How do you write a yacht CV with no experience?

Every green CV I read has the same hole in the middle, and every green candidate has the same instinct about how to fill it. The instinct is to write more. The fix is to write less, in the right order.

What actually goes on the page when you have no sea time?

I read a CV in this order: photo, name, position sought, nationality and visas, certificates with dates, then experience. That is the whole scan, and it takes about thirty seconds standing up. If one of the first five is missing I do not go hunting for it. I move to the next CV.

Count them. Four of those six items you already have on the day you decide to do this. A photograph. A name. A position you want. A passport and whatever visas sit in it. Add STCW Basic Safety Training and an ENG1 medical and you have five. Only the sixth is thin, and the sixth is the one you keep trying to inflate.

So build the page around what is solid.

• Position sought under your name. "Deckhand". "Junior Stewardess". Not "seeking opportunities in the yachting industry".
• Certificates with issue and expiry dates, STCW and ENG1 first. The ENG1 runs two years. An undated certificate reads as one you do not hold.
• Visas held, with expiry. B1/B2, Schengen, whatever you carry. That line often decides whether I call.
• Nationality and languages, because the crew mix and the flag state paperwork both depend on them.
• A two line profile of facts instead of an objective statement. Who you are, what you have done, what you want.

The photo does more work than everything under it. Head and shoulders, plain background or the sea behind you, crew shirt or plain polo, hair tidy, looking at the camera, smiling like a person rather than a passport. A yacht is a small steel box and I am deciding whether you fit inside it with nine other people.

One page, and honest about it. Two is the ceiling for anyone. Three says you cannot judge what matters.

From the bridge

There are three CVs in my drawer right now and all three belong to green crew who wrote one plain line about what they did before yachting. That line is the reason I called them.

Which land jobs count, and how do you write them?

All of them count if you write them as skills instead of job titles. I am not reading your restaurant CV for the restaurant. I am reading it for whether you can carry a tray in a swell and stay pleasant at hour eleven.

Name the trade. Name the service job. Name the water sport. Then give me a number.

Two rules for that column on the right. Every line carries a number, and no line carries an adjective. "Hard working team player with a passion for excellence" is the single most common sentence on a green CV and it has never once made me pick up a phone. Level 2 Food Safety is worth a line of its own if you hold it, because anyone handling food is legally required to have it and it runs for three years.

If you are still deciding which department you are writing this CV for, the free guide walks the four of them, and is this for you is the honest version of the question.

Does daywork count as experience?

Yes, and it is the fastest hole filler on the page.

Definition

Daywork is paid casual work on a yacht, hired by the day, usually washdowns, teak, laundry, provisioning or a turnaround between guest trips. No contract, no cabin, cash or bank transfer when the work is done.

As of August 2026 a day pays EUR 120 to 160 in Antibes, EUR 100 to 150 in Palma and USD 150 to 200 in Fort Lauderdale. Note the last one: US waters need a B1/B2 visa even for one day of work.

Every day of it goes on the CV. Write the boat, the length, the type, the dates and what you actually did.

• "M/Y Example, 42m motor yacht, daywork, 6 to 11 April 2026. Exterior washdowns, teak, tender cleaning."
• "S/Y Example, 38m sailing yacht, daywork, 14 April 2026. Turnaround, laundry, cabin detailing."

Two weeks of dockwalking gives you four or five entries like that. When an advertisement asks for "under six months experience", daywork is what it means. That is the door.

Who writes your reference when nobody has employed you at sea?

The person who watched you work today. Ask before you step off the passerelle, not by email a fortnight later.

Two asks, in this order. Will you write me a line. Can I list your number.

• Ask the bosun, chief stew or chef, whoever ran you that day.
• Get the line in writing that evening while they still remember your name.
• Confirm the number and the spelling of their vessel before you put both on the page.
• Add the reference under the daywork entry it belongs to, not in a lump at the bottom.

Most crew never ask. That is the whole advantage.

What kills a green CV in ten seconds?

The list is short and it does not change. A cropped night out photo with somebody's shoulder still in frame. More than two pages. A motivational paragraph. Certificates without dates. An expired ENG1. A file called CV_final_v3.pdf.

Name the file "Firstname Lastname - Deckhand CV.pdf" and change the role for each job you apply for. Keep the design quiet: one accent colour, nothing fighting the photo, no sidebar of skill bars rating you at eighty percent for teamwork. If you want the longer version of what happens on the passerelle, read your CV is your dockwalk and what captains look for.

SeaPapers (seapapers.com) has department templates for deck, engineering, interior, galley and officers, plus a junior template built for exactly this problem: no yacht time yet, one page, dated certificates. It asks for vessels, visas and certificate dates rather than office fields, and it holds you to two pages. The same account holds a document folio, so your STCW, ENG1, passport, visas and references sit behind one link when a purser asks for everything. Boats ask for everything.

Before you export, check the certificate list against what you need for each yacht job.