Working on a yacht

It's physically and mentally demanding. But dedicated sailors will adore life on the ocean wave, discovers Alex McRae

If you've ever longed to dabble your toes in the ocean after work, a career working on yachts may sound like a dream job. "I'd see the sun rise at sea, which was great," says Bruce Norfolk, 34, who worked on a private yacht as a diving instructor for eight years. "When we got close to shore, you could actually smell the land."

Norfolk was working at a diving school in Gibraltar when he was offered a permanent job at sea as a personal diving teacher. A day's work on the yacht might involve taking the yacht owner on a dive, or showing the owner's grandchildren how to dive in the pool on the back of the boat. "It was great fun seeing their eyes light up when they got the hang of it," he says.

Nowadays, Norfolk is back on dry land, working as operations manager for a swanky private membership club, Privatsea, where yacht aficionados and assorted glitterati can borrow the floating palace of their dreams. But he's far from a landlubber. "One of the best parts of my job is checking out yachts. If a member requests a specific yacht, I fly out to inspect it."

Working on a yacht may sound like the perfect way to sample a champagne lifestyle while being paid for it. But it can be tiring, says Norfolk. "People think it's about sipping cocktails. It's not. When you're working on a yacht, you're on call 24 hours a day. And once the guests leave, you have to pack everything away. You can't be the sort of person who needs two hours to get up in the morning."

Rob Gaffney, the principal of the Hamble School of Yachting, which runs Royal Yachting Association (RYA) courses to transform beginner sailors into qualified skippers, agrees that working on a superyacht - a gigantic, luxurious boat - is tough. To get a job on a superyacht in the first place you need to be proactive. "You've got to be walking up and down the quayside with your CV, in Marbella or the south of France. There are also professional crewing agencies - try to get on their books."

And once you start work, he says, "it's not all gin and tonics. The reality is that, even with qualifications, you'll probably have to start as a deckhand, doing menial jobs like cleaning out the scum at the bottom of the boat. Be prepared to work really hard to get recognised. The rewards are that, at the top end, the pay is very good indeed - an experienced captain could earn over £100,000 a year."

Of course, there are a lot of other careers available in yachting. Gaffney worked for many years as a sailing instructor and a professional skipper, and he's also an RYA sailing examiner. He says that, with the right level of training, there are a lot of opportunities for work throughout the world. With a RYA Yachtmaster Offshore qualification, for example, you can apply for yacht crew jobs. If you want to become a sailing instructor, you should get an RYA Cruising Instructor course.

Once you have the qualifications and experience, says Gaffney, "there's a world of opportunity. There's always demand for skippers. One area is yacht delivery, sailing someone else's boat from one part of the world to another. You need to be quite happy to be away from home for a long time in arduous conditions, but it can be an exciting challenge to get the yacht to its destination within a time frame."

There are drawbacks. Gaffney says that sharing tiny cabins for weeks on end with fellow crew can be a bit like Big Brother. And then there's the weather. The Australian professional skipper Andy Forbes, who led his team to win the Global Challenge race in 2004, where yachts sail around the world against the prevailing winds and currents, recalls some stomach-churning moments. "There was one point between Cape Town and Sydney where the crew were on deck in what can only be described as the world's biggest washing machine. It's not a job you can be foolhardy about. As a professional skipper, you're responsible for your crew's safety."

Nevertheless, Forbes says he would recommend his career to anyone who adores sailing and is prepared to put in a lot of effort. "Although I've had to work very hard, I actually do something I love. Even the bad days are good."