoenix 2 , owned by the late Polish billionaire Jan Kulczyk. His yacht designs have proved so popular that he now designs clients’ homes and planes, including Roman Abramovich’s Boeing 767.

“Most clients will have three, four or five houses around the world,” he says. “We have clients we’ve already worked with on their jet and their yacht, and soon there will be a ‘rollover’ and we’ll start on another sequence.”

Of all Winch’s projects, which first take shape at his offices on the banks of the Thames, Cloud 9 was a clear favourite. “He [Blundy] is great fun. This is the second boat we’ve done with him, so we know him very well, and he’s family.”

Everything on board is designed for the owner, from the bedroom suites named after Star Wars characters (his favourite film), to the extra head space above the gym’s treadmill (he’s tall) and the proliferation of chess sets: “He likes to play chess, for several days, with various guests at the same time,” Winch says. In the hair salon, a wall folds down to create a balcony “because it’s very nice, when the sun’s setting in Greece, to have a massage outside”.

A short ride downstairs in the ship’s glass-topped elevator is the “beach club” at the bow. From here Blundy and his guests can hit the water with the boat’s “toys”, including a speedboat for waterskiing, jetskis and what Winch calls a “James Bond-style personal submarine”. A “water sports and boys’ toys” instructor will be on hand to help guests get the hang of it and take care of “all the boring things”, like cleaning and clearing away. For guests who dislike the swell or salt of the ocean, there’s a swimming pool above an espresso bar.

The gym includes a pair of rowing machines and exercise bikes which can be carried up to the bow so the owner and his personal trainer can race each other in the sea breeze. “The captain can be motoring the boat from place to place, and it could feel as if he is pedalling it there,” Winch says. The gym can also be turned into a classroom for Blundy’s two children. Chairs and desks appear from discreet compartments; the walls contain an interactive blackboard and video screen. “They [the children] can join any class anywhere in the world,” Winch says. “They can learn about the history of the ship’s next destination before they get there.”

The ship’s teacher, one of 22 staff, is on hand to guide their learning. There’s also a nanny, personal trainer, masseuse and hairdresser. “You take your life with you,” Winch explains.

“L ife on board is perfect for owners – they receive a seven-star service. But for officers and crew it can be a lot more difficult,” says Danny McGowan , the strategic organiser of seafarers’ union, Nautilus International . He has come from their offices in London to the Monaco show to draw attention to the deaths of young workers, highlighting the dangers of working in an industry that to outsiders appears the height of glamour.

“They will often be working very long hours, right around the clock, looking after guests,” says the fair-skinned, red-haired McGowan, sheltering from the sun in Monaco’s famous La Rascasse bar, which a crew recruitment company has hired out for the week. “These are tragic situations where young people have lost their lives, and there are hundreds of other injuries and complaints that aren’t reported.” He says staff have had their passports confiscated and wages withheld; they talk of being sent home for the slightest uniform infraction.

Superyacht owners can view crew as “dispensable and replaceable” and don’t consider the impact on their families. “Often an owner feels they can just get a new third engineer, rather than thinking of the consequences for the individual,” he says. “We’re not here to be up against these billionaires. We want to work with them to make employment in this industry better.”

Most recently, McGowan has been representing the 42-strong crew of a £67m superyacht owned by the Indian multimillionaire Vijay Mallya. The crew, among them several Britons, haven’t been paid for months, and are owed more than $1m. McGowan helped them take their case to court, to have the yacht impounded in Malta. Mallya, a co-owner of the Force India Formula One team, was arrested in London last year over allegations that he supported the team with laundered cash, and Indian authorities are currently seeking his extradition to face trial. He is living in a Hertfordshire mansion while on bail; the yacht, which features a 15-seat cinema and Sir Elton John’s baby grand piano , remains impounded, with some of the crew still on board.

S itting on the harbour wall overlooking Cloud 9 and a fleet of other superyachts, Fiona Hanlon fights back tears as she remembers the “heartbreakingly impersonal” way she was informed of the death of her 22-year-old son, Michael.

Hanlon has flown to Monaco from the family home in the Lake District to scatter Michael’s ashes. At the same time, knowing he had worked two shifts back to back, she is taking the opportunity to highlight the plight of some other superyacht crew, who she says are often forced to work long hours – conditions that might be illegal in the UK. “It was Michael’s dream job,” she says. He grew up sailing on Windermere. “He had just got his first salary and he’d sent me photographs of the sunglasses and travelling guitar he was going to buy. He was so excited, it was wonderful.”

Michael had been texting his mother daily updates about his adventures sailing across the Atlantic. But on 7 April 2013, Fiona’s phone didn’t ping. She texted him: “Worried about you now – no contact gets me thinking something is wrong – say hello soon please x” followed by, “My baby where are you x x please get in touch angel – we just want to know you are OK.”

The next day his mother was told Michael was missing. “It was seen as an inconvenience, as the boat was going on to pick up Catherine Zeta-Jones ,” she says. The following day Michael’s body was found under the yacht by police divers.

The coroner for Cumbria, Philip Sharp, ruled that he died from drowning and recorded a verdict of accidental death. He wrote to the yacht’s registered owner – a PO box in the British Virgin Islands – to raise concerns that “crew members and in this case the deceased were likely to have been asked to work additional shifts when the boat came in to port, potentially causing tiredness”. Sharp’s letter required the yacht’s owner to provide all crew with a key to the boat, and to ensure the captain check the crew are not required to work excessive hours.

An unnamed director of the superyacht’s owner, Pluteus Limited (a company based in Monaco, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and registered in the Cayman Islands), wrote to the coroner to say: “We are keen to cooperate and address the concerns you have identified as a result of the inquest. However, please note that in doing so, no acknowledgment or admission of failings or liability is intended or to be inferred.”

The director said that access to the yacht had been improved by the provision of keyless codes to all staff. It was also promised that working hours would be monitored, “to ensure crew members are not working additional hours without the requisite rest periods, in particular between shifts, unless the safety of the boat, crew and passengers is in danger”.

“It’s destroyed our family,” Fiona Hanlon says. “Michael wanted to travel the world. Instead he’s in my bag [she carries his urn with her] and I’ve taken him to see the Great Pyramid of Giza, Pearl Harbour and the Great Wall of China.”

Meanwhile, chief mate Liz Brasler is wondering what job she might do next. She says that while working on superyachts has been fun, it can be difficult, demoralising and sometimes dangerous. Friends have been injured and she knows of others who have died. “We’re insured, but it doesn’t cover everything. I know the price of my life,” she says. “And it’s less than my parents think.”

• Death and dying

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Deep, dark secrets of crew aboard wild superyachts

From cannabis buffets to choppering in caviar, posh charter life can be a rough — albeit rewarding — ride for the crew.

At a shipyard in the Netherlands — the world’s megayacht maternity ward — the largest vessel of its kind is being custom-built for Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos at a projected cost that tops $500m. With more than 120m of sleek aluminium and steel, it will join an elite new vessel category: the gigayacht.

The pandemic has intensified the desire to bubble oneself away from the world and widened the wealth gap further, making Bezos merely the latest business magnate fancying a life at sea (when he’s not in space).

“The market’s been roaring,” says Sam Tucker, head of superyacht research at VesselsValue in London. “Second-hand sales are red hot, and it’s impossible to get a slot in a build yard.”

Even charters — where a person, group or family rents out a yacht for a trip — are through the roof. “Our year-on-year business is up over 340% from 2020 up to now,” says Patrick Curley, cofounder of brokerage firm YachtLife Technologies.

Even the on-board jobs have become competitive. “There are hundreds of people clamouring to get a spot on a boat,” says Luke Hammond, captain of the 44m M/Y Bella (“M/Y” for motor yacht). Most applicants have fantasies of beachside bottle service and sailing to more than a dozen countries a year while attending to deep-pocketed glitterati.

But reality for the crew is hardly sunning in St Tropez and hobnobbing with sheikhs, as I quickly learnt when I scored a position as a deckhand aboard the Bella — a pristine, semicustom, six-cabin, four-deck vessel with a skylight and floating tub in its owner’s suite.

A good yachtie isn’t seen or heard — but they see and hear everything. Earpieces, radios and cameras help keep a constant eye on guests, all feeding back to a control room.

When guests are seen leaving for breakfast, the stewards (or stews, for short) are immediately deployed to the guest rooms to clean. When someone picks mushrooms out of an omelette, the chef makes a note to tweak the dish the next morning.

Of course, this also means staff see and hear things of a more risqué nature, such as one yachtie whose repeat client insisted on spending her entire seven-day foray in the nude, often passing out drunk in unbecoming positions. Semiclad sunbathing (most often by “paid friend” types), spouse swaps and drunken fisticuffs are also common.

Watching the cameras can be like blooper TV. “We’ve seen guys do splits with one foot on the boat and the other on the tender as they drifted apart,” one of my colleagues recalls. “One time,” Hammond adds, “we watched someone get slapped in the face by a flying fish.”

“Salt kills everything,” says Clint Jones, a longtime captain who worked aboard an A-list golfer’s vessel before joining YachtLife as a broker. Any time the ships move through water — even if it’s simply steering to another beach 30 minutes away — the sea splash necessitates hours of cleaning.

Sports stars are reputed to be the messiest guests and most prone to trashing vessels. The biggest infraction in recent memory, says a senior YachtLife broker, was an NBA basketball player who went out on a boat in the morning and had wrecked it by lunch, dousing the interiors in sprayed champagne, then clogging all of the cabin toilets with his vomit.

The crew knows immediately if you’re a charter newbie when you bust out the aerosol sunscreen — it’s the hardest stain to clean, says Gina Nivison, the Bella’s chief stewardess, who makes every effort to gently cajole clients towards creams before they arrive. Women who sleep in tanning oil and makeup drive staff nuts, too; when I boarded the Bella, staff members were replacing $8,000 worth of linens for that very reason. Fried food is also terrible: the greasy crumbs tend to escape sweeping and need to be meticulously picked off teak floorboards one by one.

The Caribbean

Gone are the days when pleasure yachts were drifting cocaine dens — “it’s definitely not the ’80s anymore,” Hammond says. Boats can be impounded and captains arrested if illegal substances are found on board, thanks to ubiquitous port laws that clamped down on smuggling in the ’90s. In a total U-turn, the Bahamas, once a prime drug-dealing way station, is now among the most family friendly locales — along with much of the Caribbean. And in general, the no-narcotics rules are so strict, Hammond has had to fire a few deckhands over the years for casually smoking a blunt off the bow of his ships.

Prostitutes are a different story. “We see day-use girlfriends on other boats all the time,” says Christopher Sawyer, the Bella’s chef, “especially in the Med”. He’s even witnessed big spenders fill a secondary superyacht with women to trail the lead vessel, swapping them on and off — 10 at a time — throughout the course of several days.

Often a yacht will be rented for two weeks: the first for the family, the second for bachelor partyesque antics. I’ll tell you about the crazy land-bound shopping sprees in a bit, they’re often the wives’ revenge.

Taking every guest into account when food shopping is key. Especially pets. Once, Sawyer cooked a week’s worth of meals for a dog named Bellini. “He just looked at you like he knew he was rich,” he says.

Babies can be discerning, too. “One guest had me cook whole meals, just to cram them down the blender for his kid,” the chef notes. “I remember making a lovely Irish stew, then pulverising it into mush.”

The Bella’s kitchen staff sends out detailed guest preference surveys to anticipate unexpected food requests. But guests’ nationalities contain valuable clues, too.

Whatever Middle Eastern clients want, they want it in abundance. “They eat like Americans but want five times the portion size, always served buffet style,” Sawyer says. “And they only eat around 10%.” Emirati and Saudi wives like to commandeer his kitchen to cook meals just as their families like them. “I don’t usually mind,” Sawyer says. “I get to learn new recipes.”

For Russians, “it’s a lot of lentils,” he continues. “You know, besides the vodka and caviar.”

And, boy, do they like their fish eggs. Every experienced yachtie I met said that if a guest arrives via private jet from Moscow, a chopper is likely to come to replenish the supply halfway through a trip. “It’s a total flex move,” Jones says.

Once, in an ultraremote part of the Caribbean, he had to magically conjure more champagne and caviar — calling up a provisioner in Florida and then organising a private plane to fly it to St Lucia. From there, Jones says, “we had to hire a boat to run it halfway to our vessel, so I could take a tender and ferry it the rest of the way”.

Spoilt crew

“When you’re around people with high demands all the time, it really starts to rub off on you,” Nivison says. “Since we don’t have to pay for our food or housing, we really go all-out when we have time off, as though we owned our own boats.”

Better yet, they’re frequently asked to accompany guests on six- or seven-figure shopping sprees — to hold the bags — and get rewarded with collateral, such as an Hermès scarf. Other times, luxury apparel is left on board. “We offer to send it back to clients. But they usually don’t care, so we get to keep it,” one of the stewardesses reports.

The same applies to food and booze. “We once had such a ridiculous surplus of Kobe beef that I was doing Wagyu fajitas for the staff after we got sick of eating fillets every night,” Sawyer says, laughing.

Even still, employee turnover is high, largely thanks to “cabin goggles”, the phenomenon of appearing better looking simply because you’re among a limited population of yachties. You may not be looking to shack up, but if you’re a three on land, suddenly you’re an eight at sea, so it’s only a matter of time.

Very rarely, a senior crew member will marry into the owner’s family, securing a lifelong upgrade on the yacht they once scrubbed. Dreams can come true.

Often a yacht will be rented for two weeks: the first for the family, the second for bachelor partyesque antics ... crazy land-bound shopping sprees are often the wives’ revenge.

When a boat is being chartered, the unspoken rule is for the renter — called the “primary” — to tip each crew member 1% of the total weekly rental cost. For the Bella, which costs $220,000 for seven days (not including food, fuel and dockage), staff can plan on pocketing at least $2,200 each. The number can be far higher if a group leaves behind what’s left of their food and fuel deposit — 30% of the total trip cost — and it’s dispersed to staff. A great summer in the Med could bring in $50,000 worth of tips per person, and then there are those elusive one-off charters where yachties hit it big with a $10,000 bonus.

Owners, on the other hand, rarely tip because they’re the crew’s boss. But anniversary bonuses, meant to reward loyalty, can be tremendous: a Breitling watch for completing a year of service or a Rolex for hitting five. Yachties who get in with their owners are even sometimes granted shares of their companies or invitations to be early investors in their next ventures, forms of gratitude that could pay dividends.

South Florida 

South Florida — from Palm Beach down to Miami — is quickly becoming a ’roided-out version of the Mediterranean. “But in Florida,” YachtLife’s Curley says, “the party’s all 12 months of the year.”

There the business is about day charters, often for time-crunched celebs willing to drop $15,000 on one epic joyride. On “Sunday Fundays”, Curley says, “you head out in the morning, drop anchor at the sandbar off Key Biscayne, play with the toys before you’re too drunk, then dock at the trendiest club.”

Drugs are rampant on land, even among brokers. At one agent’s office, I watched as he closed the sale of a limited-edition 33m Riva Dolcevita (a certain soccer star owns one; the asking price is more than $15m). He then slammed his laptop shut and did a line of blow off its silvery sheen; another did a key bump while we were driving to meet a day charter client at his house.

At one club, I was invited on board an owner’s docked boat, only to find a veritable buffet of weed. While looking for the bathroom, I stumbled into another secret lair: a dedicated cocaine room, complete with an ornate mirrored table.

High expenses

As a general rule, superyachts cost a million dollars for every metre you build. Because they measure at least 36m, buying one will set you back about $40m before common add-ons such as jacuzzis and helipads. And then there are the toys, from jet skis to $5m submarines.

Fuelling, electricity, dockage fees, maintenance and other operational expenses stretch the wallet further at an annual rate of about 5% of the ship’s purchase price. That includes taking care of the crew. As I learnt happily, owners are responsible for feeding them, stocking their bathrooms with toothbrushes and shampoos and outfitting them with a branded wardrobe.

Then there’s the art. “I once worked on a vessel that had a Picasso in the galley — the staff saw it way more than the owner,” Hammond says, adding that his ships have held everything including Fabergé eggs and concert pianos. Another, owned by an LVMH exec, was designed with as many Dior products as could fit inside, including custom wallpaper. (Salt air and sunshine be damned.)

But the biggest depreciating asset is the ship itself. “You lose 20% of what you paid as soon as your boat leaves the yard and then single-digit percentage points off the purchase price every 12 months after that,” Hammond notes. That’s an $8m instant hit on a $40m sticker price, minus an additional $2m a year in upkeep.

 “Clearly if you’re getting into yachting, you’re not doing it as an investment,” he says.

Bloomberg Businessweek. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com.

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Nightmares from the Sea

Because cannibalism and monsters make good bedtime stories., authored by, article body copy.

From the safety of land, it’s easy to romanticize the ocean. Its shades of blues and greens evoke paradise, while its surface rises and falls hypnotically. But these mesmerizing qualities belie the ocean’s perilous nature. For when you leave terra firma for the sea, you’re at the mercy of its mercurial moods. With every storm, death rears its head, confronting you with a fate too terrifying to imagine. Perhaps that’s why the ocean lies at the heart of countless legends: people want to seek answers from the unknown, to be enthralled by the horrible. From a monster that unnerves a ship’s hardened crew to a luxury liner that simply disappears, here are five tales of depravity and horror set on the deep blue sea.

Unmoored and Unmanned

In 1872, a brigantine named the Mary Celeste set course from New York City to Genoa, Italy, carrying seven crew members, the captain, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter. One month later, a British ship spotted the brig, which should have already reached its destination, drifting in the North Atlantic, hundreds of kilometers from land. When its crew members boarded the Mary Celeste , they found weeks’ worth of food, shoes, and other personal belongings. An unfinished breakfast, likely the child’s, was still sitting on the dining room table, covered in mold. To the British seamen investigating the Mary Celeste , it was as if those on board had single-mindedly abandoned ship. Yet despite some seawater sloshing in its hold, the brig was deemed seaworthy. Below deck, the seamen found 1,701 barrels of industrial alcohol, nine of them empty. Could their noxious fumes have set off sparks, scaring everyone on the Mary Celeste into the lifeboat? If so, where did they plan to go, given they were so far from land? No one can say for sure, because the crew, the captain, and his family were never seen again.

The tale of the Mary Celeste continues to obsess ghost ship fanatics, as it may be the closest true analog to the centuries-old legend of the Flying Dutchman , the mythic vessel that is cursed to sail the ocean forevermore. As such, it has been fodder for many storytellers. In 1884, Arthur Conan Doyle penned a fictitious account of what transpired on the Mary Celeste in a short story unrelated to Sherlock Holmes, and in 1935, the ship inspired one of the first entries to Hammer Film Productions’ horror cannon with The Mystery of the Mary Celeste , starring Bela Lugosi of Dracula fame. In that retelling, those on board get murdered one by one. Could that have been how the real crew and the captain’s family met their fate?

Monster from the Deep

Many a sailor has recounted tales of monsters from the sea. Perhaps with whisky in hand, one might recall the time when a kraken, a giant squid from Nordic legend that’s now known to be based in reality , nearly capsized his boat. Or he tells a yarn of a cryptozoological creature with unworldly dimensions. One particular legend of such a creature comes from 1848, when men aboard the Royal Navy’s HMS Daedalus encountered a Nessie-like leviathan in the South Atlantic. It was an “enormous serpent,” Captain Peter M’Quhae noted in a report, “its colour a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of seaweed, washed about its back.

“It passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily recognized his features with the naked eye.” This account, as well as others aboard the Daedalus, spurred a media flurry, and in subsequent years many sailors reported seeing the serpentine beast.

But despite M’Quhae’s confident sighting, no such creature has been found in the ocean—at least not in our epoch . Using an artist’s rendering of the monster from the time, Gary J. Galbreath of the Skeptical Inquirer determined, anticlimactically, that the crew likely spotted a large baleen whale—a sei, to be specific—as it skimmed the surface in search of food.

The Case for Cannibalism

In 1844, an Australian lawyer looking to impress his fellow yachtsmen back home purchased an aging—but importantly British—yacht dubbed the Mignonette in England. There, he found a crew to sail the boat back to Sydney, and in doing so, he inadvertently secured the fates of four men: Thomas Dudley, Edwin Stephens, Edmund Brooks, and Richard Parker.

As the Mignonette headed toward the Cape of Good Hope, a violent storm hit. Built of wood that had begun to rot, the yacht sank in a matter of minutes. In their haste, the four seamen escaped to a four-meter dinghy with two tins of turnips but no water. The dinghy drifted westward, toward South America some 3,000 kilometers away. But without water, the continent offered unlikely salvation. Days turned into weeks, and the men grew increasingly feeble. In such desperate circumstances, sailors invoke the custom of the sea, a grim proceeding in which men draw lots to decide who gets sacrificed for food so that his mates might survive. But rather than leaving it to chance, Captain Dudley and his first mate Stephens determined that Parker, a 17-year-old orphan who’d become delirious after drinking seawater, was the obvious choice. Dudley stabbed Parker to death, and the three remaining men dined on the young man’s flesh. Just four days later, a German ship rescued the survivors. Back in England, Dudley and Stephens were convicted of murder, though they were not the first seamen to resort to cannibalism. What made them distinct, however, was that they had abandoned the custom of the sea by choosing which man would be killed and eaten—a hubristic decision that defied the sailor code. But the survivors’ tale of desperation ultimately elicited the public’s sympathy, and Dudley and Stephens were spared the death sentence. For killing the teenager, they served only six months in prison.

What happened to Dudley and Stephens became enshrined in an infamous precedent-setting case in England, which determined the taking of a life can never be justified—even when it means saving one’s own.

The Vanishing

Three years before the RMS Titanic sank, another behemoth sailed the ocean in opulent splendor only to meet a similar fate. In 1909, the 142-meter SS Waratah carried 211 people on its route from Australia to England. Outfitted with 100 first-class cabins, the ship carried enough food for a year and endless drinking water thanks to its desalination plant. But unlike the Titanic , it was not equipped with a radio, which was still a nascent technology at the time. Upon reaching Durban, South Africa, completing the first part of its journey, some passengers noted how stomach-turning their voyage had been. One person complained that the Waratah was top-heavy, making it roll and lurch at sickening angles. Another passenger dreamed that the ship would sink as it continued to England and so chose not to embark for the next leg of the trip. His nightmare was prescient, for between Durban and Cape Town, South Africa, the Waratah disappeared. And with no radio on board, there was no indication as to where the ship had gone. However, the sea off the coast of South Africa is known to be treacherous. Could a tempest have capsized the steamer? Yet in the 110 years since the Waratah vanished, numerous search teams have only found the wreckages of other ships. Why has this relatively young shipwreck continued to evade discovery?

Petrified Souls

As it sailed down the Strait of Malacca between Sumatra and Malaysia in the late 1940s, a Dutch freighter called the SS Ourang Medan sent out a chilling distress call that the officers, captain—possibly the entire crew—were dead. An incoherent spate of Morse code followed, after which the ship’s radio operator issued a final sign-off: “I die.” When a US merchant ship investigated, its crew found corpses strewn across the deck, their mouths fixed in grimaces and their eyes staring out, vacant. No survivors were found. As the US ship began to tow the Ourang Medan to port, smoke billowed from the freighter’s hull. The merchant ship severed the line connecting the vessels just before the Ourang Medan exploded and sank, burying the petrified Dutch crew in a watery grave. All evidence of the ship went down with them, allowing rumors to fill the void.

In a bizarre letter dated 1959, the assistant to the director of the CIA claimed that whatever befell the Ourang Medan could explain all of the “unsolved mysteries of the sea”: the myriad airplane crashes and shipwrecks, the “fiery spheres” observed falling into, and emanating from, the ocean. (It might be worth noting that the CIA had been experimenting with LSD during this time.) To add to the mystery, no entry exists for the Dutch ship in Lloyd’s Register, which has classified large merchant ships since the late 1700s. Without that key piece of information, conspiracy theories have taken hold. One claims that nerve gas, developed in wartime Japan, had been smuggled onto the foreign freighter by the Japanese military, where it leaked, killed the crew, and eventually ignited. Others, in all seriousness, point to the fantastical: ghosts or aliens who may have played a role in the demise of the  Ourang Medan ’s crew.

But without any evidence of its existence, is it possible that someone simply made up the Dutch ship , its distress call, and the events that transpired on it—perhaps someone from the merchant ship, which, according to Lloyd’s Register, did exist? But regardless of whether or not the events of the SS Ourang Medan ever took place, at least we have the grisly legend to keep us awake at night.

Related Topics

• Five Things

8 superyacht crew members share the most extreme requests they've had to deal with on the job

• Superyacht crew members have to meet every expectation of superyacht owners and guests.
• Business Insider recently polled  superyacht crew members to find out some of the most extreme requests they've received.
• From last-minute helicopter trips to flying in soda to a remote island, here's what they had to say.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .

Working on a superyacht is grueling. 

There are long hours, lots of cleaning, and demanding guests and owners.

Business Insider recently polled  superyacht crew members to get an inside look at life on board. When asked for the strangest request they've ever received from a guest or owner, some didn't have much to say. As one electronic technical officer on a 223-foot yacht put it, "Guests can be really boring."

But others had several stories to share.

Read more : 9 superyacht crew members share what it's really like working for a billionaire on board

When people are paying millions to run the yacht or hundreds of thousands to charter it out for a week, they expect to get their money's worth — and everything they want.

That leaves many superyacht crew members running around trying to meet the highest expectations. From the funny to the ridiculous to the tedious, here are some of the strangest requests they've received on the job.

Note: Business Insider was able to verify each crew member's identity, but we refrained from publishing their full names to protect their privacy.

Some owners are really dedicated to the sports teams they own.

Michael, a former yacht captain who worked on yachts ranging from 130 to 170 feet, recalled a time when a superyacht owner wanted to watch the NBA basketball team he owned play in the semifinals or finals. At the time, the yacht was anchored near a reef off of eastern Honduras, where there was terrible satellite coverage, he said.

"He also owned a small network that broadcast the game and paid to have the satellite footprint moved to cover our area which was tens of thousands of dollars," he said. "Still did not get the game. The only image that came across of the game was his mother (who loved the team) sitting next to Stevie Wonder."

And beach toys are very important — even if it means getting them in the middle of the night.

Water time isn't complete without some good floats. At least, that is, for some of the guests that chief stewardess Nic has had on board.

At 8 p.m., her guests requested inflatable crocodile and baby water floats — and they wanted them for the next morning. "One hire car and six hours later, we arrived back at the boat with the items," she said.

Sometimes yachts aren't the only trips involved.

Just like the average Joe, superyacht owners can be forgetful. But unlike the average Joe, they always have a way of getting what they need — no matter where they are.

Mark, the captain of a 114-foot yacht, said his superyacht owner once needed a crew member to fly 4,000 miles round trip in 34 hours via business class to pick up a small bag of clothes for the boss' wife.

But some requests can be more mind-blowingly tedious than anything else.

Some requests aren't even extravagant, but tedious and meticulous. A stewardess on a 112-foot sailing yacht told Business Insider that she was once asked to pick out all the broken candies in the candy bowls.

Guests make sure they can get anywhere they want.

One crew member was working on a motor yacht anchored in Greece, and a guest wondered why they weren't playing golf; the crew member told him the nearest course was three hours away.

"Without hesitation, he asked, 'Was there no helicopter available?'" the crew member said. "I was a bit taken back and let him know I hadn't considered that option. He politely let me know he would be happy to pay for one if the situation arises in the future. Sure enough, several residents took the option for private airlift via helicopter or jet to play a round of golf." He said they've also stopped the yacht for a guest to play his guitar on an iceberg while cruising the Arctic. 

Chefs are expected to work around the clock — even if they're sleeping.

Yacht chefs can deal with especially demanding requests — they're always at the whim of someone else's appetite and cravings.

After being in bed for 2 1/2 hours, one chef on a 150-foot motor yacht said he was asked to whip up a small-plate buffet — at 3 a.m.

Some crew members are asked to keep quiet and get dirty.

One crew member who has worked on yachts ranging from 100 to 130 feet as both a mate and a junior engineer has seen it all.

"On the deck side, [the most extreme request has] been to purposely keep my eyes down and not address the topless prostitutes on board," he said. "On the engineering side, it's been to get in murky canal water to dig the ocean floor deeper and scrub the bottom of the boat."

And some guests get very thirsty.

A second stewardess who works on a 200-foot yacht said an owner once asked if they could fly Fanta (the soda) to an island in the middle of nowhere.

• Main content

The dark side of yachting

Sexual harassment and assault is a pervasive problem that many in the industry don’t want to acknowledge, yet nearly all female crew say they have had to grapple with it at some point in their career..

In the tight-knit, high-pressure, service-oriented environment of a yacht, a crew member’s job is to make the impossible possible and to always say yes. So what happens when the answer is no?

The International Labour Organization (ILO), Lloyds Register Foundation, and Gallup all report that more than one in five employees have experienced violence and harassment at work, whether physical, psychological, or sexual — and the superyacht industry is not immune.

Among the calls received in 2022 by the International Seafarers’ Welfare and Assistance Network’s Yacht Crew Helpline, “sexual abuse and harassment — many severe rape cases — accounted for 5.02% of total cases,” according to Georgia Allen, ISWAN projects and relationships manager. And in an anonymous poll posted on the Palma Yacht Crew Facebook group in January, more than 40% of survey respondents said they had been sexually harassed or assaulted by another crew member.

Sexual harassment is a broad term, including many types of unwelcome verbal and physical sexual attention. Sexual assault is defined as physical contact or behavior without the explicit consent of the victim. The claims are not based on whether the victim or perpetrator is male or female; they are based on whether the comments, actions, or contact — verbal or physical — is unwanted and offensive.

By its nature, the industry is highly hierarchical, and many senior roles tend to be occupied by men, often resulting in a male-dominated leadership structure. This gender imbalance in leadership can facilitate abuse and has the potential to let negative behaviors go unchecked.

Also, the reactive rather than proactive stance within an industry already known for its lack of universal regulation and oversight has meant certain procedures and policies intended to serve as safeguards for this issue have fallen by the wayside. With increasing professionalism, much of this questionable activity could be curbed. However, sexual harassment and assault run rife within the industry, and the yachting-specific #metoo movement continues.

But why? Is there a lack of proper leadership training, or a weak reporting and repercussion infrastructure? Is a negative onboard culture to blame? Triton ’s intention with this story is not  a finger-pointing exercise or an exposé on the lurid details of various cases that have been reported to us by crew. Instead, we consulted authorities on the topic and explored the various avenues that exist to better understand why this problem continues to pervade the industry — and what can be done to stop it.

The recruitment process

As a workplace, yachting is highly singular. Blurred lines between work and living create a unique conundrum for the crew — and for those assembling them.

In the no holds barred, “Wild West of the sea” environment of earlier eras, contracts were given out on bar napkins and good faith; today, there are more stringent recruitment processes. However, perpetrators continue to enter the industry and maintain their employment on board. Tim Clarke, director of Quay Crew, said, “We know that predators are working within yachting.”

The fact that these candidates are still getting on board is troubling. Liam Dobbin, director at crew agency Wilsonhaligan, explained that the recruitment process needs more honesty. “As a minimum standard, we always speak with references and check with people who aren’t even listed as a reference,” he said.

Clarke concurs. “Every candidate we put forward has a verbal reference taken,” he said. “The reason for this is that written references mean absolutely nothing. Weekly, we get told one horror story over the phone and countless more verbal references which don’t match the written reference.”

While some agencies do their due diligence, perpetrators still fall through the gaps and continue to work on board.

Toxic cultures

One root cause of harassment and abuse can be the lack of a psychologically safe working environment. Psychological safety means crew members can speak up about issues without losing their jobs or suffering some other punishment.

Charles Watkins, clinical psychologist and founder of Mental Health Support Solutions, said, “Creating an environment of psychological safety means people are resilient enough, trust their leaders enough to speak up, and that will result in action.”

If this is lacking and there is a toxic onboard culture, it suggests bad behavior can continue. Harassment and sexual assault continue in yachting because there is “an environment that turns a blind eye towards it, or at least doesn’t actively talk about these issues, and people refusing to act,” Watkins said.

While the boundaries of this bad behavior are clear to many, these lines can become hazy when under the influence. The use (and abuse) of alcohol is a part of yachting culture that is normalized through a fully stocked crew mess and the “work hard, play hard” mentality. This, of course, does not apply to all yachts and crew, nor is it the crux of the issue. But it can compound it. Angela Wallace, director of the welfare group at PYA, pointed out that “perpetrators can get away with it under the guise of too much alcohol.”

Positions of power

The leadership cultivates the culture; if there is toxicity on board, a crew member in a position of power is allowing it. As in other industries, abuse of power is not a new issue, and it clearly plays into scenarios of sexual harassment and abuse.

“As probably in many other situations, it [sexual harassment] is an abuse of power,” said Wallace. And Watkins echoed that statement. “We see a lot that it [sexual harassment] is often because of an abuse of power” he said.

Capt. Kelly Gordon explained: “It seems as if some captains and HODs [heads of department] think that their position provides them with a sense of power that they often abuse. I have seen higher ranks use their position to make unwelcome sexual advances, and sadly, the crew member rarely speaks up for fear of being fired. I have witnessed HODs be downright mean to those they are in charge of.”

Capt. Gordon is challenging industry trends. She of the Sea, an organization advocating for gender equality and diversity, found that only one in four women in yachting occupy a senior position. This gender inequality plays an important role in the problem. For example, it isn’t uncommon for job roles to be advertised as gender-specific, with the subordinate roles generally being “female only.” While more women in leadership roles won’t eliminate the problem, it would help to create more significant gender equity, altering male domination within the industry.

These ingrained issues of power and gender imbalance may be the cause of the current low crew retention rates. Last month’s conference in Nice on “improving crew retention” is one sign of this industry-wide problem. While some may put it down to the “younger, more entitled generation” entering the industry, could it be instead that people are no longer willing to suffer silently within these toxic environments?

He said, she said

Creating an environment whereby the crew can feel safe to speak up is crucial, but what infrastructure is in place to do so?

Vessel compliance is an issue that is failing parts of the industry. Under the International Safety Management (ISM) code, commercially registered vessels over 500 GT must implement a mandatory safety management system (SMS) that identifies and safeguards against various issues, including bullying and harassment.

This code also requires vessels to have a designated person ashore (DPA) implemented by yacht management. These vessels must also be Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) compliant, stipulating contractual terms of the seafarer’s rights at work.

But the majority of contracts within the industry also come with an NDA, and some crew may feel gagged by these nondisclosure agreements. “NDAs are often frequently used for dubious reasons,” said Clarke. “While this culture of brushing incidents under the carpet exists, yachting will always have this issue.”

Although it is recommended that vessels under 500 GT follow MLC guidelines and comply with national employment laws and respective flag states, there is no requirement for them to do so.

Many vessels have documentation related to bullying and harassment, and typically it refers the crew member to the captain or HOD. But to whom can the crew member turn if one of them is the perpetrator? And without mandatory implementation, what happens on all the vessels under 500 GT that are slipping through these nets?

Yachts are part of a global, transient industry that crosses various jurisdictions, and this can be an additional hurdle when it comes to legally reporting sexual assault cases.

Better recruiting

While the problems are evident, what is being done to mitigate them is less so. A first, vital step would be getting the right people on board to foster a positive and safe environment.

“Agencies should be doing all they can to protect candidates rather than think only about the fee,” Clarke said. One way his company, Quay Crew, does this is through CrewPass.

CrewPass is a crew vetting system created by Conrad Empson, an ex-crew member and star of the Bravo “Below Deck” reality TV series. The system aims to tighten security and safety within the yacht recruitment process by providing a central place for recruiters to run a full, global criminal background check on crew and to verify their certification.

“Once every two weeks, we get a crew member reaching out to report someone that was violent,” Empson said. “We store that name and that information when we do a criminal search to investigate further.”

“CrewPass is an excellent tool to reduce the risk of hiring that predator, and it protects the owner, guests, and crew from being in close proximity to that person,” Clarke said.

If everyone were to use the CrewPass service, would this reduce the number of perpetrators getting on board? Perhaps. “Clean recruiting” is an excellent method in theory, but what about those perpetrators without records?

Capt. Luke Hammond offers another solution through his recently launched “recruitment by referral” platform, Refrr. “I am getting someone on board that is already referred, so there is my social proof — and on the flip side, that person knows that because they were referred [by a friend], they aren’t stepping into a crazy workplace,” Capt. Hammond said.

Among recruiters, there are diverse opinions on psychological testing to ensure the right crew is put together. While there can be benefits, such tests are certainly not a perfect indicator of an individual’s personality.

As Capt. Hammond put it, “Once you stack the work hours, long days, lack of sleep, everyone cracks. It’s not if, it’s when.” Reinforcing his reasoning on referrals, he added, “How someone reacts at that moment is down to who knows them and has worked with them before.”

Training is key

The industry recruits and gives power to individuals based on experience rather than leadership capacity. The crew may be trained for all first-aid, firefighting, and sea survival eventualities, but with no human resource staff on board, there is a gap in training to ensure a psychologically safe environment. Watkins notes that the crew is trained in performance, not people management.

The Personal Safety and Social Responsibilities (PSSR) module within the STCW briefly touches on the issue, but it is woefully inadequate. Some maritime schools opt for more in-depth training, such as the HELM Operational and Management courses — but more must be done. “In psychology, just like medicine, the earlier you catch things, the easier it is to treat,” Watkins said.

Lucy Mess, head of crew at Burgess, said, “Education and training are key. The aim is to deal with the issue before it becomes an issue.”

Former purser Emma Brealey, now head of operations at the Crew Academy, said, “Training around communication, leadership, and conflict resolution can empower crew with knowledge and the confidence to stand up.”

Shelley Viljoen, head of recruitment at The Crew Hunter, said, “Training can definitely mitigate issues of power and control. We provide a safeguarding course which is about training crew to prevent abusive behaviors and to act on them.”

Implementing mandatory training and education will also help change attitudes. “We must wipe out ‘old school’ attitudes on board yachts,” said Mess.

Emma Kate Ross, founder of Seasthemind, said, “It is important to listen and communicate nonjudgmentally and to have better-nuanced conversations.”

Some crew commented in the anonymous Facebook poll that while they had not been subject to sexual harassment or abuse themseves, they had witnessed it or known of others within the industry who experienced it. Training is also a critical element in actualizing change through the role of bystanders.

Zero tolerance

Increased awareness promotes zero-tolerance attitudes. Perpetrators must know they will not get away with sexual harassment and assault without recourse. However, at the moment, there is no way to blacklist a crew member who has sexual harassment or abuse history — whether reported or not. The MLC provisions detailed in Article 1.4 state that “recruitment companies will not maintain a blacklist to prevent individual seafarers from gaining employment.”

Upon Triton ’s questioning, it was explained that the unions insisted on adding this clause as a response to blacklists of seafarers who were union members, or who had made complaints or raised health and safety concerns. Regardless, it still means slipping through the net is possible if you have a chequered past or an unchecked criminal record.

Some management companies are working hard to ensure that action is taken.

“We must manage the discipline of the sexual harasser correctly. Any complaints will be managed within the yacht disciplinary and grievance procedures,” said Mess.

Agnes Nilendere, yacht operations manager for Bluewater, said, “Our managed vessels have harassment and bullying procedures on board as part of the safety system.”

While such proactive steps sound good in theory, challenges remain when it comes to junior crew members needing to report a more senior crew member. For the crew to feel safe in reporting, there needs to be a neutral and independent resource unconnected to the yacht. Karine Rayson, founder of The Crew Coach, said, “We need an objective, independent party to manage and address these issues.”

Change is in the air

Despite the appearance of a never-ending uphill battle, policies can and are being changed. Many organizations, such as Safer Waves and Human Rights At Sea, didn’t exist 10 years ago. Today, they are helping move the correct agenda forward.

CHIRP (the Confidential Human Factors Incident Reporting Programme) advocates for an onboard culture of safety on the presumption that a collaborative approach has the most impact. Earlier this year, CHIRP brought together similar organizations — Safer Waves, Mission to Seafarers, ISWAN, and The Seafarers Charity — to tackle the issue. This month, they plan another meeting to discuss a power-in-numbers approach, with the hope of driving tangible change.

COPE (the Center for Ocean Policy and Economics) is also making extremely positive progress after submitting proposals to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Eva Lianne Veldkamp, who leads the working group on psychological safety, bullying, sexual abuse, and harassment, said, “The future will see mandatory training requirements, specifically for sexual harassment and bullying, and they are being developed and finalized with priority as part of the comprehensive review of the STCW, and it will be considered for amendments in the ISM code and a point of discussion at ILO concerning human rights.”

Resource list for crew:

Women Offshore

Safer Waves

The Seafarers Charity

Mission to Seafarers

Seasthemind

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Shipwrecked: A Shocking Tale of Love, Loss, and Survival in the Deep Blue Sea

Illustration by Comrade

A drift in the middle of the ocean, no one can hear you scream.

It was a lesson Brad Cavanagh was learning by the second. He had been above deck on the Trashman , a sleek, 58-foot Alden sailing yacht with a pine-green hull and elegant teak trim, battling 100-mile-per-hour winds as sheets of rain fell from the turbulent black sky. The latest news report had mentioned nothing about bad weather, but two days into his voyage a tropical storm formed off of Cape Fear in the Carolinas, whipping up massive, violent waves out of nowhere. Soaked to the skin and too tired to stand, the North Shore native from Byfield sought refuge down below, where he braced himself by pressing his feet and back between the walls of a narrow hallway to keep from being knocked down as 30-foot-tall walls of water tossed the boat around the open seas.

Below deck with Cavanagh were four crewmates: Debbie Scaling, with blond hair and blue eyes, was an experienced sailor. As the first American woman to complete the Whitbread Round the World Race—during which she’d navigated some of the most difficult conditions on the planet—she was already well known in professional sailing circles. Mark Adams, a mid-twenties Englishman who had been Cavanagh’s occasional racing partner; the boat’s captain, John Lippoth; and Lippoth’s girlfriend, Meg Mooney, rounded out the crew, who were moving a Texas tycoon’s yacht from Maine to Florida for the winter season.

As the storm continued, Cavanagh grew increasingly angry. At 21 years old and less experienced than most of the others, he felt as though no one had a plan for how they were going to get out of this mess alive. He knew their situation was dire. The motor was dead for the third time on the trip, and they had already cut off the wind-damaged mainsail. That meant nature was in control. They could only ride it out and hope to survive long enough for the Coast Guard to rescue them. Crewmates had been in contact with authorities nearly every hour since the early morning, and a rescue boat was supposedly on its way. It’s just a matter of time , Cavanagh told himself again and again, just a matter of time.

After a while, the storm settled into a predictable pattern: The boat would ride up a wave, tilt slightly to port-side and then ride down the wave, and right itself for a moment of stillness and quiet, sheltered from the wind in the valley between mountains of water. Cavanagh began to relax, but then the boat rose over another wave, tilted hard, and never righted itself. Watching the dark waters of the Atlantic approach with terrifying speed through the window in front of him, Cavanagh braced for impact. An instant later, water shattered the window and began rushing into the boat. He jumped up from the floor with a single thought: He had to rouse Scaling from her bunkroom. He had to get everyone off the ship. The Trashman was going down.

Three days earlier, the weather had been perfect: The sun sparkled on the water and warmed everything its rays touched, despite bursts of cool breezes. Cavanagh was walking the docks of Annapolis Harbor alongside Adams, both of them hunting for work. A job Adams had previously secured for them aboard a boat had fallen through, and all they had to show for it was a measly $50 each. As they made their way along the water, Cavanagh spotted an attractive woman standing by a bank of pay phones. He looked at her and she stared back at him, a sandy-haired, 6-foot-3-inch former prep school hockey player draped in a letterman jacket. It wasn’t until she called out his name that he realized who she was: Debbie Scaling.

Cavanagh came of age in a boating family. He’d survived his first hurricane at sea in utero, and grew up on 4,300 feet of riverfront property in Byfield, where his father, a trained reconnaissance photographer named Paul, taught him and his siblings how to sail from an early age. From the outside, the elite schools, the sailboat, the new car every five years, the grand house, and the self-made patriarch gave the impression that the Cavanaghs were living the suburban American dream. Inside the home, though, it was a horror show. Always drinking, Cavanagh’s father emotionally abused, insulted, and belittled his wife and children, Cavanagh recalls. Whenever Cavanagh heard the clinking of ice cubes in his father’s glass, his stress meter spiked.

Despite that—or perhaps because of it—all Cavanagh ever wanted was his father’s approval. Sailing, he thought, would earn his respect. Cavanagh’s sister, Sarah, after all, had been a star sailor, and at family dinners his hard-drinking—and hard-to-please—father talked about her with pride and adulation. In fact, it was Cavanagh’s sister who had first met Scaling when they raced across the Atlantic together a year earlier. She had recently introduced Scaling to Cavanagh and her family, and now, standing at that pay phone in Annapolis, Scaling could hardly believe her eyes. At that very moment, she had just called Cavanagh’s household in hopes of convincing Sarah to join the crew of the Trashman , and here was Sarah’s younger brother standing right in front of her.

Scaling was desperately looking for help on the yacht. Already things had been going poorly: The boat’s captain, Lippoth, who was a heavy drinker, was passed out below deck when she first showed up at the Southwest Harbor dock in Maine to report for work. Soon after they set sail, they picked up the captain’s girlfriend, Mooney, because she wanted to come along for the trip. From Maine to Maryland, Lippoth rarely eased the sails and relied on the inboard motor, which consistently sputtered and needed repair. They’d struggled to pick up additional hands as they traveled south, and Scaling knew they needed more-qualified help for the difficult sail along the coast of the Carolinas, exposed at sea to high winds and waves. Scaling didn’t share any of this with Cavanagh or Adams when Lippoth offered them a job, though. Happy to have work, the pair accepted and climbed aboard.

Perhaps Cavanagh should have known something was wrong with the yacht when the captain mentioned that the engine kept burning out.

“Mayday! Mayday!” A crew member was shouting into the radio, trying to summon the Coast Guard as the yacht began taking on water. Cavanagh had just burst into Scaling’s cabin, while Adams roused Lippoth and Mooney. And now they huddled together at the bottom of a flight of stairs watching the salty seawater rise toward the ceiling. Lippoth tried to activate the radio beacon that would have given someone, anyone, their latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, but the water rushing in carried it away before he could reach it.

The crew started making their way up toward the deck to abandon ship. Cavanagh spotted the 11-and-a-half-foot, red-and-black Zodiac Mark II tied to a cleat near the cockpit. The outboard motor sat next to it on the mount, but the yacht was sinking too fast to grab it. As he fumbled with the lines of the Zodiac, one broke, recoiled, and ripped his shirt open. Then he lost his grip on the dinghy, and it floated off. Fortunately, it didn’t go far. Adams wasn’t so lucky. A strong gust of wind ripped the life raft out of his hands, and the sinking yacht started to take the raft and its emergency food, water rations, and first-aid kit down with it. By the time Cavanagh swam off the Trashman , it was nearly submerged.

As Cavanagh made his way toward the dinghy, he kicked off his boots, which belonged to his father. For a moment, all he could think was how angry his dad would be at him for losing them. When he got to the Zodiac, he yelled to the others to grab ahold of the raft before the yacht sucked them down with it. The crew made it onto the dinghy with nothing but the clothing on their backs. As they turned around, the last visible piece of the Trashman disappeared beneath the ocean.

Terrified, the five crew members spent the next four hours in the water, being thrashed about by the waves while holding on to the lines along the sides of the Zodiac, which they had flipped upside down to prevent it from blowing away. During the calmer moments, they ducked underneath for protection from the strong winds, with only their heads occupying a pocket of air underneath the raft. There wasn’t much space to maneuver, but still Cavanagh felt the need to move toward one end of the boat to get some distance from his crewmates while he processed his white-hot anger at Lippoth and Adams. Over the past two days, Adams had often been too drunk to do his job, and Lippoth never did anything about it, leaving him and Scaling to pick up the slack. Cavanagh had spent his childhood on a boat with a drunken father, and now, once again, he’d somehow managed to team up with an alcoholic sailing partner and a captain willing to look the other way.

Perhaps he should have known something was wrong with the yacht when the captain mentioned that the engine kept burning out. Maybe he should have been concerned that Lippoth didn’t even have enough money for supplies. But there was nothing he could do about it now, adrift in the Atlantic and crammed under an inflated dinghy trying to stay alive.

As nighttime approached and the temperature dropped, Cavanagh devised a plan for the crew to seek shelter on the underside of the Zodiac yet remain out of the water. First, he grabbed a wire on the raft and ran it from side to side. He lay his head on the bow of the boat and rested his lower body on the wire. Then the others climbed on top of him, any way they could, to stay under the dinghy’s floor but just out of the water. When the oxygen underneath the Zodiac ran out, they’d exit, lift the boat just long enough to allow new air into the pocket, and go back under again.

Sleep-deprived and dehydrated, Cavanagh’s mind wandered home to Byfield and the endless summer afternoons of his childhood spent under his family’s slimy dock, playing hide-and-seek with friends. Cavanagh had spent a lot of his life hiding from his father and his alcohol-fueled rages. If there was a silver lining to the abuse and the fear he grew up with, it was that he learned how to survive under pressure and to avoid the one fatal strain of seasickness: panic.

The next morning, that skill was suddenly in high demand as Lippoth unexpectedly swam out from under the Zodiac to find fresh air. He said he felt like he was having a heart attack and refused to go back under. The storm had calmed, but a cool autumn breeze was sucking the heat from their wet bodies, and Cavanagh wanted the crew to stay under the boat to keep warm. Disagreeing with him, Cavanagh’s crewmates decided to flip the boat right-side up and climb onboard. It momentarily saved their lives: They soon noticed three tiger sharks circling them.

Mooney had accidentally gotten caught on a coil of lines and wires while abandoning the yacht, leaving a bloody gash behind her knee. Everyone else had their cuts and scrapes, too, and the sharks had followed the scent. The largest shark in the group began banging against the boat, then swam under the craft and picked it up out of the water with its body before letting it drop back down. The crew grabbed onto the sides of the Zodiac while Cavanagh and Scaling tried to fashion a makeshift anchor out of a piece of plywood attached to the raft with the metal wire, hoping that it would help steady the boat. No sooner had they dropped the wood into the water than a shark bit it and began dragging the boat at full speed like some twisted version of a joy ride. When the shark finally spit the makeshift anchor out, Cavanagh reeled it in and Adams, in a rage, grabbed it and tried to smash the shark’s head with it. Cavanagh begged his partner to calm down. “The shark’s reaction to that might be bad,” he said, “so just cool it.”

Cavanagh believed that if they could all just stay calm enough to keep the boat upright, they could make it out alive. “The Coast Guard knows we’re here,” Cavanagh told the others, who had heard a plane roaring overhead before the Trashman sank. It was presumably sent to locate any survivors so a rescue ship could bring them back to shore. Unknown at the time was that a boat had been on the way to rescue the group, when for some reason—a miscommunication of sorts—the search was either forgotten or called off. No one was coming for them.

Brad Cavanagh is still haunted by his fight for survival. / Portrait by Matt Kalinowski

Fighting to survive, Cavanagh knew he needed to keep his mind and body busy. With blistered lips and cracked hands, he pulled seaweed onboard to use as a blanket, and he flipped the boat to clean out the urine and fetid water that had accumulated in it. First, he scanned the water to make sure the sharks had left. Then, with Adams’s help, he leaned back and tugged on the wire to flip the boat, rinsed it out, and flipped it back over again so everyone could climb back in. He had a job and a purpose, and it kept him sane.

The others struggled. Adams and Lippoth were severely dehydrated. (Adams from all the scotch he drank and Lippoth from the cigarettes he chain-smoked before the Trashman went down.) Meanwhile, Mooney’s cut was infected and filled with pus; she was getting sicker and weaker. As they lay together in a small pool of water in the bottom of the boat, they all developed body sores, likely from staph infections. Cavanagh’s skin became so tender that even brushing up against another person sent a current of pain through his body. After three days without food and water and using their energy to hold on to the Zodiac during the storm, they were all completely spent.

Realizing that the Coast Guard may not be coming after all, some crew members began to believe their only hope for survival was to eventually wash up on shore. What they weren’t aware of was that a current was pulling them even farther out to sea.

That night, Cavanagh dreamt of home. He was on a boat, sailing, and talking to the men on a fishing vessel riding along next to him as he made his way from Newburyport to Buzzards Bay. It was the route his family took when moving their boat every summer.

The day after he had that dream, the situation descended into a nightmare: Lippoth and Adams began drinking seawater. It slaked their thirst momentarily, but Cavanagh knew it would only be a matter of time before it sent them deeper into madness. Soon enough, the delusions began. First, Lippoth started reaching around the bottom of the boat looking for supplies that didn’t exist. “We bought cigarettes. Where are they?” Lippoth asked. Then Lippoth began trying to convince Mooney that they were going to take a plane to Maine, where his mother worked at a hospital. “We’re going to Portland,” he told her. “I’m going to get the car. I want you guys to pick up the boat and I’ll come back out and get you,” Lippoth said before sliding over the edge of the Zodiac and into the water.

“Brad, you’ve got to get John,” Scaling said to Cavanagh in a panic. But Cavanagh was so weak, he could barely muster the energy to coax Lippoth back onboard. “If you go away and die, then I might die, too. I don’t want to die,” Cavanagh pleaded.

It was too late. The wind pulled the Zodiac away from him. The captain soon drifted out of sight. Across the empty expanse of the ocean, Cavanagh could hear Lippoth’s last howls as the sharks attacked.

An old newspaper clipping of Cavanagh and Scaling, not long before their rescue. / Courtesy photo

Now there were four. Cavanagh, though, noticed Adams was quickly careening into madness, hitting on Mooney, and proposing that sex would cheer her up. Rebuffed, he decided to take his party elsewhere. “Great,” Cavanagh recalls him saying, “if we’re not going to have sex, I’m going back to 7-Eleven to get some beers and cigarettes.”

“You’re not going,” Cavanagh said. “We’re out in the middle of the ocean.”

“I know, I know,” he told Cavanagh. “I’m just going to hang over the side and stretch out a little bit. I’ll get back in the boat.”

Holding onto the side of the raft, Adams slipped into the water. Cavanagh looked away for a moment to say something to Scaling, and when he turned back, Adams was gone. Soon after, the boat began to spin and the water around them started to churn wildly. Cavanagh knew the sharks had gotten Adams, but he was so focused on surviving that it hardly registered that his racing buddy was gone forever.

The three remaining castaways spent the rest of the evening being knocked around as the sharks bumped and prodded the boat. They found something they like , Cavanagh said to himself. And now they want more.

Mooney lay there shivering violently from the cold. In the black of night, she lurched at Cavanagh, scratching at him and screaming. Then she began speaking in tongues. In the morning, Cavanagh woke first and found her lying on her back, her arms outstretched, staring into the sky. “She’s dead,” Cavanagh said when Scaling woke up. “She’s been dead for hours.”

Then a terrifying thought came to his mind: Maybe we could eat her . He was so hungry, so desperately famished, but her body was covered in sores and oozing pus.

Cavanagh and Scaling removed Mooney’s shirt so they would have another layer to keep warm, and her jewelry so they could return it to her family. They still hoped they would have that chance. Then they pushed her naked body off the raft. She floated like a jellyfish, with her arms and legs straight down, away and over the waves. Neither of them were watching when the sharks came for her, too.

After Mooney died, Scaling was troubled that she was lying in pus-infected water and begged Cavanagh to flip the boat over and clean it out. Weak and unsteady, he agreed to try. Standing on the edge of the Zodiac, he tugged the wire and tried to flip it, but he didn’t have the strength to do it alone. Then he gave another tug, lost his balance, and tumbled backward into the water. He tried to get back in the boat but couldn’t. Panic seized him. Every person who had come off that boat had been eaten by sharks. He needed to get back in fast, and he needed Scaling’s help.

Cavanagh begged her to help him up, but she only sat there sobbing inconsolably on the other side of the raft. With his last bit of strength, Cavanagh willed himself over the side on his own. He sat in the boat, winded and seething with anger. The entire time, from when they were on the Trashman with a drunken crewmate, during the storm, and throughout their harrowing journey on the Zodiac, Scaling and Cavanagh had upheld a pact to look out for each other, to protect each other from the sharks, the madness, the others. How could she have left me there in the water? he thought. How could she have let me down? They were supposed to be a team. Now on their fifth day without food or water, he couldn’t even look at her. There were two of them left, but he felt alone.

They sat in a cold, uncomfortable silence until he had something important to say. “Deb, look,” Cavanagh shouted. A large vessel was approaching them. They’d spotted a couple of ships before in the distance, but none were close enough for them to be seen. As it moved toward them, he could see a man on the deck waving. Shortly after, crew members threw lines with large glass buoys on the end of them. But they all landed short, splashing in the water too far away. Undeterred, the men on deck pulled the rescue buoys back and tried again.

Cavanagh, for his part, couldn’t move. “I’m not going anywhere,” he told Scaling. It felt as if every muscle had gone limp. He had nothing left after spending days balancing the boat, flipping it, pulling it, and watching his crewmates die. The ship made another turn. Closer. The men aboard threw the lines again. Scaling jumped into the water and started swimming.

Seeing his crewmate in the water was all the motivation Cavanagh needed. Fuck it , he told himself. Here I go . He rolled overboard and managed to grab a line, letting the crew reel his weakened body in and hoist him up onto the deck along with Scaling. Aboard the ship, Cavanagh saw women wearing calico dresses with aprons and steel-toed work boots waiting for them. They were speaking Russian. At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Coast Guard never came to save them, but ice traders on a Soviet vessel did.

The crew gave Cavanagh and Scaling dry clothes and medical attention, along with warm tea kettles filled with coffee, sugar, and vodka. That night, as the Coast Guard finally arrived and spirited the two survivors to a hospital, the temperature dropped down into the 30s. Cavanagh and Scaling wouldn’t have made it through another night at sea.

As Cavanagh was recuperating in the hospital, his mother flew down to be by his side. Seeing her appear at his bedside felt like the happiest moment of his life. His father, however, never came; he was on a sailing trip.

Cavanagh soon returned home to Massachusetts and once again felt the need to keep busy: He immediately began taking odd jobs in hopes of earning enough cash to begin traveling to sailboat races again. Processing what he’d endured—five days without food or water and man-eating sharks—was next to impossible. The Southern Ocean Racing Conference season in Florida started in January, and he was determined to be there, but not necessarily to race. He needed to talk to the only other person who had made it off that Zodiac alive. He had something important he needed to tell Scaling.

A few months later, Cavanagh boarded a flight to Fort Lauderdale for the event. With no place to stay, he slept in an empty boat parked in a field. Walking around the next day, he caught a glimpse of the latest issue of Sail magazine and stopped dead in his tracks: Staring back at him was a photo of him and Adams, plastered across the cover. A photographer had snapped a shot of the two racing buddies just before they’d joined the Trashman . It was like seeing a ghost.

Cavanagh paced the docks searching for Scaling—then there she stood, looking as beautiful as ever. His whole body was pumping with adrenaline at the sight of his former crewmate. He needed to tell her he was in love with her. They had shared something that no one else could ever understand. The bond he felt was far deeper than any he’d ever known.

He moved toward her to speak, but the mere sight of Cavanagh made Scaling recoil, reminding her of the horrors that she’d suffered at sea while in the Zodiac. “I’m sorry, but I cannot be around you,” he recalls her saying. “I don’t want you to have anything to do with me. Please leave me alone.” Dejected and hurt, Cavanagh retreated. Then he did what he’d always done: He walked the docks, banging on boats until he found someone willing to hire him.

As the years rolled by like waves, Scaling became a socialite and motivational speaker, talking publicly and often about her fight to survive. She appeared on Larry King Live and wrote a memoir. She and Cavanagh both continued to sail and ran in similar circles, seeing each other often, and both trying desperately to hide their pain when they did.

Scaling eventually settled down in Medfield, where she raised a family and spent summers on the Cape. In 2009, her son, also an avid sailor, drowned in an accident. Nearly three years to the day later, she passed away in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, at 54. Cavanagh was walking out of a marina in Newport, Rhode Island, when someone broke the news to him. He was profoundly disappointed. Disappointed with life itself. He had loved her. There was no information in her obituary about her cause of death, but he recalls there were whispers among family members of suicide. Cavanagh believed no one could have saved her: She was still tortured by those days lost at sea. He was now the lone survivor of the Trashman tragedy.

Several years later, Scaling’s daughter gave Cavanagh a frame. Inside it was a neatly coiled metal wire—the same one Cavanagh had rigged up to suspend their shivering bodies under the Zodiac and flip the boat to keep it clean. It was what had kept them both alive. Unbeknownst to him, Scaling had retrieved it after the dinghy was found still floating in the ocean. She framed it and hung it on her wall, keeping it close all those years.

Cavanagh remains hell-bent on learning why the Coast Guard never showed up in the aftermath of that fateful storm.

On a cold winter day, I drove to Cavanagh’s home in Bourne, where he lives with his wife, a schoolteacher, and his two children. He still had wide shoulders and a strong face, now layered with deep wrinkles, and greeted me with a handshake. His enormous hands engulfed mine.

The wind howled outside and a fire burned in the living room’s gas stove as he sat down on his couch to talk—for the very first time at length—about his life since being rescued. Above his head was the rendering of a floating school he once wanted to build for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. It had classrooms, living quarters for the students, and bathrooms, but it never was built. It became one of Cavanagh’s many grand ideas over the years, all of which had to do with sailing, that he never saw to fruition. He wants to write a book, too, like Scaling, but he hasn’t been able to get started.

Sailing is the one thing that has remained constant in Cavanagh’s life. He said the ocean continued to give him freedom, even as he remained chained to his past, to the shipwreck that almost killed him, and to the abusive father who failed him.

While we sat there, listening to the wind, Cavanagh pulled out his father’s sailing logbook. In it were the dates and locations of his around-the-world trip. The day his father set sail in 1982, Cavanagh thought he was finally safe. His mother had just filed for divorce and Cavanagh no longer felt he had to stick around to protect her, so he left home to start his life. His father had invited him to join him on his trip, but there was no way Cavanagh was doing that. He wound up on the Trashman instead.

Cavanagh paused to read his father’s entries from the days that Cavanagh was lost at sea. At the time, his father had been docked and drunk in Bermuda, which lies off the coast of the Carolinas, just beyond where the yacht went down. Then he set sail again into the weakened tail end of the same storm that had sunk the Trashman , not knowing that his son had been floating in that same ocean, fighting for his life and waiting for someone to save him.

Cavanagh remains hell-bent on learning why the Coast Guard never showed up in the aftermath of that fateful storm. He has documents and photos from the official case file after the sinking of the Trashman , but they give few, if any, clues. He has spent decades trying to figure out what happened, and now that he’s the only crew member alive, he’s even more determined to find the truth. He wants to know how rescuers forgot about him and his crewmates, and why. Haunted by his memories, he has driven up and down the East Coast, stopping at bases and looking for anyone to speak to him about the incident. He is still adrift, nearly 40 years later, still searching for answers.

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The Scariest Ship Horror Movies Set on the Sea

There's nothing scarier than a horror movie set at sea. The top horror movies set on ships feature deadly threats from real-life elements as well as supernatural occurrences and hauntings. This is a list of the top lost at sea horror movies featuring everything from Ghost Ship to Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis to Deep Rising.

What movies will you find on this list of the top ship horror films? Movie buffs will likely place  Jaws  right at the top. Though much of the film is set on the coast, one of Jaws' most famous lines – Roy Scheider saying, “We're gonna need a bigger boat” – was delivered while out at sea. Open Water is another terrifying movie featuring characters lost at sea. Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat is often considered one of the suspense master's most underrated films. Other movies featured on this roundup of the best horror movies set at sea include Cape Fear , Das Boot , and The Abyss .

Do you have a favorite scary movie set at sea? Give the best films a thumbs up and please add any great movies that are missing.

When a great white shark terrorizes a small island town, the local sheriff teams up with a marine biologist and a grizzled fisherman to hunt down the deadly predator. This classic film single-handedly created the summer blockbuster genre and left an entire generation wary of taking a dip in the water. With iconic music and unforgettable scenes, this film continues to be a thrilling, edge-of-your-seat experience that will keep viewers hooked.

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In this eerie tale of maritime horror, a salvage crew discovers a long-lost ocean liner adrift on the high seas. Upon boarding, they soon realize that the ship is haunted by the vengeful spirits of its former passengers. As the crew members struggle to unravel the ship's dark history, they find themselves drawn into an escalating series of supernatural events, culminating in a shocking revelation. The chilling atmosphere and suspenseful storytelling make this film a must-watch for fans of ghost stories and nautical nightmares.

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A marine biology student finds herself trapped aboard an isolated fishing trawler with a crew suffering from a mysterious infection. As the afflicted crew members begin to succumb to their ghastly symptoms, the terrified student must fight to survive against both the deadly contagion and the increasingly hostile crew. Blending gripping human drama with unsettling body horror, this film is sure to leave viewers feeling thoroughly unnerved and queasy.

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A team of deep-sea divers is sent to investigate the wreckage of a submerged nuclear submarine. Along the way, they encounter a mysterious alien species living at the bottom of the ocean, sparking a tense and terrifying battle for survival. Featuring groundbreaking special effects and a captivating storyline, this thrilling underwater adventure will have audiences holding their breath until the very end.

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Set on a deep-sea mining facility, this terrifying tale follows a group of workers who discover a gruesome and malevolent creature lurking in the depths. As the body count rises and the monster's true nature is revealed, the survivors must unite to destroy the beast before it destroys them. With its claustrophobic setting and tense atmosphere, this film is a chilling reminder of the horrors that can hide beneath the waves.

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Deep Rising

When a group of heavily armed mercenaries hijacks a luxury cruise liner, they soon find themselves facing off against a horde of bloodthirsty sea creatures determined to devour everyone on board. With the ship rapidly filling with water and time running out, the passengers must band together to survive the nightmarish onslaught. This action-packed horror flick delivers a thrilling combination of high-stakes suspense and grisly creature effects.

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• # 39 of 44 on The 40+ Best Lost At Sea Movies

A group of friends sailing through the Bermuda Triangle finds themselves caught in a terrifying time loop after boarding an abandoned ship. Plagued by chilling visions and pursued by a malevolent force, the group must unravel the mystery of their predicament before they're trapped in the loop forever. This mind-bending psychological thriller keeps viewers guessing until the very end, with a twist that's sure to make your jaw drop.

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In this chilling tale of revenge, a convicted rapist is released from prison and sets his sights on the family of the lawyer who failed to keep him behind bars. As the predator closes in, the family must confront their deepest fears and darkest secrets in order to survive. Combining intense performances with a nail-biting script, this suspenseful thriller will have you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.

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Inspired by true events, this harrowing survival story follows a couple left stranded in the open ocean after their scuba diving trip goes awry. Surrounded by miles of shark-infested waters and with no hope of rescue, the pair must rely on their wits and sheer determination to stay alive. This film's unflinching portrayal of the couple's ordeal is guaranteed to make even the most hardened viewer think twice before taking a dip in the ocean.

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DeepStar Six

A team of underwater researchers inadvertently unleashes a deadly creature from the ocean's depths, sparking a desperate struggle to contain the beast and prevent it from reaching the surface. As the body count rises and the station's defenses fail, the survivors must band together to outwit and destroy the monster before it's too late. This claustrophobic, suspense-filled flick serves up some truly heart-pounding scares.

• # 21 of 31 on The 31 Scariest Ocean Horror Movies That'll Keep You On Dry Land
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• # 11 of 14 on Pretty Good Horror Movies That Will Make You Afraid To Go In The Water

When a group of friends capsizes their boat on the Great Barrier Reef, they are forced to swim for shore while being stalked by a massive great white shark. With each stroke bringing them closer to safety yet closer to the jaws of the merciless predator, this tense thriller will have you holding your breath until the final splash. The stunning underwater cinematography and nail-biting suspense make this a must-watch for shark enthusiasts and horror fans alike.

• # 30 of 56 on The Best Vacation Horror Movies, Ranked By Fans
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In this thrilling battle of man versus nature, a deep-sea rescue diver must confront his fears when he encounters a prehistoric megalodon shark thought to be extinct. With the massive predator threatening coastal cities and wreaking havoc on the open seas, the diver leads a daring plan to capture and kill the colossal beast. Featuring jaw-dropping visual effects and a breathtaking sense of scale, this epic shark tale is guaranteed to keep viewers on the edge of their seats.

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A salvage crew discovers a derelict Russian research ship floating in the Pacific Ocean, only to find it infested with a deadly alien life form intent on taking over the Earth. With time running out, the crew must band together to destroy the alien menace before it's too late. This action-packed sci-fi horror flick is a thrilling race against time, filled with high-tech gadgetry and gruesome creature effects.

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Set aboard a WWII submarine that's become haunted by mysterious supernatural forces, this atmospheric thriller follows a crew descending into paranoia and madness as they attempt to uncover the truth behind the eerie occurrences. With its claustrophobic setting and psychological horror, this film will leave viewers feeling as though they're trapped beneath the waves themselves.

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This classic suspense film centers on a group of shipwreck survivors adrift in a lifeboat, forced to confront their fears and prejudices as they struggle to stay alive. When they rescue a man they believe to be responsible for their ship's sinking, tensions rise and trust begins to unravel. Featuring a gripping script and an ensemble cast, this film offers a masterclass in character-driven storytelling and tense drama.

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• # 28 of 44 on The 40+ Best Lost At Sea Movies

When a team of scientists is sent to investigate a mysterious spacecraft discovered at the bottom of the ocean, they quickly become ensnared in a web of mind-bending psychological terror. As their deepest fears and insecurities are brought to life, the crew must confront their inner demons in order to survive the ordeal. This thought-provoking, cerebral thriller explores the nature of fear and the power of the human mind.

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• # 19 of 31 on The 31 Scariest Ocean Horror Movies That'll Keep You On Dry Land

The Last Voyage of the Demeter

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A documentary film crew in the Amazon rainforest finds themselves in a living nightmare when they're targeted by a massive, man-eating snake. As the body count rises and the crew's chances for survival dwindle, they must work together to outsmart the cunning predator and escape its deadly coils. This pulse-pounding creature feature delivers plenty of thrills and chills, with a serpentine villain that's sure to make your skin crawl.

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When a struggling family buys a dilapidated sailboat in the hopes of starting a charter business, they soon discover that the vessel is haunted by a vengeful spirit. As they fight to save their new investment and salvage their crumbling relationships, the family becomes embroiled in a supernatural struggle that threatens to tear them apart. This eerie ghost story delivers plenty of chills and atmospheric tension, making it a perfect addition to any horror aficionado's watchlist.

In the chaotic aftermath of a seismic event, the prehistoric piranhas are unleashed upon the unsuspecting residents and vacationers gathered for a wild spring break celebration. As the ravenous fish begin their feeding frenzy, a motley group of locals and tourists must band together to stop the carnage and save their town from being devoured. With its gory, over-the-top kills and tongue-in-cheek humor, this film serves up a heaping helping of campy fun that's perfect for fans of B-movie horror and creature features.

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Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis

Based on the true story of the ill-fated U.S.S. Indianapolis, this harrowing drama follows the ordeal of the ship's crew after they're torpedoed and left to drift on the open sea. Plagued by dehydration, shark attacks, and the constant threat of enemy submarines, the men must find a way to survive their desperate situation. With its gripping storyline and attention to historical detail, this film offers a poignant look at one of the deadliest naval disasters in history.

In this nerve-wracking tale of isolation and terror, an oil rig drilling team is besieged by a vicious creature lurking in the depths of the ocean. As the monster picks off the crew one by one, the survivors must figure out a way to destroy the beast before it's too late. Featuring a claustrophobic setting and a relentless sense of dread, this horror film is sure to make viewers think twice about taking a job on an offshore platform.

In this macabre Lovecraftian tale, a group of shipwrecked survivors find themselves stranded in a remote fishing village inhabited by a cult of monstrous sea creatures. As the villagers' horrifying secrets come to light, the interlopers must navigate a labyrinth of betrayal and madness to escape the nightmarish fate that awaits them. With its blend of psychological horror and visceral body terror, this film is sure to leave a lasting impression on even the most seasoned genre fan.

Satan's Triangle

This spine-chilling TV movie tells the story of a rescue mission in the Bermuda Triangle that goes horribly awry when the rescuers become trapped in a supernatural vortex of terror. As the crew members struggle to maintain their sanity and return to the safety of the real world, they find themselves confronted by a malevolent force beyond their comprehension. This suspenseful, atmospheric thriller is sure to keep viewers glued to their screens until the thrilling climax.

Lost Voyage

When a long-lost ocean liner reappears after thirty years, a team of paranormal investigators sets out to uncover the truth behind its mysterious disappearance. As they delve into the ship's dark past and navigate its haunted corridors, the group soon discovers that some secrets are better left buried. Offering a chilling blend of ghostly apparitions and maritime mystery, this eerie film is sure to captivate fans of supernatural suspense.

In this spine-tingling supernatural thriller, a British submarine that vanished during World War II resurfaces 50 years later, seemingly untouched by time. As a team of naval experts investigates the vessel's reappearance, they find themselves drawn into a nightmarish world where the ghosts of the past refuse to stay buried. With its atmospheric setting and haunting visuals, this film is a chilling reminder that some mysteries are best left unsolved.

The Haunted Sea

A ruthless pirate captain and her crew stumble upon a cursed treasure that awakens the wrath of an ancient sea monster. As they're pursued by the vengeful beast, the pirates must confront their own greed and treachery in order to survive the deadly onslaught. This swashbuckling horror adventure combines high-seas action with monstrous scares, making for a thrilling, rollicking ride.

The Ferryman

When a group of friends embarks on a sailing trip to an isolated island, they unwittingly unleash an ancient curse that forces them to confront their darkest fears. As the malevolent force begins to take its toll, the group must battle their own demons and unravel the island's sinister secrets in order to break the spell and escape alive. This gripping psychological horror film serves up a potent mix of supernatural chills and visceral terror.

REC 4: Apocalypse

In the thrilling conclusion to the popular found-footage horror series, a young reporter is rescued from the infected building where the outbreak began and taken to a quarantined oil tanker for observation. But when the virus reemerges on the ship, the terrified passengers must once again fight for their lives against the ravenous, bloodthirsty hordes. Combining claustrophobic tension with relentless action and gore, this high-octane fright-fest proves that there's no safe harbor from the undead.

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Visiting the mysterious empty and sunken vessels of the deep blue sea.

Superyacht Captain Shares ‘Unbelievable’ High Sea Stories

"There is a pride in being witness to some truly unbelievable events – and not sharing their details."

Image Credit: AV Yachts

Superyacht captain Brendan O’Shannassy shares with DMARGE the wildest experiences of his career. From celebrities to wildlife, it’s been an incredible job.

Superyachts are synonymous with excess. They’re known for models, hot tubs, champagne, expensive Monaco moorings , treadmills, zodiacs, helicopters – the list goes on.

But – unless you are part of the 1% – you probably can’t think of too many specific superyacht stories . This is either because the lifestyle isn’t as wild as you think, or because it’s so wild it gets covered up.

Well, fear not: we’re here today to bring you the inside scoop. Here are the wildest superyacht stories we were able to sleuth up. To kick things off, we spoke to Brendan O’Shannassy, a superyacht captain who recently wrote the book Superyacht Captain: Life & Leadership In The World’s Most Incredible Industry .

Brendan told DMARGE exclusively: “It is not the ‘crazy’ antics people might seek. The wildest things relate more to incredible experiences – diving with hundreds of Hammerheads in the Galapagos, swimming with Whale Sharks in The Maldives, and of course… taking Clint Eastwood + Mick Jagger from a function in one of the tenders.”

Brendan added: “I think some of the greatest privileges has been having relaxed and normal conversations with some of the most famous/powerful people in the world. To see that tech founder [such and such] is really just a devoted family person who loves the water and has a really silly side. To listen to a singer, after being pressured by their friends, bang out a tune – no backing/no production – and it be just incredible.”

“To see a world leader listen intently as a 22yr old deck crew member explains their safety obligations to use a Jet Ski.” Superyacht Captain Brendan O’Shannassy

Brendan refused to be drawn on the wild stories he had heard of occurring on other superyachts (“we tend to keep our own counsel – we don’t share the stories between yachts”) but did reveal that “there is a pride in being witness to some truly unbelievable events – and not sharing their details.”

“I know this is not want people want to read, but ‘keeping the veil in place’ is something we are all very proud of.”   Superyacht Captain Brendan O’Shannassy

Brendan also told DMARGE that superyacht owners do not see the boundaries that we ’normal-folk’ do. They think differently.

“They probe and challenge all information for its authenticity…regardless of who is saying it,” he told us. “They may not be a subject matter expert, but their questions are disarming as they go from the ground-up…in our normal days we might accept something as fact without fully understanding from a builder, mechanic, even a doctor – the billionaires do not. They will keep going until all facts are clear.”

If that didn’t quench your thirst for gossip, here are another few wild superyacht stories from around the web.

Some billionaires are (accidentally) destroying priceless art with champagne and cereal. That’s right: according to Vox , though it’s not known exactly how, some rich people store priceless art on superyachts as a form of legal tax avoidance. This comes with some problems, however.

As reported by The Cut , a $110.5 million Basquiat (which was on a yacht) once had to be restored after a billionaire’s child destroyed it with cornflakes.

“His kids had thrown their cornflakes at it over breakfast on his yacht because they thought it was scary,” Pandora Mather-Lees , an Oxford-educated art historian and conservator told  The Guardian .

“In another incident, a popped Champagne cork struck the canvas of an (unnamed) multi-million-dollar painting,” The Cut reports.

Don’t you hate it when that happens!

Moving on – there are more wild tales to be told. Enter: Marie Claire’s 2020 article: Inside The Sordid World Of Superyachts .

In this article, the author talks about the “golden handcuffs” of working on a superyacht, describing how many crew members are reluctant to speak until they leave the industry, for fear of becoming known as “difficult” to recruitment companies.

The ones who do talk, the author claims, “describe glamorous destinations and large, tax-free pay packets, mixed with long hours, social isolation, sexual harassment and depression.”

One story from that article is as follows:

“Recently, a ‘Mrs’ (shorthand for a boat owner’s wife) woke up on a superyacht in the Caribbean, far from habitation. She wanted 1000 white roses to adorn the craft. The crew arranged for the flowers to be helicoptered from Miami, then brought to the yacht in time for dinner” ( Marie Claire ).

“The following morning, the Mrs wanted them gone. Unable to throw them into the sea and too far away to drop them at a port, the crew had to jam them into their tiny quarters.”

Chief Stewardess of a Superyacht, Gemma Hulbert, told CNN a similar story of excessive pampering.

Once, she told C NN , a guest only wanted to bathe in half a tub of hot water that was topped off with half a bottle of Fiji water and half a cup of baby oil.

“That was so much fun to clean from the marble after.” Hulbert

She also told CNN : “I’ve…had a charter guest in the past who purchased a vintage Hermes bag in the States so our purser (the officer on board who keeps the accounts) had to organize a private jet to go to the States from Monaco to pick up the bag and bring it back so she could take it to a gala the next day.”

Crew sometimes see some wild things too. Bloomberg wrote in 2021: “staff see and hear things of a… risqué nature, such as one yachtie whose repeat client insisted on spending her entire seven-day foray in the nude, often passing out drunk in unbecoming positions.”

“Semiclad sunbathing (most often by ‘paid friend’ types), spouse swaps and drunken fisticuffs are also common.” Bloomberg

One yacht captain told Bloomberg : “We’ve seen guys do splits with one foot on the boat and the other on the tender as they drifted apart.”

“One time… we watched someone get slapped in the face by a flying fish.”

Bloomberg also reports that the days when yachts were drifting cocaine dens are over (in the Caribbean at least), writing that boats can be impounded and captains arrested if illegal substances are found on board.

That said, there are still some wild parties (and revenge shopping sprees for irritated partners). According to the outlet, “Often a yacht will be rented for two weeks: the first for the family, the second for bachelor partyesque antics.”

Superyacht staff also speak of cooking elaborate meals for pets, and babies, before blending them to a pulp so that they could be eaten.

South Florida is also, according to Bloomberg , an even wilder version of the Mediterranean.

Bloomberg reports on “time-crunched celebs willing to drop $15,000 on one epic joyride” in which, according to one source, “you head out in the morning, drop anchor at the sandbar off Key Biscayne, play with the toys before you’re too drunk, then dock at the trendiest club.”

“At one club, I was invited on board an owner’s docked boat, only to find a veritable buffet of weed. While looking for the bathroom, I stumbled into another secret lair: a dedicated cocaine room, complete with an ornate mirrored table.” Bloomberg

Finally, how could we forget the hilarious time that news broke of a superyacht crew all dressing in designer clothes , as the owner of their superyacht refused to wear clothes more than once, and so would always throw away his lavish outfits…

There you have it: some of the wildest tales from the high seas.

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Pirates Brutally End Yachting Dream

By Adam Nagourney and Jeffrey Gettleman

• Feb. 22, 2011

LOS ANGELES — Jean and Scott Adam shared a dream through 15 years of marriage: to retire, build a boat and sail the world. And that is precisely what they did, heading out in 2004 from Marina Del Rey, Calif., on a custom-built 58-foot yacht for a permanent vacation that brought them to exotic islands and remote coastlines: Fiji, Micronesia, China, Phuket.

“And now: Angkor Wat! And Burma!” Mrs. Adam wrote just before Christmas, her blog post bustling with characteristic excitement.

The dream came to a brutal end on Tuesday when the Adams and their crew — Phyllis Macay and Robert A. Riggle of Seattle — were killed by pirates off the coast of Somalia in one of the most violent episodes since the modern-day piracy epidemic began several years ago, American officials said.

It is not clear why the pirates killed their hostages, either accidentally during a firefight or possibly out of revenge for the Somali pirates killed by American sharpshooters in a hostage-taking in 2009.

United States naval forces had been shadowing the hijacked yacht, called the Quest, and as soon as they saw a burst of gunfire on board, American Special Operations forces rushed to the yacht in assault craft, shot one of the pirates and knifed another. But all four hostages were already dead or fatally wounded.

Few people who travel the high seas these days are unaware of the dangers from pirates, though it seemed a risk the Adams were willing to take in the spirit of adventure and excitement. “She said to us, ‘If anything happens to us on these travels, just know that we died living our dream,’ ” said Richard Savage, Mrs. Adam’s brother-in-law from her first marriage. “They were aware that this kind of thing has risks. But they were living their dream.”

Still, in a decision that troubled friends and family members, the Quest had departed from a convoy of yachts that was assembled to ward off attacks by pirates in those waters — such maritime convoys are known as rallies — to go off on their own into some of the most dangerous waters in the world.

Mr. Adam took a security course last year from Blue Water Rallies, the organizer of the rally he had been on, and friends said he often turned off his G.P.S. instrument because pirates had learned to use them as homing devices.

“They were not risk-seekers,” said Vivian Callahan, who had sailed with the Adams as a crew member over the years. “They were very well aware of the dangers and I can’t imagine them straying from the rally unless conditions were very serious."

The Adams had been married about 15 years. They had both been married once before. He had a daughter, she had two sons.

Before their retirement, Mrs. Adam was a dentist in Marina Del Rey, a graduate of dental school at the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked as a film production manager, on such films as “The Goonies” and “Deliverance,” before leaving the business to attend divinity school; he received a master’s of divinity in 2000 and a master’s of theology in 2010.

Indeed, for the Adams, this was as much a voyage of faith as it was one of adventure. They would load the Quest up with tons of Bibles and distribute them as they traveled the world.

“They would stop in these small islands and connect with the church there, which were in isolated places and really welcomed them,” said Richard Peace, a professor of ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary. “Scott would preach at times for them and being a doctoral student, he would teach in Bible colleges. This was really a major part of their travels.”

Still, friends said that the Adams were not on a mission of proselytization.

“They were very much in love and shared both a love of the sea and a love of God’s word,” Samantha Carlson, a fellow sailor, said in an e-mail to friends. She added: “They were NOT proselytizing or converting anyone.”

Ms. Macay and Mr. Riggle signed on to the Quest as crew members late last year, providing needed assistance and companionship on these voyages, which are often rigorous and lonely. Both Mr. Adam, 70, and Mrs. Adam, 66, were in relatively good shape, though Mrs. Adam battled with intense bouts of seasickness.

“She certainly didn’t let that stop her,” Mr. Savage said, adding with a laugh, “It’s kind of bizarre.”

Ms. Macay, 59, was a freelance interior designer and Mr. Riggle, 67, a retired veterinarian. They had been a couple in the past but were simply crewmates at the time of their deaths, friends said. They had met at the Seattle Singles Yacht Club and had been at sea together for most of the past three and a half years.

“Originally, it was supposed to be a year-and-a-half long, but she kept extending it,” said Joe Macay, her brother. “She wasn’t a thrill-seeker trying to live on the edge. She was just a person who loved sailing and was trying to live the life she loved.”

Don Jordan, the director of the Seattle Animal Shelter, said Mr. Riggle had served as a contract veterinarian there for the past 15 to 20 years. “He was a natural fit for a vet, kind and compassionate,” Mr. Jordan said.

The American Navy has pleaded with shipowners to stick to designated shipping lanes when passing through the Arabian Sea, where pirates continue to strike with impunity, despite the presence of dozens of warships. Yachters who knew the Adams said they had been, given these times, inclined to ship their boats overland to avoid dangerous waters or travel in rallies.

“I really have no idea why they would leave the rally when they specifically joined the rally to be in a safer environment,” said Jeff Allen, a close friend. “I hope this sends a message that you really shouldn’t be trying to go through that area.”

Friends of Ms. Macay and Mr. Riggle said that they were only serving as crew members. Cindy Kirkham, a friend of Ms. Macay and her family, said, “The family is very upset that people are suggesting that they made the decision.”

But Mr. Macay said that it was not uncommon for boats to leave rallies and return. He said his sister had “expressed concern about pirates — anybody sailing in that Blue Water Rally knows that a portion of risk goes along with it.”

He added, “She knew the risk involved, and accepted it.”

The killings underscore how lawless the seas have become in that part of the world. Just about every week another ship gets hijacked. More than 50 vessels, from fishing trawlers and traditional wooden dhows to giant freighters and oil tankers, are currently being held captive, with more than 800 hostages, according to Ecoterra International, a nonprofit maritime group that monitors pirate attacks.

“At the moment, it looks like it’s getting out of control,” said Capt. Pottengal Mukundan, director of the International Maritime Bureau, which has tracked piracy at sea since 1991.

The Somali seas are now known as the most perilous in the world, crawling with young gunmen in lightweight skiffs cruising around with machine guns, looking for quarry.

The Adams had been sailing the world on the Quest, a Davidson 58 Pilot House Sloop, that they had custom built for $1.5 million in New Zealand in 2001, using money they earned from selling their homes.

“When designing the yacht, we had to make sure that the yacht trimmed well when hundreds of Bibles were stored at the beginning of each adventure: It amounted to tons of weight,” said Kevin Dibley, the owner of Dibley Marine Ltd., who was brought on to assist the project.

On Friday, the Quest sent out an S O S, 275 miles from the coast of Oman, in the open seas between Mumbai and Djibouti. A mother ship had been observed near the yacht when it was hijacked by pirates in a smaller craft, maritime officials said, but it disappeared once warships drew close, or was captured.

Either way, the pirates were blocked from escaping and that may be one reason tensions rose on board, said Andrew Mwangura, the maritime editor of Somalia Report, a Web site that monitors piracy attacks.

“There were a big number of gunmen on a small yacht,” Mr. Mwangura said. “They could have been fighting over food, water, space. And with military choppers overhead, people get jumpy.”

According to Vice Adm. Mark Fox, the commander of United States Naval Forces Central Command, shortly after the Quest was hijacked, the Navy began talking to the pirates’ financier as well as elders from the pirates’ village. Many pirate crews are paid by wealthy Somali businessmen who later get a cut of the ransom.

On Monday, two of the pirates boarded a naval destroyer that had pulled within 600 yards of the Quest to negotiate further.

But the talks seemed to unravel on Tuesday morning, when a pirate aboard the Quest fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the destroyer. Almost immediately gunfire erupted from inside the yacht’s cabin, Admiral Fox said, and several pirates then stepped up to the bow with their hands up.

Fifteen Special Operations officers in two high-speed assault craft rushed in. When they boarded the Quest, they shot and killed one pirate and stabbed another.

Once aboard, the American forces found two pirates already dead, apparently killed by their comrades. The pirates were in disarray, the American military said, and a fight had broken out among them.

The deaths of the Adams was particularly striking to many of their friends, considering the kind of mission they were on.

“The irony of all this is that Scott and Jean, like so many of us out here cruising the world, are out here to meet the people, learn about their culture and help those we meet in whatever way we can,” said Mr. Allen.

A previous version of this article misspelled the name of the Navy warship that had been shadowing the Quest. The vessel is the Sterett, not the Starrett. It also misspelled the name of one of the Americans who was killed aboard the yacht. It is Phyllis Macay, not Phyllis Mackay.

How we handle corrections

Adam Nagourney reported from Los Angeles, and Jeffrey Gettleman from Nairobi, Kenya. Reporting was contributed by Eric Schmitt and Elisabeth Bumiller from Washington; William Yardley from Seattle; Jennifer Medina from Marina del Rey, Calif.; Ian Lovett, Noah Gilbert and Ana Facio Contreras from Los Angeles; and J. David Goodman from New York.

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

• What Is Cinema?

Below Deck ’s Kate Chastain on Season 6’s Highs, Lows, and Yacht Horror Stories

By Julie Miller

Earlier this month, Steven Soderbergh released a comprehensive list of every film, book, and television show he consumed in the year 2018—revealing that, in addition to ingesting the cerebral fare one may expect, the Oscar-winning filmmaker binge-watched over 50 episodes of Bravo’s reality series Below Deck. Soderbergh’s interest in the series, which concludes its sixth season Tuesday night, makes sense; like Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Below Deck is a voyeuristic glimpse into the human condition, sexuality, and neuroses. Except it’s set on a superyacht , with theme parties.

Each season takes place aboard a different vessel in a different breathtaking locale, as the crew caters to a revolving door of always wealthy, mostly drunk, occasionally nightmarish guests. The majority of the crew changes each season—a reflection of the transient “yachtie” lifestyle, viewers learn—but there are a few constants, starting with Lee Rosbach, the no-nonsense, silver-goateed ship captain who keeps his crew in line by barking salty one-liners. (“She let her mouth write a check her ass couldn’t cash,” Lee gravely observed, of a crew member’s recent temper tantrum). When he unwinds—only after the guests have left the boat—he does so by enjoying a late-afternoon glass of pinot noir in the hot tub: a bold choice that speaks to his confidence of character.

The other constant is Kate Chastain, chief stewardess since Season 2—the hard-driving head of guest experience and indoor staff; known for her polarizing management style; wry sense of humor; and masterful theme parties. She is a lightening-fast wit who, like the captain, calls it as she sees it and doesn’t suffer fools. (Their rapport is so easy that Chastain teases him by saying, “We’re the Regis and Kelly of the sea.”) She’s also the show’s audience avatar, hilariously analyzing each crew member and hellish guest, and immediately identifying their weaknesses with terrifying accuracy.

“I’m an amateur sociologist,” Chastain demurred, during a phone call last week. “I’m not judging someone—I’m just categorizing them. It’d be like bird-watching. Like, that’s a parrot because it has green feathers. That’s a flamingo, because it has pink feathers. That guy’s not a yachtie, because he’s got a Rastafarian beanie on.”

The show has always merged the theoretically highbrow (wealthy guests sipping champagne as they tour Tahiti) and the undeniably lowbrow (crew members hooking up in bunks; temper tantrums; passed-out-drunk guests). But this season has been the most compelling of them all—thanks to an especially entertaining crew and several jaw-dropping blunders (the perpetrators of which were ejected from the yacht mid-season).

The season also featured a frightening near-death experience which occurred when deckhand Ashton Pienaar was swept overboard after a line wrapped around his ankle and dragged him off the yacht into water. Had a Bravo cameraman not immediately thrown down his equipment to loosen the line, it would have severed Ashton’s foot and he would have bled to death—a grim outcome later explained by an uncharacteristically emotional Captain Lee. But because guests were on board, the crew had to go back to work as though nothing had happened.

“I’ve never seen anybody go man overboard in my yachting career,” said Chastain, whose job was to immediately divert the guests’ attention from the terrifying accident. “I don't think any of us realized exactly what had happened, since we were all on different parts of the boat at the time. So we just carried on with the charter. After the guests left, once we had time to really go over the incident, I think it was then that we realized how serious it was. . . . Unfortunately, Ashton’s accident was a strong reminder that we’re doing a real, dangerous job.”

And no matter how awful an accident may be, the crew cannot let paying guests know about it—lest they jeopardize their tips. “It’s our job to pretend that accidents don’t happen even when they do. There was a fire onboard Season 3,” Chastain explained, referencing chef Leon Walker’s kitchen grease fire. “That was pretty scary. But for the most part, professionals can mitigate the amount of accidents that happen.”

The adrenaline factor, Chastain thinks, “is why a lot of our viewers are actually men. I love it when a lady will tell me, ‘ Below Deck is a show that my husband or brother will watch with me.’”

The show also gives audiences a glimpse into how the über-rich vacation (and how irritating some of them can be). Chastain estimated that a seven-day charter on the sixth season’s superyacht , Seanna, would cost guests nearly $500,000. (Guests who agree to be filmed for Below Deck are reportedly offered a 50 percent discount for a three-day charter, according to a producer on the series.) Chastain has dealt with new-money yacht guests, eager to try all sorts of (crew-exhausting) water toys and perks. She’s had to serve kids, dogs, millennials who barely glance up from their phones; sex workers; presumed mobsters; spoiled sorority sisters; celebrities; guests of celebrities who want to take advantage of their once-in-a-lifetime yachting experience by making nonstop requests. And she has had a favorite category of guest: “I love a very wealthy person who has done yachting before, because this isn’t new to them. This is just their floating home away from home. They’re not there to party, party, party; make the most of it. They just wanna relax.”

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She’s also served movie stars, including, in her pre– Below Deck career, Leonardo DiCaprio. “He came to dinner on a boat that I worked on in St. Barts. He wasn’t a guest—he just walked on, sat at the table for one meal, and walked off. I think the owners of my boat had met him at the beach club that day and just decided to invite him for a quick dinner,” she said. “He’s so beautiful in person.”

The most ridiculous request she’s received in her yachting career also pre-dates Below Deck. “We were in the South of France on this partly cloudy day, and every time a cloud would pass in front of the sun, this wealthy yacht owner woman would ask the captain to pull the anchor and move the entire yacht not far, just to get back into the sun,” she said. “And then a cloud would move again and we’d have to move the yacht again. She probably spent $100,000 in fuel for her tan.”

Chastain, a Florida native, got into yachting after graduating from college with a degree in communications. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I thought if I did one year in yachting, that would buy me some time until I figured it out,” Chastain said, some 10 years later. (She wrote about her early yachting experiences in a memoir, Lucky Charming .) Now that she’s risen to “Chief Stew” rank, she gets a few extra perks. “At the end of a seven-day charter, the chief usually gets a little thank-you present from guests. I got a very expensive Montblanc pen with a pearl on the end of it, and I worked for one woman who had an incredible closet she was tired of,” she said—revealing that she ended up with bags of the woman’s Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choo shoes, as well as Gucci dresses.

Each season of Below Deck is filmed over the course of six or seven weeks. This season featured Chastain’s favorite crew she’s ever worked with. “They were all fun personalities and, honestly, I would’ve done another four weeks with that crew at that point. Usually I’m ready to run off the boat at the end of the season,” she said.

But Chastain has no idea which cast members will return for future seasons—she doesn’t know until she arrives on deck. If she had to hand-pick three cast members from the current season to return for the next Below Deck charter, though, they would be Ashton, Rhylee, and Laura—the last of whom showed up more than halfway through the season. “Josiah is amazing and super helpful,” she explained of her B.F.F. onboard, “but I feel like Laura and I only got to enjoy working together for such a short amount of time, ’cause she came late season. I think Rhylee started on a bad foot with Chandler, so I think she deserves another chance to have a season.”

When Chastain first appeared on Below Deck, she was hypercritical as she watched each episode, nit-picking superfluous details like her hairstyle. But five seasons into her run on the show, she has only one moment she regrets—and it airs in Tuesday’s finale. “At the end of the final episode, we are having a great time, all so happy, and I start dancing. I do a really dorky move where I do finger guns with my hands, and it’s just so cringey. I was feeling myself, and I thought I looked way cooler than it did.”

I asked whether Chastain knows that Steven Soderbergh watches Below Deck. “No, but that’s amazing,” she said, before revealing that Bravo host (and Chastain’s dream charter primary) Andy Cohen recently alerted her of another unlikely audience member: Brian Williams. Apparently, serious journalists and filmmakers alike appreciate the escape Below Deck provides. “My mom and I have always thought he was the cutest anchor, so I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, my mom’s going to be so thrilled.”

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• Travel Updates

‘The sharks got him, then killed the others’: Shipwreck survivor recounts five days stranded at sea

Deborah Scaling Kiley and four others were sailing in shark-infested waters when disaster struck. Five gruesome days later, she was somehow still alive.

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Deborah Scaling Kiley watched in terror as killer sharks pulled her crewmate Mark Adams beneath the surface and the sea turned red with blood.

The 24-year-old sailor had been on a routine sailing trip from Maine to Florida when her boat was engulfed in a tropical storm and capsized in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The group of five had set out in perfect sailing conditions just four days earlier in October 1982. But two days into the journey, the yacht capsized, throwing Ms Scaling Kiley and her friends into the ocean, The Sun reported.

One of her crewmates, Meg Mooney, slashed her leg in the struggle. That turned the group into a magnet for great white sharks — the deadliest sharks on earth — who came from all around when they smelled the blood in the water.

Luckily, the group managed to clamber into a life raft, but within hours hundreds of killer sharks began circling and even ramming the boat in an attempt to dislodge the terrified crew members.

Over the next five days, three of the crew were eaten by sharks as Ms Scaling Kiley and fellow survivor Brad Cavanagh watched on in horror.

The pair managed to survive five days stranded at sea. Ms Scaling Kiley died in 2012, but before her death she spoke publicly about the terrifying experience. Now, her incredible story has been turned into a new Discovery Channel film called Capsized: Blood In The Water .

DRUNK CREW AND A TROPICAL STORM

When Ms Scaling Kiley, from Texas, greeted Captain John Lippoth and his girlfriend Meg Mooney in Bar Harbour, Maine before boarding the 18-metre yacht, the weather looked promising.

Also on-board were Mr Cavanagh, a yachtsman, and UK man Mark Adams. The crew’s job was to sail up the east coast of America and drop the yacht off to its new owner in Florida.

Ms Scaling Kiley was looking forward to the six-day, 2000km trip.

“The weather was beautiful, the boat was fun to steer,” she said in the Discovery Channel’s 2005 series I Shouldn’t Be Alive . “It really didn’t get much better than it was right then.”

On the second day, the weather took a turn for the worse. As night fell, the yacht hit a terrifying tropical storm.

As 9m waves crashed against the mast and 112km/h winds battered the sails. The captain, who had been drinking heavily, fell asleep at the helm.

Ms Scaling Kiley was woken in the middle of the night by panicked voices and found icy water pouring into the cabin.

The boat was capsizing and the captain’s girlfriend, Ms Mooney, fell against some rigging, badly cutting her leg.

DEHYDRATED, STARVING AND SURROUNDED BY SHARKS

The panicked crew jumped into the water and Mr Adams inflated a 3m dinghy — their only chance of survival.

The crew clambered in, but before he could join them, Mr Adams felt something nudge his leg.

At that moment, to Ms Scaling Kiley’s horror, she saw hundreds of sharks in the water around them, swimming dangerously close to their boat.

“The minute we got in there were fins surrounding the dinghy,” she said. “They were everywhere.”

The killer creatures had been drawn to the blood from Ms Mooney’s open wound and had come from kilometres around to feast on any flesh they could find.

One of the sharks grabbed the rope on the front of the boat and started pulling it along in the water — taking the crew on a terrifying joy ride.

When that failed, the sharks began to ram the tiny boat in a bid to topple them out.

‘A BLOOD-CURDLING SCREAM AND JOHN WAS GONE’

Hours turned into days and the starving crew became severely dehydrated.

With urine and the blood and pus from Ms Mooney’s wounds sloshing about on the floor of the dinghy, the crew started developing infections all over their bodies.

Worse, Ms Mooney’s wounded leg became infected and blood poisoning began spreading through her body.

By day three, with infection and dehydration rife, the crew began to get delirious as their brains were starved of water.

Desperate, Mr Lippoth and Mr Adams started to drink salt water, which accelerates dehydration and causes kidneys to shut down.

Before long Mr Lippoth was hallucinating. He suddenly thought he saw land and jumped off the side of the boat.

His fate was sealed.

“All of a sudden we just hear this shrill scream. Blood-curdling,” Ms Scaling Kiley recalled. “Then it was over, silence. There was no crying, nothing. There was no doubt what got him. The sharks got him.”

‘HORRIFYING MOMENT’ SHARKS ATTACK

With Mr Adams also delusional, and Ms Mooney weak from her blood poisoning, Mr Cavanagh and Ms Scaling Kiley were the only ones left with their wits about them — and made a pledge to look out for each other.

Shortly after Mr Lippoth’s death, Mr Adams — who had been hallucinating for hours — mumbled that he was going to the convenience store to buy beer and cigarettes.

Despite Ms Scaling Kiley and Mr Cavanagh’s attempts to bring him back to reality, he too plunged into the shark-infested waters.

The sharks instantly moved in, banging against the bottom of the boat and spinning it round as they tore into Mr Adam’s flailing body in a frenzied attack.

“It was by far the most horrifying moment of my entire life,” Ms Scaling Kiley said.

‘WE WATCHED MEG DIE’

That night, as the infection in her blood took hold, Ms Mooney began having severe hallucinations.

“We were sitting there watching Meg die and it was tragic,” Ms Scaling Kiley said.

When the remaining pair woke in the morning, she was dead — lying in the “fetid mess of seaweed, blood, urine and pus” on the floor.

Mr Cavanagh admitted he considered eating her body in a desperate bid for survival, but Ms Scaling Kiley warned him Ms Mooney was too infected and insisted they had to throw her off the boat.

They took off her shirt and jewellery to give to her family on their return.

“It was such a sad moment because we laid her naked body on the side of the raft and then we decided we couldn’t just roll her off. She needed some sort of funeral,” Ms Scaling Kiley said.

“So we said the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23 and we gently pushed her body overboard. Then we decided to go back to sleep so when the sharks attacked we wouldn’t have to see it.”

‘WE WERE SO HAPPY TO BE ALIVE’

In another terrifying moment, Mr Cavanagh fell into the water while trying to clean the boat out, and Ms Scaling Kiley broke down as he struggled to find the strength to get back in.

“I felt like I’d just doomed Brad to death,” she said. “If the sharks came back, he was dead.”

With a surge of adrenaline Mr Cavanagh managed to pull himself in, and moments later, desperation turned to joy as he spotted a Russian cargo ship on the horizon.

The pair waved frantically at the crew — who waved back — and soon they had thrown a life ring into the water centimetres from the boat.

The pair jumped into the water and were winched on board the ship.

“I didn’t care who these people were or where we were going,” Ms Scaling Kiley said. “I was there and Brad was there and we were alive.”

Ms Scaling Kiley went on to become a motivational speaker and wrote a book, Albatross: The True Story of a Woman’s Survival at Sea , in 1994.

She sadly died in 2012 at her home in Mexico from unknown causes at the age of 54.

Mr Cavanagh continues to work as a mariner in Massachusetts but says the 1982 ordeal has left him a changed man.

“It’s not something that you turn off once you’ve been through it,” he said. “You keep living in survival mode. I don’t know if you’re shell-shocked, but it’s impossible to just turn it off and live the way you did before.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission

A supporter of Donald Trump alleges that the staff on a major airline flight snubbed her due to her wearing a MAGA hat.

A tourist has copped major flak online after engaging in an “embarrassing” act at a luxury resort in Bali with the clip attracting 33 million views.

Virgin has revealed the “possible cause” a flight to Melbourne was forced into an emergency landing after flames were seen coming out of one of its engines.

Euros 2024 – Articles

Two boats involved in horror crash as sailor thrown overboard

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Two boats were involved in a devastating crash and a sailor was thrown overboard during a yacht race.

A man was flung from a boat as competitors battled rough seas during the Round the Island Race in the Isle of Wight today.

He then desperately clung onto his life jacket before being rescued.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) rushed to his aid to pull him from the water despite the extreme conditions.

His condition is not yet known.

It’s thought that at least one of the boats involved capsized.

Wind speeds soared to 64mph before the shocking incident happened off Yarmouth.

The event, which sees boaters sail 50 miles around the Isle of Wight, normally attracts one of the largest fleets of any yacht race.

But the severe weather had a major impact this morning with 418 yachts retiring and just 153 finishing the race.

Elsewhere today, a British couple were thrown from a boat and seriously injured after it exploded in Majorca .

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected] .

For more stories like this, check our news page .

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Breaking news, how much are tickets to see taylor swift at wembley stadium in london.

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London loves Taylor Swift .

Over the course of the summer, the 34-year-old singer has booked eight (!) ‘Eras Tour’ gigs with Paramore at The Square Mile’s Wembley Stadium .

Her eight-show residency at the 90,000-seat venue kicks off Friday, June 21 . After that, she’ll play two more shows at Wembley on Saturday, June 22 and Sunday, June 23 before taking a two-month hiatus and returning to London in mid-August.

In any event, if you want to see Taylor this week, it isn’t too late to pick up last-minute tickets.

At the time of publication, the lowest price we could find for her June 21-23 shows was $559 USD before fees on Vivid Seats.

While that may sound expensive when you factor in that London ticket prices started at $719 when we last checked in on concert costs after the release of “The Tortured Poet’s Department,” it appears Swifties who waited to secure seats until the eleventh hour just might make out like bandits.

Need to see Swift live at Wembley this weekend?

For more information, we’ve got everything you need to know and more about Taylor Swift’s three ‘Eras Tour’ concerts at London’s Wembley Stadium below.

All prices listed above are subject to fluctuation.

Taylor Swift London tickets 2024

A complete calendar including all ‘Eras Tour’ Wembley Stadium concert dates and links to the cheapest tickets available can be found here:

(Note: The New York Post confirmed all above prices at the publication time. All prices are in US dollars, subject to fluctuation and include additional fees at checkout .)

Vivid Seats is a verified secondary market ticketing platform, and prices may be higher or lower than face value, depending on demand. 

They offer a 100% buyer guarantee that states your transaction will be safe and secure and your tickets will be delivered prior to the event.

Taylor Swift at Wembley Stadium in August

Can’t make it to see Taylor in London this June?

As noted above, she’ll be back at the mega stadium from Aug. 15-20. Here’s what tickets cost for each of those shows:

Taylor Swift set list

Post-“Tortured Poet’s Department” release, Swift has incorporated the new album into her shows.

For a closer look, here’s what Tay Tay played at her final Paris concert at La Defense Arena, according to  Set List FM :

01.) “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” 02.) “Cruel Summer” 03.) “The Man” 04.) “You Need to Calm Down” 05.) “Lover” Fearless

06.) “Fearless” 07.) “You Belong With Me” 08.) “Love Story” Red 09.) “22” 10. )”We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” 11.) “I Knew You Were Trouble” 12.) “All Too Well” Speak Now 13.) “Enchanted” reputation

14.) “…Ready for It?” 15.) “Delicate” 16.) “Don’t Blame Me” 17.) “Look What You Made Me Do” folklore / evermore

18.) “cardigan” 19.) “betty” 20.) “champagne problems” 21.) “august” 22.) “illicit affairs” 23.) “my tears ricochet” 24.) “marjorie” 25.) “willow” 1989

26.) “Style” 27.) “Blank Space” 28.) “Shake It Off” 29.) “Wildest Dreams” 30.) “Bad Blood” THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT

31.) “Female Rage: The Musical” (contains elements of “MBOBHFT”, “WAfoLOM?”, “loml”, “So Long, London” & “BDILH”) 32.) “But Daddy I Love Him / So High School” 33.) “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” 34.) “Down Bad” 35.) “Fortnight” 36.) “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” 37.) “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” Surprise Songs

38.) “The Alchemy / Treacherous” 39.) “Begin Again” Midnights

40.) “Lavender Haze” 41.) “Anti‐Hero” 42.) “Midnight Rain” 43.) “Vigilante Shit” 44.) “Bejeweled” 45.) “Mastermind” 46.) “Karma”

Taylor Swift ‘Eras Tour’ news

Our team has been following the ‘Eras Tour’ closely over the past year.

Over the past few months, we spoke to a Swiftie who  shared some helpful tips  about seeing Taylor live, reported on  dropping ticket prices , and  came up with a list of all the most exciting fan trends .

Taylor Swift new music

Swift’s  “The Tortured Poets Department”  was released at midnight (and subsequently at 2 a.m.) on Friday, April 19.

While every listener will likely come away with their own favorites, we particularly enjoyed the sleek, synthy “Fortnight,” icy “So Long, London,” anthemic “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” a bombastic slow build of “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived” and gorgeously arranged “Chloe or Sam or Sophia or Marcus.”

If you want to give it a spin — if you haven’t already, that is — you can find “The Tortured Poets Department”  here .

The Hayley Williams-fronted pop-punk rockers are opening for Swift from May through August this year. This may come as a bit of a surprise to some fans considering that the group mounted a successful arena tour of their own in 2023.

That tour came on the heels of Paramore’s 2022 reunion; Prior to that, the band had been on a five-year hiatus.

For fans who want to check out their latest, their 2023 album “This Is Why” can be heard  here .

Huge stars on tour in 2024

Although it will cost an arm and a leg (sometimes more!) to see Swift live this year, there are much more affordable — likely stateside — concerts you can attend this year.

Here are just five of our favorite artists you won’t want to miss live.

•  Olivia Rodrigo

•  Kacey Musgraves

•  Pink

•  Gracie Abrams

•  Billie Eilish

Who else is on the road this year? Check out our list of the  50 biggest concert tours in 2024  to find out.

Why you should trust ‘Post Wanted’ by the New York Post

This article was written by Matt Levy , New York Post live events reporter. Levy stays up-to-date on all the latest tour announcements from your favorite musical artists and comedians, as well as Broadway openings, sporting events and more live shows – and finds great ticket prices online. Since he started his tenure at the Post in 2022, Levy has reviewed Bruce Springsteen and interviewed Melissa Villaseñor of SNL fame, to name a few. Please note that deals can expire, and all prices are subject to change.

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Below Deck Med spoilers: Bri and Ellie are crushing on Joe and a charter guest lost at sea

Below Deck Med continues to come in hot, and we are only less than a handful of episodes into the new season.

The drama has been intense since the premiere episode with a provision disaster and boatmances kicking off Below Deck Med Season 9.

That doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon, as Bravo has given Below Deck Med fans a glimpse at a love triangle brewing and charter guest chaos.

As Monsters and Critics previously reported, Below Deck Med spoilers reveal a return charter guest in Gigi Fernandez that has chef Johnathan “Jono” Shillingford feeling the pressure.

It turns out that’s just the tip of the iceberg for the St. David crew regarding the next charter.

Deckhand Nathan Gallager takes a guest on a little excursion, which makes the crew panic.

Below Deck Med charter guest lost at sea

Thanks to a preview video, Below Deck Med fans got a glimpse of what happens when Nathan takes charter guest Laura paddle boarding. Nathan, though, manages to get them too far away from the Mustique yacht only to have the current shift.

When they try to paddle back to the yacht, they can’t make any headway because of the current.

“We’re trying to row back to the yacht, but we’re actually going backwards because the current is so strong, So, yeah, we’re stuck at sea. I’m s**ting myself,” Nathan shared via his confessional.

Deckhand Joe Bradley begins to freak out after the guests grow concerned about Laura because they can’t see her in the water anymore. After calling for bosun Iain Maclean to come to the swim platform, Joe tries to reassure the guests that everything will be fine.

However, in his confessional, Joe takes a different take on Nathan and Laura being stranded.

Below Deck Med love triangle in the works

Meanwhile, another preview video for Below Deck Med Season 9 hints at the drama between Ellie Dubaich and Bri Muller because of Joe.

On the first crew night out, the two women made it clear that they had the hots for the deckhand. Well, things are amped up a bit as Bri flirts with Joe in the crew, only to seek advice on flirting from Ellie.

In their cabin, Ellie asks Bri point blank if she’s got her eye on Joe, to which Bri explains she just wants flirting advice in general.

Via her confessional, though, Bri’s singing a different tune about Joe as Ellie stakes her claim on Joe in her confessional. Oh yes, a boatmance triangle is coming, and it will be a s**t storm.

To see the full preview video, click here.

Make sure to keep watching to see what craziness unfolds on the hit-yachting show.

Below Deck Med airs Mondays at 9/8c on Bravo. Seasons 1-9 are streaming on Peacock.