How Rotation Changed My Relationship With Yachting
One of the hardest parts of yachting isn't necessarily the work. It's everything you miss while you're doing it. Things like birthdays, weddings, family dinners, friends' or children's milestones, hobbies or relationships . Sometimes it's the small things you notice most, like simply being able to meet a friend for a coffee.
When you're new to yachting, these sacrifices can feel relatively easy to accept. You're young, you're travelling, you're meeting new people and having experiences that most people never will. I remember my first season in the Med being exactly that. I loved the excitement, the new places and the people I met. A glassy sunrise in Mykonos after a long day at work could make all the hard work feel worthwhile.
But eventually, for some of us, the balance starts to change.
It took me a little while to realise how much I was missing back home. During my first season, I didn't think too much about it. I was still speaking to friends and family, but I wasn't really thinking about how my absence was affecting those relationships. It wasn't until I went home that I realised just how much I'd missed.
Friends had moved, relationships had changed, people had new jobs and new stories. Life had continued without me.
My first few years in yachting were turbulent for exactly this reason. I struggled to commit to the industry because I didn't think I could handle a life away from my family and friends for 11 or 12 months at a time. Hobbies that I had before yachting were fading away and I started questioning what I actually wanted from my life.
Every time I ‘chose’ yachting, it felt like I was choosing against my life back home.
At the time, I had never really considered rotation. No one I knew had it, so it wasn't something I could see myself getting to. It seemed like a mountain that needed to be climbed.
Eventually, I decided to commit to yachting and climb that mountain. I joined a good boat, worked hard, and studied hard. I was fortunate to have the support of the boat I was on while getting my OOW qualification and once I qualified, I was given equal-time rotation.
Equal-time rotation is the dream for many yachties and I understand why. The biggest change isn't simply having more days off. It's having enough time away from the boat to actually have a life at home. Two months gives you time to properly switch off. You can spend meaningful time with family, see friends regularly, pick up old hobbies, travel somewhere because you want to, or simply have a completely unstructured day.
For me, rotation has allowed me to reclaim a life back home. I play golf again, I hike, I play paddle and I enjoy the simple things that were becoming harder to fit into my life. More importantly, I feel like I'm part of my friends' lives again rather than just catching up with them occasionally.
Perhaps most importantly, rotation has changed how I feel about being onboard. Knowing there is a defined period of work followed by a defined period at home makes the sacrifices easier to accept. I can give 100% when I'm onboard, knowing that home isn't some distant, indefinite point in the future.
For anyone struggling with the all-consuming nature of yachting, I don't think the answer is necessarily to leave. Sometimes the answer is to find a different way of doing it. A different boat, a different role, a new qualification. Or eventually, a rotation that gives you the space to build a life alongside your career.
