YACHT WEEK Skipper

1. Role Summary

As a Skipper you are the sole captain in command of your yacht and shepherd a crew of around 8 to 10 paying guests through the week. You own the safety and operating condition of the yacht 24/7, the day-to-day relationship with your crew, and the brand voice on your yacht. On most yachts you work alongside a host who runs the galley and the onboard hospitality; on cabin and solo bookings you may run without a host onboard, in which case the guests handle their own provisioning and you support them by sharing the guest summary so they can plan around each other’s allergies and preferences.

You are supplied to Yacht Week by Quarterdeck (QD). YW is the customer, QD is the supplier. Conduct, fitness for role, performance management and replacements all sit with QD; the QD Code of Excellence is the governing document for how you behave on duty.

For the week you report to your Lead Skipper, or to the Route Manager (RM) where no Lead is assigned. Quarterdeck (QD) management handles performance and conduct decisions where the RM escalates. Where a Lead Skipper or Lead Tech is assigned to your route, they sit under the RM as a support layer. Use them for performance and skills coaching, advice on difficult guests, and admin, finance and policy questions. The Lead Skipper creates your group within the QD WhatsApp Community, reaches out early in the week, and checks in through it to coach and support rather than control. They have no command authority over your yacht.

In one sentence: you are the captain in command of your yacht and responsible for your crew; the RM supports and coaches the skipper team; the EM leads the event.

Reporting & Working Relationships

Reports to: the Lead Skipper operationally for the assigned week. Where no Lead Skipper is assigned, you report to the Route Manager (RM).
Quarterdeck (QD) management decides on performance, conduct, offboarding, and role-level matters, acting where the RM escalates.
Works alongside: the Host on your yacht, where one is assigned, as your half of the partnership for the week. On cabin and solo bookings you may run without a host onboard.
Support your host, where you have one onboard: handle the rubbish and help with the dishes, and keep the shared spaces tidy.
Supported by: Lead Skipper and, where assigned, Lead Tech, both sitting under the RM.
Liaises with: the wider skipper team across the route via the Lead Skipper's group within the QD WhatsApp Community; the Route Medic on any incident with a medical dimension.
Out of scope: command of any other skipper's yacht; financial settlements with the charter company; any guest comms once a complaint is in.

2. Role Ownership Across the Team

These pages sit alongside the rest of the 2026 event-team manuals. Use this glossary so you know who owns what when you need to surface something. Skippers and hosts are the people closest to the guests; the rest of the Event Team and the YW central functions are the support and decision layers behind you.

Operational Management for all Routes (land based)

Head of Operations (HOO): heads operations across all destinations and the season; owns partner-venue contracts and cross-destination escalation; final point on vendor, contract and reputational matters.
Operations Coordinator (OC): cross-destination operations; supplies pre-week intelligence and the budget for each EM; operationalises HOO-level contract requirements at route level.

Event Management Team (on the crew yacht)

Event Manager (EM): route lead; manages the Event Team and the event, and owns the budget.
Guest Experience Manager (GEM): owns the guest experience, guest relationships, and complaint handling.
Event Coordinator (EC): the EM's right hand; keeps the YW App schedule, app comms and message updates current, is on-site POC for the Media and DJ teams, and helps wherever needed.
Route Manager (RM): coordinates route operations and supports and coaches the skipper team; supplied by Quarterdeck (QD).
Host Manager (HM): coordinates and supports the host team and supports the onboard guest experience; supplied by Quarterdeck (QD).

Skipper & Host Management Roles

Lead Skipper: route-level skipper-support role assigned to selected skippers; sits under the RM. Advisory and coordination only, no command authority over any other yacht.
Lead Host: route-level host-support role assigned to selected hosts; sits under the HM. Advisory and coordination only, no authority over skipper teams or yacht command.
Route Medic: assigned skipper, host, or event crew member with medical credentials; provides route-level medical response and health-and-safety support.
Lead Tech: route-level technical-support role assigned to selected skippers with strong yacht-systems experience; sits under the RM as a support function. Advisory and coordination only, does not replace charter-company technicians or formal repair channels.

Other Functions

Quarterdeck (QD): Yacht Week's external service provider for the skipper and host crews (including RM, HM, and the Route Medic). YW is the customer; QD supplies the people. Skipper-side and host-side performance, offboarding, and replacement decisions sit with QD. The QD Code of Excellence is the umbrella conduct framework: https://www.quarterdeck.co/code-of-excellence/
YW Customer Service (CS): owns the guest relationship after the week, and during the week from the moment a complaint is in. All post-complaint guest comms route through CS.
YW Commercial Team: owns charter-company contact, and any settlement coordination with Finance and CS.
YW Finance: executes settlements, refunds, and partial credits on Commercial's instruction.

3. Pre-event Preparation

Saturday onboarding rhythm is owned by the Event Team; the destination Event Guide carries the destination specifics. Your job in the days before the week starts is to come in prepared so the Event Team is briefing you on edge cases, not basics.

Assignment read end-to-end. Per-guest view and guest summary both.
Guest summary review. Cabin type preferences, holiday budget, table-reservation interest, swimming ability, party-mood indicators, dietary and allergy summary.
Provisioning plan. Coordinated with the host where there is one onboard.
Kitty plan. Built off the kitty baseline posted on the guest assignment in the QD Admin.
First-time-in-destination self-flag to the RM at first meeting if these waters are new to you.
Saturday yacht check-in: charter office paperwork, deposit, yacht condition and inventory, technical induction, photos and videos of any pre-existing damage.
Day 1 safety briefing prepared and ready for departure.

Saturday morning execution. All crew on the marina by midday. Pre-arrange a fixed meeting point with your crew and stick to it; guests should not be wandering the marina looking for you. Underpromise and overdeliver on yacht-ready times: if the charter office says the yacht will be ready at 16:00, tell your crew 17:00. Encourage guests to spend the day exploring rather than waiting at the marina, especially where marina facilities are limited. The destination Event Guide carries the marina-by-marina specifics.

Uniform and flags. One YW shirt, one cap, one wristband and one skipper flag, issued at the crew meeting on Saturday. Replacements only on wear-and-tear damage. Lock down kit at end-of-week so it makes it back to QD.

4. On Event

On event the majority of the responsibility to manage and mitigate sits with the skipper and host directly, on the yacht, in real time. The Lead Skipper, the RM, and the wider Event Team follow up and support; they do not replace your judgement on the water. The sections below cover what that looks like across an event week.

4.1 The YW experience and service mindset

Yacht Week is, ultimately, about the people you meet and the friends you make. The yacht, the sea and the sun are the setting; the experience is built by the skippers and hosts on each yacht. What guests come back for is the week itself, and what we bring to the table is delivering it safely, warmly and with care.

Service mindset is anticipating what your crew needs before they ask, reading who is feeling great, who is tired, who is anxious about something they will not say out loud, and acting on what you read. Putting the guest first is the discipline: no matter how good a moment is for you, your enjoyment should never conflict with your crew’s experience.

Your mindset should be the same as the guests’. We are here to explore, to enjoy the sea and the places we go to, and to make friends along the way. This is not an ordinary job; it is the grey zone between work and the best time of your life. The skippers and hosts who get the most out of YW treat each week as part of the adventure, not a shift to get through.

Look after yourself first. If you are not enjoying the week, it usually traces to one of the basics: sleep, rest, time alone, food, hydration. Address whichever is missing before anything else. You cannot deliver the experience or be your best self if you are running on empty, and the cost of pretending otherwise lands on the crew within a day or two.

Before your guests leave, tell them in person how valuable their feedback is to Yacht Week. A warm, genuine mention on Friday or Saturday morning lifts the response rate and helps the whole team, so keep it friendly and never pushy.

4.2 Onboard guest leadership and command

Your top priority is the safety of the crew and the yacht, in that order. You have the last word on itinerary, weather and safety, and you keep that authority quiet rather than worn. The strongest skippers run a calm, well-informed yacht and let the crew make most of the lifestyle decisions: where to eat, when to swim, how late to stay out. You step in firmly when safety, the yacht or the timetable is at risk, and step back the rest of the time.

Lead by example. Your behaviour with crew, with the host, with vendors and on the radio sets the tone for the yacht. Crews mirror their skipper within a day. If you are visibly warm, confident, sober and organised, the week tracks that way. If you are short, dismissive or distracted, the week tracks that way too.

The week belongs to the guests. Within the safety envelope you set, they choose where to go, when to go, and which activities to opt into. Surface what is available, advise on trade-offs, and let them decide. Guests should never feel pressured into a route diversion or an activity, and they are always free to opt out of anything that is not safety-driven.

Sail the week. Yacht Week is a week of sailing, not a race between ports. Guests should never feel rushed to chase the next harbour. Make the most of the days at sea: when there is wind, sail; on long passages, suggest an early start so you can sail rather than motor through. When you lead with that rhythm, guests follow and start to understand what Yacht Week is actually about. Fenders up when you are at sea.

Guests do not usually sail on the Saturday arrival day, but it is their week: if they want to sail on the Saturday and you are comfortable on safety and security, take them out. Friday is a full sailing day, not a rush back to the marina. It is common for skippers and hosts to want to get back early and finish their day, but resist that; it is in the guests’ interest to stay out and return as late as is sensible, in good time for the marina team to check the yacht out, so they get the most from their last day at sea. Plan refuelling so it does not eat into this: ideally refuel in the morning or early in the day, then take a relaxed lunch in a natural bay with swimming and downtime, and head back after lunch, typically reaching the marina around 3 to 5pm.

4.3 Brand voice and conduct with guests

Yacht Week brand voice is warm, confident, energetic, never defensive. Hold it under pressure. Never disparage the product, the yacht, the destination or the team to a guest. Negative commentary about the team, budget, scheduling or any other internal matter lands on a paying guest as a brand failure, regardless of whether it is internally true. Where the crew or the yacht is genuinely unfit for what was sold, surface it through signal flow, not through commentary to the guest.

Flag early rather than handling it quietly onboard. If you try to absorb a difficult dynamic instead of flagging it, the Event Team has no chance to help before it escalates. Raise a concern as soon as you can, even when it feels manageable and even when you believe you have it under control: flagging it early, while it is still a small “yellow” signal, is how the Event Team can act before it becomes a real “red” problem.

Once a guest complaint is in, all guest contact stops (including WhatsApp, in person, and social channels) and Customer Service takes over; refer the guest back to CS if they reach out. See 5.2.

Sexual misconduct in any form, guest-on-crew, crew-on-guest, crew-on-crew or guest-on-guest, sits at zero tolerance. The full Quarterdeck Sexual Misconduct Policy, the expected community behaviours, the consent framework and the disclosure-response standard are set out at: https://www.quarterdeck.co/sexual-misconduct-policy/. If you witness or experience misconduct, raise it the same operational day via the Event Team chain. Trained First Responders are designated each event to receive disclosures, and confidentiality is maintained as far as possible. Retaliation against anyone reporting or reported is not tolerated.

4.4 Guest communication channels

The YW App is the first point of contact with guests. Treat it as the primary channel for everything except real-time logistics inside a single day. Guests get push notifications, route info, schedule, and the in-app feedback channel through the App. If guests initiate WhatsApp with you or the host, move into WhatsApp for that thread, but do not move the whole crew off the App by default.

On cabin and solo bookings the App matters more, not less, because it is the one place all the individual guests on the yacht meet each other before the week starts. On a cabin or solo yacht without a host onboard, the provisioning and shopping load sits with the guests as a group, not with you. Your job is to give them what they need to plan it well: open the assignment in the QD admin, take screenshots of the guest summary (allergies and food preferences, top-dish indicators, dietary flags) and share them in the App group. WhatsApp is the secondary channel if guests have already started one. The full file is also there in the admin if guests want the long form.

4.5 Reading the guest assignment in the admin system

Your assignment in the admin system holds what you need to prepare, and exactly what appears may change over time. Broadly it covers the work-assignment details (yacht, dates, start and end marina, charter company, who you are working with, and guest count); the crew and their check-in status; a per-guest breakdown, where you click a name to see what that guest has shared (for example allergies, dietary needs and food selections, swimming ability, activity interests, music preferences, special occasions, and any medical or health-consent flags); and a Check-in Data Summary that totals those responses across the whole crew, for example how many guests share a given allergy or picked a given dish. Read it all before guests arrive: the summary gives you the shape of the yacht, the per-guest view tells you who needs what.

Allergy and severe-allergy data lives in the per-guest view and is also flagged in the summary. Treat it as live data, not a one-off read. The Route Medic should be pre-briefed on any high-severity allergy or medical flag through the RM.

4.6 Daily rhythm with the Event Team

Run a short daily check-in with your Lead Skipper, or with the RM where no Lead is assigned. The bar is to flag yellow even when it does not feel red yet: a difficult guest dynamic that feels manageable onboard, a host wellbeing concern, a yacht condition issue, a logistics bump from arrival day. Yellow flags are how the Event Team gets a chance to support before things go red.

Do not wait for the daily check if something material happens. Surface to the RM as soon as you can. The Event Team flow is: skipper or host into the Lead, or directly to the RM or HM, then to the EM, then to the Operations Coordinator (OC). The OC may involve the Head of Operations (HOO) on Critical-severity items. Vendor or guest confrontations follow the same chain: surface, do not absorb.

4.7 Working with the host

Together with the host you co-shepherd a yacht of around 8 to 10 guests through the week. There is no rigid division of tasks. Guests do not care who gets the job done; they expect an exceptional experience. That means at times the host needs help washing dishes, taking out the trash, picking up items at the market, or with food prep. There will also be times where you need help anchoring, throwing a line, raising the sails or cleaning the deck. Communicate and coordinate so the host can plan meal times and provisioning around the itinerary, and reservations and activities can be booked at appropriate times.

Treat the host as a teammate and look out for each other. Regardless of role, gender, or age, anyone who would rather not be alone late at night, in an unfamiliar or remote place, or around unfamiliar guests, should be accompanied; offer that, and ask for it yourself if you would prefer not to be alone. If there is a spare cabin or forepeak, give consideration to who most needs security and privacy. The host is second in command of the social and hospitality side of the yacht; back them up in front of guests, and sort any disagreements in private.

On cabin and solo bookings without a host onboard, the kitty handling is yours and the provisioning is the guests’ job. Your role is to share the guest summary from the QD admin so they can plan around each other’s allergies and preferences (see 4.5). For any host-side question that comes up onboard, reach out to your Lead Skipper first, or the RM where no Lead is assigned.

4.8 Provisioning, kitty, and budget

On any yacht with a host onboard, the host owns the Day 1 meal plan and budget that goes out to the group before provisioning. You support: you confirm the host has shared it, you back the host in front of the guests on the supermarket run, you read the kitty handling the same way the host does. On cabin and solo bookings without a host, the meal plan and budget conversation belongs to the guests; you facilitate by sharing the guest summary so they can plan together.

The kitty baseline for the week is posted on the guest assignment in the QD Admin; that figure is what the guests saw when they booked. Increasing the kitty “to be on the safe side” is one of the biggest sources of complaints we see; it does not buy comfort, it buys distrust. The discipline is to land within the baseline figure, and if it really is not enough, ask for more in-week and explain why afterwards. Transparency is the over-delivery.

Run the kitty closeout in front of the group at the end of the week: opening balance, expenses with receipts, closing balance, any distribution. The skipper or host runs the closeout; the Lead Skipper or Lead Host verifies via the WhatsApp group, a direct message, or a check-in. Report all receipts on the final day. A kitty that closes without a visible reconciliation is a pattern we now treat as a route-team issue, not a personality issue.

4.9 What's included in a Yacht Week booking

Knowing what is in the YW package keeps you from accidentally selling guests on paid add-ons that are already covered. The YW booking covers the yacht charter, your skipper or host services, the route programme and the events along it, the Event Team support, the YW App and route comms, and the standard kit on every yacht. What the kit includes, and any pre-paid extras such as mooring fees or partner-venue dinners shown on the guest profile, vary by destination and change over time, so check the destination Event Guide for the current per-destination list.

Selling or recommending services and products outside the YW offer

Recurring complaints in this area come from skippers or hosts recommending paid add-ons in good faith. Once lawyers and insurance are involved, everything looks different. Think downstream before suggesting anything that sits outside what YW already provides.

Speaker rental. Do not promote or sell speaker-rental services from third-party companies that lack proper registration or insurance. If something goes wrong (battery, fire, injury) you may carry personal legal exposure. YW cannot recommend or be connected to companies that do not comply with local regulations.
Alcohol purchases. Same legal-exposure logic. Do not get involved in advising on or arranging supply that could be illegal sales or distribution.
Activity recommendations. Be cautious about activity providers where insurance status is unclear. In legal claims, the company's insurance will look for whoever stepped outside the Code of Conduct.
Cooler boxes and included kit. Offer what the destination includes rather than reselling third-party hire; the destination Event Guide lists the current per-yacht kit.

Tipping

Tipping is a gesture of appreciation, not an expectation, and entirely at the guest’s discretion. No asking, no hinting, no pressure, in conversation, in jokes, or in any other way. Respect that tipping varies by culture, and stay just as professional whether or not a guest tips. If a guest does tip, accept it with appreciation, never expectation. The full Tipping Policy is in the Code of Excellence: https://www.quarterdeck.co/code-of-excellence/

4.10 Yacht handover at start and end of charter

You lead the yacht handover at the start and end of charter. The host supports on the linen and consumables side: counts, condition, and what was used or lost.

Check-in: complete the inventory and condition checklist with the charter-company technician, take photos and videos of any pre-existing damage, and collect the yacht papers from the office. Co-sign the handover record with the host so heads, linen, sound, dinghy fuel and ice are covered, not just engine and hull.
Checkout timing: the yacht must be vacated by the time stated in the destination Event Guide, typically by 9am on the Saturday morning after a short hop back to the starting marina.
Refuel: diesel, outboard fuel and gas refilled before checkout.
Waste: all trash off the yacht (especially the heads), recyclables sorted as the destination requires, transparent garbage bags where required. Half-used food binned; unopened food can be left as a gratuity for the cleaners.
Clean: linen stripped from cabins and piled in the saloon, dishes done and put away, ovens, stoves and fridges cleaned.
Integrity: damages and missing inventory reported up front and honestly. Lack of integrity at this stage is treated seriously by QD and YW and may carry charges or disciplinary action.
Sign-off: stay through final inspection and assist guests with any problems after disembarkation. Leaving the yacht early before sign-off may make you personally liable for charges and is a disciplinary matter.

If you damage guest property, intentionally or by accident, tell the guest the same day. Same-day report to the RM via the Lead. Late or quiet handling on damage to guest property is one of the patterns that turns a recoverable situation into a complaint and an insurance issue.

The week runs Saturday to Saturday. Your assignment begins when your guests arrive on the Saturday, typically around lunchtime but varying with their travel; adapt to when they turn up and to their reasonable requests.

On Friday night, stay in service. You are hired for the full week, so keep looking after your guests through Friday and help them off the yacht on Saturday morning. Guests should never be left alone on the yacht overnight: where a yacht has both a skipper and a host, at most one of you may leave on the Friday night (for example a transfer between countries or a personal flight), and only if the other stays with the guests. If all your guests leave the yacht themselves, you may leave too. Do not initiate leaving yourself, and leave earlier only if the guests ask you to; any complaint about it reflects badly on you.

Guests are encouraged to stay onboard on the Friday night. Anyone who wants a lie-in on the Saturday morning can be advised to book a hotel room for the Friday night and move their luggage off the yacht then, so they can enjoy their Saturday without holding up the clear-out.

On Saturday morning the yacht must be cleared out on time, with 9am the safe general target though it can vary by destination (check the Event Guide). Making sure your guests clear out on time is your responsibility. Late departures hold up the marina and delay the maintenance and cleaning teams. If you are not sleeping onboard on the Friday night, appoint someone to make sure the yacht is cleared out on time in your place; the responsibility for guests complying still sits with you.

4.11 Damage, incident, safety

Safety first, always. Maritime legislation requires a safety briefing before the yacht departs; deliver it on Day 1 and document that you have. Reinforce specific safety briefings through the week as conditions change: raft safety, personal safety in busy towns, operating the sails, rough conditions.

Report any damage, near-miss or incident the same day, through the QD report form and to your Lead, not at end of week (Section 5 covers how the form routes and is logged).

Yacht security: lock the yacht when unattended, close hatches against rain downpours, and lift the dinghy back on board every night. Waters at most destinations are safe but yacht-security discipline is the bar regardless.

Brief guests on the conditions of the destination at the start of the week: sun and UV exposure (multi-method protection where the sun is strong), seasickness on longer crossings (advise guests to come prepared with patches, wristbands or other prevention), and treatment of grazes and coral cuts (treat immediately and surface to the Route Medic; warm water and iodine is the standing first response). Read the sea state continuously and be ready to reef or take down sails at any moment.

4.12 First-time-in-destination

If you have not skippered those waters before, self-flag at the first meeting with your Lead Skipper, or with the RM where no Lead is assigned. First-time-in-destination is a separate flag from first-week-of-season; it captures experienced skippers who are new to a particular destination. The Event Guide for your destination (see 4.14) is the starting point for local knowledge in the days before you fly in. Where possible the RM pairs you with a destination-experienced Lead Skipper through the week and the RM and Lead Skipper give extra attention. Self-flagging is the lighter, quicker option than the Event Team learning during the week.

4.13 QD Community on WhatsApp

The QD Community is the umbrella for the many WhatsApp groups that get spun up across a season. Only join the groups where you are assigned. Privacy works the same as any WhatsApp group you create yourself: admins cannot see or access content in groups created within the QD Community, not even retroactively, and admins cannot join groups they are not members of. The Community exists as one place to find the jungle of groups created during a season, not as a surveillance layer over them.

For privacy and GDPR reasons the company manages these groups and deletes them after each event. They are official, professional channels for event comms only, and are not to be used for anything that conflicts with Quarterdeck or Yacht Week. Quarterdeck’s core business is training and supplying crew to companies and individuals who need them; if you ever need crew yourself, QD can help.

4.14 Event Guide for your destination

The Event Guide is the operational reference for your route. It carries the destination-specific detail that this manual deliberately does not: local supermarkets and where to source produce, partner venues and any history with each, transfer logistics, charter office contacts, route layout and weather notes, and common local situations and how the Event Team has handled them before. The Event Guide is owned by the Operations team and is the single source for anything route-specific. Start there in the days before you fly in, and surface any gap or out-of-date item to the RM via the Lead Skipper so OC can keep the guide current.

4.15 Partner reservations and dinners

Partner-venue dinners and activities run on advance reservations. The booking channel varies by item and by destination. Some dinners are pre-paid through the guest’s YW booking account; other dinners are reserved directly with the venue (mention “Yacht Week” when booking). For activities not listed on the guest profile, YW may set up a registration channel for the destination, typically a Google Form or Eventbrite. Share what is available with your guests early in the week and let them decide. The destination Event Guide lists which channel applies for each dinner and activity, the deadlines, and the venue contacts.

5. Complaint and Incident Handling

Every guest complaint and operational incident on your yacht follows the same flow: Listen, Acknowledge, Assess severity, Route, Act, Close, Log. Severity decides authority; authority decides who acts and who escalates. You are the role with the relationship for guests on your yacht; you hold the guest POC through resolution unless and until a complaint is in, at which point CS holds the guest relationship.

Yacht issues and accidents are reported through the QD report form (https://www.quarterdeck.co/report-form/), choosing “yacht issue” or “accident”, as soon as they happen. The form goes automatically to the YW Commercial Team, the HOO, and QD Management, so each report is actioned and logged, which also builds a record if the same yacht has the issue again.

5.1 Escalation chain

Skipper to Lead Skipper or directly to RM, then to EM, then to OC, then to HOO. Get it onto that chain the same operational day on serious items; the Event Team and OC handle the formal documentation from there. When in doubt, escalate one level higher.

Low: schedule confusion, dietary tweak, lost item, minor venue gripe. Resolve onboard. Log at end of day.
Medium: repeat complaint, partner-venue conflict, missed transfer, group dissatisfaction with one event, minor conduct flag. Surface to the RM same day.
High: safety incident, medical issue, refund request, conduct incident, social-media-bound complaint, repeated skipper-host failure on the yacht. Stop. Notify RM immediately.
Critical: injury, missing person, criminal incident, yacht emergency, anaphylaxis, regulatory issue. Safety protocols first. The HOO owns the response, supported by OC, EM, Route Medic and the Event Team. Capture facts and times for the Event Team and OC.

5.2 Post-event guest communications

Once the week is over, or once a guest complaint is in during the week, Customer Service holds the guest relationship and owns all guest-facing communication. The Event Team, YW Operations & Management and QD Management feed input through CS and act on guest comms only at CS’s request. If a guest reaches out directly after the week, or after a complaint is in, the response is to refer them back to CS rather than reply. Skipper, Host and Event Team contact with the guest stops the moment a complaint is in, including via WhatsApp or social channels. The matter is escalated to the Route Manager, the Host Manager and the Event Manager.

6. Reporting Lines and Accountability

The Lead Skipper and Lead Tech, where assigned, sit under the RM as a support layer and do not carry command authority over your yacht. Each Skipper retains full legal and operational responsibility over their own yacht. Coaching and advice from a Lead Skipper, Lead Tech or the RM is support only; it never overrides your command or shifts your responsibility for the yacht and its crew to them, to QD or to the Company.

The RM and the Lead Skipper do not rate you. They give you feedback when there is something to address, in person and early, with documented examples that go to QD via the EM. Anything that touches conduct, safety or repeat issues is reported to QD by that route. The QD Code of Excellence is the governing standard for conduct and is available on the QD admin: https://www.quarterdeck.co/code-of-excellence/

Guest ratings matter, but they do not override the day-to-day priorities of safety and conduct. Management reads poor ratings and assesses whether they are valid; removal of a rating happens rarely and only in very clear cases. Recurring issues are tracked over time so patterns can be reviewed.

A high average rating does not on its own increase your likelihood of further assignments. A high rating combined with poor feedback from teammates or management is directly negative. Quality delivered together, by the whole Event Team and by the skipper-host pair on each yacht, is the bar.

A high rating where guests later mention they were prompted or asked to leave a high rating is significantly more damaging than a low rating. We are a close team and know over time who plays well with others and consistently delivers happy and safe guests.

Where instructed by QD management, the Event Team supports formal actions including removal from duty, reassignment, or offboarding. Cover and redistribution decisions for mid-week dropouts sit with QD via the standby pool, not with the RM.