Maritime grant funder The Seafarers’ Charity has awarded funding for a partnership yacht crew welfare project between The Mission to Seafarers and the U.K. Sailing Academy (UKSA).
The funding originates from a set of new priorities laid out by the Changing Tack on Yacht Crew Welfare Working Group, which was established in 2023 in response to rising concerns about mental health issues facing yacht crew. The working group was created by The Seafarers’ Charity in partnership with UKSA, Nautilus International, and the International Seafarers Welfare and Assistance Network (ISWAN).
The working group hosted a webinar in March 2024 to share their findings on the issue, calling on more people and organizations to support improving welfare conditions for yacht crew. You can view the webinar on the ISWAN site.
“At UKSA, we see the increase of issues crew are facing every day, the demand on support from our welfare team continues to dramatically increase, and the type of issues facing our students is changing,” said Ben Willows, UKSA CEO.
The funding will specifically support recruiting a Mission to Seafarers’ chaplain with skills in mental health awareness and suicide prevention, in addition to a UKSA welfare and career development manager to support careers and promote and deliver mental health awareness and wellbeing training for yacht crew.
Simon Grainge, ISWAN CEO, also commented: “We see the Welfare Hub in France and these new welfare roles as crucial for developing greater understanding of welfare issues across the commercial yacht industry, enabling the Changing Tack group of industry leaders to shift the culture towards improved welfare and mental health.”
The two positions will work with ISWAN’s Yacht Crew Help, a 24/7 multilingual helpline. ISWAN will also receive funds for a project manager role to develop resources and information to help support crew welfare.
“This exciting collaboration will allow The Mission to Seafarers to provide vital support to an underrepresented group of seafarers: superyacht crew,” said Steve Morgan, the regional director for Europe at the Mission to Seafarers. “This initiative ensures that we can meet the needs of superyacht crew as well as those working on other vessels.”
For more on mental health, check out Offboarding: Emma Ross’ Mission to Make Mental Health Matter.
Topics: