CV · UPDATED AUGUST 2026
Why is your yacht CV getting no replies?
Silence is data. It usually means your CV failed a thirty second read, or it landed on boats that were never going to hire you. Both are fixable this week, and neither means you are unhireable.
What happens to your CV in the first thirty seconds?
I read in a fixed order. Photo. Name. Position sought. Nationality and visas. Certificates with dates. Then experience. If one of the first five is missing I open the next CV, because there are more CVs than slots and the next one usually has it. Nobody writes back to explain that. The silence you are reading as rejection is mostly just a captain moving down the pile.
That order tells you where to spend your effort. A sharper line about your work ethic sits below five fields that decide the outcome. Fix the fields first.
From the bridge
I have never sent a rejection email. Neither has any captain I have worked for. Silence is the default answer in this industry, not a verdict on you.
Which mistakes kill a yacht CV most often?
Ranked by how often they cross my desk, most common first.
| What you sent | What I see in ten seconds | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Certificates listed with no dates | I cannot tell if you can legally join | Issue and expiry date on every line, STCW and ENG1 first |
| An expired or missing ENG1 | You cannot sail. Fastest no on the dock | Book the medical, put the expiry date near the top |
| Three pages or more | You cannot judge what matters | Two pages maximum, one page if you are green |
| No position at the top | I do not know which job you are asking for | "Position sought: Deckhand" under your name |
| Holiday photo, sunglasses, cropped from a group | Not crew | Head and shoulders, plain background or sea, crew shirt or plain polo, looking at the camera |
| "Hard working team player, passionate about the sea" | Filler. Every CV has it | A two line profile with your real background and where you are standing now |
| File named CV_final_v3.pdf | Careless with detail, and I will lose it in my downloads | "Firstname Lastname - Deckhand CV.pdf" |
Look at that list again. Six of the seven are formatting and discipline, not experience. Green crew get hired every season. Undated crew do not.
Design does the rest of the damage quietly. One accent colour, nothing competing with your photo, and no sidebar skill bars rating your teamwork out of five. I cannot verify a bar chart.
Is your ENG1 the reason nobody replies?
Often, yes, and it is the cheapest thing on the list to fix.
Definition
The ENG1 is the seafarer medical certificate. It says a doctor has cleared you to work at sea. It is valid for two years, and no boat can legally sign you on without a current one.
If your CV shows no ENG1, or one that expires before my season ends, I stop reading. I am not judging your fitness. I am judging whether I can put you on the crew list next Tuesday. As of August 2026 the medical costs about GBP 115 in the UK, roughly R2,800 in Cape Town, and EUR 100 to 150 in Antibes. It is an hour in a clinic and a fraction of what your STCW cost. Crew still book it last, then wonder why the inbox stays quiet.
Same logic for STCW Basic Safety Training. Both certificates go at the top of the certificate block with dates, not buried under a course you did in 2019. The full list of what each department needs sits on the certificates page.
Are you applying to the wrong boats, from the wrong place?
A perfect CV sent to the wrong hundred boats still gets you nothing.
Three things put candidates in the wrong pile before I even read them properly.
Boat size and department mismatch. A 40m private boat running four crew wants somebody who has already done the job. A 70m charter boat with a rotational deck team hires green crew every spring. Read the advert, then apply where green is expected.
Location. In season I hire the person who can be on the passerelle tomorrow morning. If your CV does not say which port you are in, I assume you are not in one. Put your current location and your availability date in the header, and update it every time you move. A CV from another continent with no travel plan goes to the bottom of the pile in April.
The blast. The same file to every address, no subject line, no boat name, no position. It reads as a broadcast, and I answer broadcasts the way you answer them. An advert for one green deckhand slot pulls a stack of these.
Fixing this is not sending more emails. It is sending fewer, to boats you have actually walked past, with the boat name in the first line. Daywork is the proper version of that. As of August 2026 it pays EUR 120 to 160 a day in Antibes, EUR 100 to 150 in Palma, and USD 150 to 200 in Fort Lauderdale, and US waters need a B1/B2 visa even for one day. Daywork also solves the reference problem, which is the quiet reason a lot of green CVs go nowhere. Ask the bosun or the chief stew when the daywork day ends, before you walk off: will you write me a line, and can I list your number. Two names with numbers on the page beats a paragraph about your attitude.
More on working the docks in your CV is your dockwalk and your first job.
What does a CV that gets replies look like?
Run your file against this before you send another application.
- Position sought as the first line under your name
- Head and shoulders photo, plain background or sea, crew shirt or plain polo, smiling like a person
- Nationality, languages, and every visa with its expiry date
- STCW and ENG1 at the top of the certificates block, issue and expiry dates on both
- Current location and the date you are available
- Vessels listed with length, type, and private or charter
- Daywork listed as experience, with boat name and dates
- Two line profile instead of an objective statement
- Two references with names, roles, and numbers
- Two pages maximum, one if you are green
- Saved as "Firstname Lastname - Deckhand CV.pdf"
- Sent as a PDF, never a document that reflows on my phone
If you came from hospitality, trades, water sports, or service, that experience counts and belongs on the page with the transferable part named. When an advert says under six months experience, daywork counts. Say what you actually did on the boat, not what you hoped to learn.
Rebuild the file properly rather than patching it. SeaPapers has templates by department, deck, engineering, interior, galley, officers, and junior, with the two page discipline built in and a folio for your certificates so the dates never go missing. The rest of the ground work, the certificates, the ports, the money, is in the free guide, and what I look at line by line is in what captains look for.
Do this now
- Open your CV and check the first five fields: photo, name, position sought, nationality and visas, certificate dates. Fix whatever is missing today.
- Book your ENG1 if it is missing or expires inside the next six months, then put the expiry date on the page.
- Cut the file to two pages, rename it "Firstname Lastname - Deckhand CV.pdf", and export it as a PDF.
- Pick ten boats you can physically reach this month and send ten separate emails with the boat name in the first line. Stop blasting.
Straight answers
How long should I wait before assuming a boat is not interested?
Assume no reply is the answer. Captains rarely send rejections. Follow up once after five to seven days with the boat name in the subject line, then move on and keep dayworking. A second follow up does not help you.
Does daywork count as experience on a yacht CV?
Yes. List it with the boat name, the length, and the dates, the same way you list a season. When an advert asks for under six months experience, daywork counts. Say what you actually did on deck or in the interior.
Should my CV be one page or two?
Two pages maximum. One page if you are green and honest about it. Three pages tells me you cannot judge what matters, which is the job I am hiring you to do.
Is my photo really that important?
It is the first thing I look at. Head and shoulders, plain background or the sea behind you, crew shirt or plain polo, tidy hair, looking at the camera, smiling like a person. Sunglasses, group crops and holiday shots get skipped.
Should I put my date of birth, tattoos or smoking status on my CV?
Expectations vary by flag and by boat, and crew commonly state all three. Surprises at the interview read worse than facts on the page. If a tattoo is visible in a crew shirt, say so.
Do recruitment agencies charge crew to find work?
No. Under MLC 2006 Standard A1.4 paragraph 5, agencies may not charge crew placement fees, directly or indirectly. If somebody asks you for a fee to be put forward for a job, walk away.