14-03-2025
'We quit our jobs to work on £22m superyachts and travel the world with £1,700 tips'
A young couple ditched their minimum wage jobs to work on £22m superyachts... and get paid up to £1,700 a week in tips alone.
Kyle Forster, 20, was working as a lifeguard and Phoebe Robinson, 21, in a B&B before they did crash courses last year to learn how to work on superyachts.
The courses lasted between two and three weeks and cost up to £3,800. But they then got jobs as crew members on a £22.7m yacht in France, quadrupling their previous earnings to £2,500 a month and also receiving up to £1,700 a week in tips... with all expenses paid.
So far, they have earned £45,000 between them - and this is with tax relief due to the Seafarers Earnings Deduction for employees working at sea outside the UK.
It comes at a cost - they work up to 17 hours a day - but Forster, from Poole, Dorset, said: "We feel very lucky. We're getting paid well and having so many incredible experiences.
"We both felt a bit stuck and neither of us was enjoying things as they were.
"I'd never in a million years have thought I'd be able to go from doing something so plain to doing something so vibrant that brings me so much joy."
Forster, who took a superyacht deckhand course with maritime training company Flying Fish, learning how to clean yachts, be a lookout, drive a motorised dingy and pull a waterski, added: "We both want to keep doing this and work up to captain."
Robinson, from Marlborough, Wiltshire, took a superyacht stewadess and steward training course with the UKSA and said: "At school I never really knew what I wanted to do, I never found my thing.
"My parents and grandparents are really aspirational, they encouraged me to think outside my comfort zone so I went for it.
"I've had the most amazing experiences. We're basically being paid to travel the world. We feel very fortunate."
In the past year, they have sailed on three boats in the Mediterranean and Caribbean, though in Croatia their boat was hit by a 15-minute squall with 80mph winds and huge hailstones, with Robinson suffering bruising to her legs.
Having already spent a total of nine months on the water on various yacht jobs since starting their venture, the duo are now eyeing up their next seafaring voyage - a job on a 29m motor yacht from St Tropez which starts next month.
On days when the boats are being used, they work up to 17 hours, from 8am to 1am, serving the owners and guests. Typical clients are entrepreneurs, and have included video game developers and broadband company founder.
When no guests are on board, they work 10-hour days scrubbing down and preparing cabins.
Forster added: "You get amazing views and experiences but no days off, so by the time the season is over you're ready for a rest, but it's still amazing.
"Plus it doesn't come easy. In January 2024 we must have applied for over 1,000 jobs."
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