The sudden closing of borders due to COVID-19 and the related bureaucratic red tape in trying to get permission to leave has caused owners and their crews a lot of stress over the past year. Add in the fact that many crew spent significantly longer periods of time onboard, without seeing family, and the stress factor elevated even more. MedAire therefore hosted a series of webinars about superyacht crew mental wellbeing. If you’re an owner or even a captain, this video is a must.
MedAire provides medical, security, and travel-safety support to yachts, among others. For the webinar, it teamed with Crew-Glue, an organization that develops and improves relationships within high-performing yacht crew.
During the webinar, Sara Ballinger of Crew-Glue outlined several things captains can do. For example, superyacht crew mental wellbeing involves understanding emotional intelligence. This involves who you are, for instance, along with what makes you tick. Similarly, captains and owners need to identify and leverage the emotional intelligence of their crew.
Furthermore, MedAire’s Brent Palmer, who has a background in mental-health nursing, covered the warning signs for when someone is struggling. The clip above, from his discussion, is equally eye-opening and crucial to watch. “Often a crewmember or crew know something’s not right, but they don’t know how to describe it. And if they can’t describe it, they can’t ask for help or do anything about it.” Palmer calls it a “paralysis of activity.”
The full 35-minute webinar is available, too. It’s an in-depth education into how you, with MedAire and Crew-Glue, can take a holistic approach toward superyacht crew mental wellbeing. Ultimately, whichever video you watch, you’ll learn why a well-run yacht is one where mental health is a high priority.
Crew-Glue crew-glue.com
MedAire medaire.com
Leave a Reply