You do not have to be a big-name chef to get on a boat. The head chef or sole chef job, yes, that usually goes to someone with miles. But a lot of yachts and estates are big enough to carry a second chef, a crew chef or a galley hand, and those jobs get filled with eager, hard-working people trying to break in. That is the door. Here is how I walked through it, and what I would do today.
The order it happens in
- Get the ENG1 medical and STCW basic training done. Nobody will put you forward without them, and agencies will not finish your registration until they see the scans.
- Build the CV package below. All of it, on your phone, ready to send in thirty seconds from a dock.
- Register with every agency that works the ports you want. Every single one. It costs nothing at the real ones.
- Get to a hub port in season. Fort Lauderdale in October and November, Antibes in April and May. Book a crew house so you are around other crew who hear about jobs first.
- Dockwalk, day work, say yes to the trial. The first job is almost never the one you wanted. It is the one that gets you the second one.
Your CV package
Your CV package is a group of documents you keep ready to email or upload at all times while you are looking. I kept all of mine on my phone so I could send them from anywhere, and that is still the way to do it. One folder: CV, headshot, ten-day menu, food pictures, scans of your ENG1, STCW and passport, and your references on one sheet with phone numbers and WhatsApp.
Everything goes out as a PDF. Agencies open hundreds of these on phones. A Word file that reflows or a Canva export that fights their system gets closed, and some agencies say outright they will not take a Canva CV.
Writing the CV
My first piece of advice on your CV has not changed in ten years: think hard before you write it yourself. Captains, agencies and estate managers look for specific things when they go through a stack, and a professional who understands this niche market will put those things where they get seen. Your buddy who went to business school and your mom will make it look nice, and it will not say what a captain needs to read. A pro's insight can be worth the money as long as they are reputable: ask in the crew groups who people actually used, and ask the agencies which CVs they like to receive. If you write it yourself, build it from the pieces below in this order.
Length. One page when you are starting out. Two pages once you have real yacht or estate experience to fill it. Clean, neat and concise, just like the plates you send out.
Headshot. A clear, recent, professional photo, top of the page. A bad photo makes you look bad in both professionalism and appearance. It may seem vain for a client to want to see you, but they do. Maybe they want a nice smile at breakfast, maybe they do not want the chef to be better looking than the owner's wife. Either way, have a great photo. Clean, starched chef's coat, plain background, a real smile. Some crew agencies will take your photo for free at registration. I still recommend a professional photographer, because that one picture does more work than any line on the page.
Nationality and passport. List your nationality, the country that issued your passport and its expiry. You need a current passport with a lot of life left in it to take any of the options this job offers. Non-US crew need a B1/B2 visa to work boats that cruise Florida and the Bahamas, and the agencies ask about it on the first call. Sort it before you need it.
Age. Some owners want an older, more experienced, less rowdy chef. Some captains want a young chef for crew synergy. You never know which, so be honest about your age and let it land where it lands.
Health. If you are prone to illness or your knees are shot, think hard about this career before you spend the money on certs. Galleys are small, days are long, and there is no calling in sick at anchor. Most CV templates have a line for health. Excellent, or leave the line off.
Smoker. The majority of jobs are non-smoking, and the ad will say so. If you smoke, consider quitting now. If you cannot, a patch or lozenges while you work, because the three things that get a smoker sent home are frequent breaks, getting grumpy when you cannot have one, and smelling like smoke on a boat where everyone smells everything.
Certifications. Always on the CV, with dates. ENG1, STCW, Ship's Cook Certificate if you have it, food safety, any yachting courses. What each one is and where to get it.
Culinary skills. This is where you list the cuisines you are actually capable of and your specialties: pastry and cakes, bread, sushi, raw, plant-based, Mediterranean, Asian, whatever is true. Be specific and be honest, because the trial will find out.
Experience. Restaurants count. Private clients count. Catering counts. Put the kitchens, the position, the dates and one line on what you actually did. Yacht experience, even day work, goes at the top once you have it.
Hobbies. Clients are looking for well-rounded, active chefs. To show them your hobbies are not drinking bourbon and sleeping, list a few. Good ones for yachts: snorkeling, scuba diving, fishing, paddle boarding, kite surfing. Good ones for estates: hiking, gardening, farmers markets, cheese making or wine pairing classes. If you do not enjoy any of these, leave the section out. Do not make one up. If you list scuba diving, the boat has the gear and someone will hand it to you.
References. Two or three, with a phone number that gets answered. Tell them you are listing them. Captains call.
Your ten-day menu
Your menu gives the guests an idea of the style of food you cook, and it can and will help you land jobs. When I started, the industry standard was a three-day menu, and most agencies and captains still ask for three to seven days. I made a concise ten-day menu instead, breakfast, lunch and dinner for every day plus hors d'oeuvres and canapés, and I had no problem gaining employment at all. Ten days answers every version of the question before it gets asked. Write it the way you would cook for a family on a boat, not a tasting menu: real breakfasts, light lunches, dinners with a protein choice, and show that you can do a crew meal. Read how the hiring agencies describe the job before you write it, so the menu matches the boats you are applying to.
Food pictures
The clients are hiring you to cook them meals. People eat with their eyes. Three to five pictures of your best plates on the CV itself, and a separate full-page food collage as its own PDF. If you can make the agent or the captain salivate while reading your menu and looking at your pictures, you could very well get the job. Natural light, clean plates, no filters, no stock photos. Nothing you did not cook.
Registering with agencies
Crew and domestic agencies are the most common way captains and estate managers find chefs. The real ones cost you nothing. The catch is the application: each one wants your CV, references, certificates, usually a short call, and the forms take an hour or more. Do them anyway, and do all of them, because the agency that calls is the one you happened to register with. Our most current full list is here. Anything that charges you to register or sells you "priority" is not on it.
Once you are registered, keep your profile alive. Update your availability every couple of weeks, reply to recruiters the same day, and tell them where you physically are. A chef at a crew house in Lauderdale in November gets the call over the same chef sitting in their parents' basement in Dubuque, Iowa.
Dockwalking and day work
Dockwalking is walking the marinas with CVs in hand asking if any boat needs day work. It still works, mostly in Fort Lauderdale and Antibes in season, and it is how a lot of chefs got their first galley. Dress like crew: clean polo, shorts or chinos, deck shoes or clean sneakers, no sunglasses on your head when you talk to someone. Go early, before the crew is deep into the day. Ask for the captain or the chef, say what you do in one sentence, hand over the CV, say thank you and move on. Day work is usually deck or interior, not the galley, and that is fine. You are on the dock, you are known, and you are there when the chef quits.
Some marinas do not allow walk-ups. Find out which before you go, and respect the gate. Crew houses and the crew bars near the big marinas are where day work gets handed out as much as the dock itself.
The trial
A trial is one to three days of cooking for the crew and sometimes the owner. They are watching how you keep the galley, how you provision, how you handle being told what the boss wants at 6am, and whether the crew likes eating your food. Cook what you know, cook it clean, keep the galley spotless, and feed the crew well. Ask what the owner likes to eat before you plan a thing. Most trials are paid at a day rate; ask what it is before you start.
Entry roles that actually get hired
Second chef or sous chef. On 60 metres and up. You run crew meals and prep, and you learn the owner's preferences from the head chef.
Crew chef. Cooks for the crew only, sometimes 20 or more people, three meals a day. Hard, repetitive, and the single best way to learn how a boat eats.
Cook/stew or cook/deck. On smaller boats, you cook and you also do interior or deck. Common on 30 to 45 metre boats and on charter.
Galley hand. Dishwashing, prep, provisioning runs, sometimes a seasonal thing. Gets you on the boat.
Estate second chef or private household cook. Estates hire the same way through the domestic agencies on the list. Major cities have the most work: New York, South Florida, LA, Chicago, London.
What each of these pays, by boat size and by city, is here.
Where to be, and when
Fort Lauderdale from late October through the boat show and into December, when the fleet comes south and crews change. Antibes from April into June, when boats come out of the yard for the Med season. St Maarten and Antigua in December and January for the Caribbean charter season, where boats lose crew and need a chef yesterday. Newport in summer. Palma all year for refit and crew. Every port guide on the site tells you where the provisioning, the crew houses and the chandlers are once you get there.
Book a crew house in Fort Lauderdale or Antibes, not a hotel. The other crew in the house are your best job board.