How do you dockwalk for a yacht job? A captain's actual script

Dockwalking is walking a marina with CVs in your hand, asking boats whether they need help today. It is the oldest way into this industry and still the best one. I have hired more green crew off my own passerelle than out of my inbox.

When do you dockwalk, and when do you walk past?

Start at 07:30. Finish at 11:00. Six mornings a week.

That window is not superstition. At half past seven the deck crew are outside washing down, and the bosun already knows what he is short of today. By eleven the morning jobs are done and a stranger at the passerelle is an interruption. Between noon and two the crew are eating, and interrupting lunch once will be the only thing anybody remembers about you.

Saturdays count. Sundays rarely do.

Half of dockwalking is knowing which boats to skip. Walk past when the guests are aboard. The signs are the same on every dock. Flowers going up the passerelle. A crew member standing at the top of it doing nothing, which is a passerelle watch and not boredom. Whites instead of the day's polo. Fenders up, the tender in the water and already warm, a car idling on the quay. See any of that and keep walking. He cannot help you, and you are making his morning harder.

Walk towards the boat mid wash down with three soaked crew on the aft deck. That is a boat with more work than hands. Boats in a yard period are worth trying later in the week, because yard work eats labour. A boat shut up with nobody on deck is nothing, and never stand on a passerelle and shout.

What do you wear, and what do you carry?

Clean plain polo, shorts or chinos, deck shoes or clean plain trainers. Nothing branded with a boat you did not work on. Hair tied back. Sunglasses off your head and in your hand the moment you speak to someone.

Carry all of it in a plain folder so nothing curls in the heat.

• Ten printed CVs. Two pages, photograph on the front, certificates with dates. You will run out on a good morning.
• Copies of your STCW and your ENG1, behind the CVs. Do not hand them over unless asked.
• A pen and a small notebook, for boat names, crew names and what you were told.
• Water and sunscreen. You are outside for three and a half hours.

Your phone stays in your pocket on silent, because looking at a screen on somebody's passerelle is the fastest way to be forgotten by the person about to ask your name. No certificates yet? Start with what STCW actually costs in 2026.

What do you actually say?

One breath, in your own name. Then stop.

Morning. My name is Sam. I am looking for deckhand work or daywork, I hold my STCW and a current ENG1, and I am free today and the rest of the week. May I leave a CV with you?

That is the whole thing. Do not explain why you left your last job, and do not tell a stranger at ten past eight that you have wanted this since you were fifteen. Give him the four facts he needs, then let him decide.

Change one word depending on who answers. To a bosun, lead with daywork, because today is his problem. To a chief stew, say interior and name what you can genuinely do: service, laundry, housekeeping. To a deckhand your own age, ask whether any boat on the dock is short this week. Crew know before the agencies do.

Then take the no.

Eight or nine boats out of ten will have nothing on any given morning. Say thank you, mean it, and walk to the next passerelle without your shoulders dropping. Write the boat name and the date in the notebook. If somebody says try us next week, that is a real instruction, and Thursday morning you go back.

From the bridge

the dockwalkers I remember are the ones who took the no well. Most people fail that part by day three, and none of them know it is the part they failed.

Where is dockwalking restricted?

Some marinas do not allow unsolicited dock access or CV drops, and the gate will tell you so. Ask rather than argue, then work the public quays and the fuel dock instead. Being escorted off a marina is a small world story and it travels.

The United States is the strict one, and that is not marina policy. If you are not a US citizen or permanent resident, you need the correct visa and work authorisation before you do any work aboard a yacht in US waters, and that includes unpaid daywork. B1/B2 is the visa yacht crew hold for this. C1/D is built for airline and cruise ship crew and caps the stay at 29 days, so it is the wrong instrument for a yacht job. This is not legal advice. Check the official page before you book a flight.

What do you do between 11:00 and the next morning?

The morning is the dockwalk. The afternoon is the rest of the job hunt, and crew who only do the mornings take twice as long to get hired.

Register with the agencies online first, then walk in, because a consultant puts forward the people whose faces they have seen. Finish the profile: CV, STCW, ENG1, passport photo page, visas held. Check in once a week, not twice a day.

Read the crew house noticeboard, then read the kitchen. Most daywork I have seen handed out started as a conversation over a pan at nine at night. Chapter 07 of the guide, landing on the dock, has current crew house rates by hub.

Yotspot has run since 2010 with around 90,000 registered crew, and DayWork123 is a free bulletin board covering more than 387 ports. Both were live when I checked in August 2026. Give them an hour a day and verify who posts, because a real post names the boat, the agency or the captain. Nobody legitimate charges a fee to place you in a job.

Daywork is the point of all the walking. It pays, it fills the empty half of your CV, and it is how most first jobs start.

The Antibes figure comes from the Join Yachting fact bank, August 2026. The Palma and Fort Lauderdale figures come from 2026 postings I checked in August 2026: a Yotspot daywork post in Palma at EUR 150 a day, and Fort Lauderdale crew guides putting green deckhand and stew daywork at USD 150 to 200. Read them as a bracket. Agree the rate and the finish time before you start, not after.

The night before

• Ten CVs printed and in a folder, certificate copies behind them.
• Clothes out: clean polo, chinos or shorts, deck shoes wiped.
• Route to the first gate walked on foot, not checked on a map.
• Alarm at 06:15, phone charged, then away in your pocket at 07:30.
• Notebook, pen and a full water bottle in the folder.
• In bed by 22:30. Being at the gate at 07:30 is most of the test.

Worth doing at all? I answered that in is yachting worth it. The rest of the route in is the free guide.