A conversation with her financial advisor husband nudged Cherise Reedman onto a new career path: helping women transition ashore and find their footing outside the yachting industry. The company hosts events and has grown to include a podcast where women share their stories and insights. How and when did you get into yachting? I started yachting [13] years ago. I’d already been traveling for a long time — I was in Australia for a while, then New Zealand, and yachting was mentioned to me. I didn’t want to go home, but I didn’t know what to do next. At the time, I was working for a law firm in New Zealand, and I started doing some research — I thought it could be quite cool. I can serve rich people drinks and food — easy — and get back over to Europe because my family is all in the UK. I did my STCW in Australia, and then went over to Europe, stayed in Antibes, did the crew house, and then got my first job on board. Was it challenging moving ashore? By 2016, I was already out of yachting. I’d met my husband-to-be and decided that I could keep going, but I had lost different relationships because it’s hard to maintain a relationship and travel so much. While I was on board, I did loads of research [into becoming a masseuse]. I thought I knew what I wanted to be, bought loads of courses, and spent thousands thinking that I had cracked it and only wanted to be on land, but I underestimated it massively and wasted a bunch of money. I should have tried it out first before committing to that career, because I got really overwhelmed really quickly. New relationship, new location, new career, no money, pressures. Like all ladies that leave, it just gets very overwhelming, very fast, and then you bounce back. That’s where the golden handcuffs comment comes from. What inspired you to start Yacht Pearls of Wisdom? My husband works in finance and has been trying to prevent yachties from making bad investments. He wanted to write an article about why I ignored his financial advice. I asked him, Why do you just want to do it about me? So I put a call out. We arranged a lunch with ladies who were still on board and ladies who had left the industry. We talked about female finance. Afterward, we opened the floor up to talk about the female experience in yachting and why I wasn’t the only one ignoring financial advice. I thought, this is good. Why doesn’t anybody else do this? Why didn’t they open the floor and have meaningful conversations about what is going on with women in the industry? After that, we organized a few similar events. We had guest speakers who inspired and informed women at whatever stage, whether they were building a business or figuring out what they wanted to do afterward, and they went down really well. What has been your biggest challenge? In its simplest form, it’s about women looking out for women and feeding the knowledge and information, like pearls of wisdom, back to the next generation of women. The challenge is, how do you get the information back so it doesn’t sound like a lecture? You’ll talk about scenarios of your life, tell a story, and a woman will listen to that story and then remember that story when she’s in that situation, and pull out the wisdom or how you rectified that decision. I could stand up and lecture people about how to live their lives, but there’s no hook, there’s no way to make sure they retain it. So Pearls of Wisdom started with events [with speakers who would share their stories]. Now we’ve got the podcast, which has made it easier because now we have the time, space, and even the means to get in there. It’s called Tales from the Superyacht Laundry. It’s really going back to that fundamental connection that society is perhaps struggling with a little bit too. Women are going through a real turbulent time. I think we are the generation coming to terms with a lot of different things — we are the generation that [embraces] feminism, but we still want to be mothers, and we still want to have careers. We need to figure out how to have a more harmonious balance of all those things. Why should women listen to the podcast? We’re sharing knowledge and offering support. We’ve now got an app with resources on trusted individuals, and we’re putting together a resource pack to give women guidance, because leaving the industry is very, very difficult, mainly because of the isolation. You go from an environment where your boat and your industry are all wrapped around you, and you don’t need to work for friends or find people to connect with, to complete isolation if you’re not careful. That is hard for any woman — you’re moving to what could be a foreign country. You’re changing your relationship status from 24/7 to long distance. You’ve got to reinvent your career and what your purpose in life is, and then perhaps have a baby as well. So, you’re trying to do all these things, all at the same time, all those massive things that a lady on land would do one at a time. The power dynamic on board is always out of our favor because the lifespan of a female on board generally is that she leaves because she’s either having a kid, or her looks have gone, or she has come to the end of it. So Pearls of Wisdom is the information that needs to get back to the women on board, because they will encounter the same vulnerabilities. They will encounter the same problems. Women need to, again, be more informed if a situation arises. That’s why I want them to be able to access Pearls to have that resource, so they don’t have to try to navigate these situations alone. The information from the ladies who have left yachting is not going back — like lemmings, we’re just following each other off the cliff, and making the same mistake over and over. With the right encouragement, with the right information, [moving ashore] can be the perfect step into your dream job, career, or next chapter. What is your advice for crew looking to build a business? You have to be flexible, because this is a moment when you can recreate yourself. The hardest thing is really tapping into who you are underneath. You come from a very rigid environment where you don’t really get to express yourself truly, only to then have carte blanche to go nuts. I thought I was quite a naturally organized person, but it turns out I’m not. I just thrived in a highly organized environment. I had to learn to organize myself. You just need to go with the flow and try not to stress yourself too much. You will run out of money. It’s inevitable, but you’re not alone. There are loads of ladies who have done it. You don’t have to start your own business either. Many of these ladies come from team environments, and unless you’ve got a true calling, reach out to women who have created a business afterward. They’d hire ex-crew in a heartbeat because they know your work ethic. It can be daunting to set up your own business. Take it one day at a time, one challenge at a time — it’s a marathon, not a sprint. What’s next for your company? Hopefully, we’ll announce a new partnership with the podcast. We’ve already partnered with institutions like Nautilus, ISWAN, CrewPass and a few others because we promote getting proper support from qualified people. We also started Balls of Wisdom, a mini-series within the podcast with six bonus episodes, to provide a male perspective on crew-related topics, but still keep the content authentic. We are also planning a project for the Monaco Yacht Show involving the Crew Wellness Bags. The main point of the bag this year is to raise awareness of the YachtCrewHelp line from ISWAN. We plan to distribute 250 unisex bags at the show, including coordinating with various companies like Seas the Mind, MHG, Superyacht Fitness, and CrewPass, to provide relevant resources and information for crew. I just want to try and help people as much as I can.