The kids wrote these after a tour on the mega yacht and then having a crew member come onto Adagio for a personal interview. The Captain was off for a few days for a birthday celebration. We appreciate their generosity and kindness and inspirational attitudes with the kids. We are back in Nuevo Vallarta with family and this brought up that they had written these between our visits to this beautiful area.
Interviewing Matt, who works on the Calex
I had plenty of questions for Matt,
a mega yacht worker who loves his job. “The uneven schedule is odd, but we get
used to it,” Matt explained. “The Calex is named after the owner’s 2 kids:
Cameron and Alex.”
There are 4 floors in the Calex
(from top to bottom); the sundeck, the bridge, the main deck, and the engine
room. There are 3 TT (tenders to) the Calex. There is a large amount of
technology on this mega yacht; there are electric sliding doors, blinds that put
themselves down by pressing a button on an iPad, security cameras in every
public room, Wi-Fi no matter where you are on the Calex and wherever the Calex
is in the world, and wireless Wii U and Xbox 1. The Calex is quite new, because
it is only 18 months old. “This boat sleeps 11 crew and 12 guests, but we can
use the fold-out beds and the air mattresses to add an extra ten, so about 22
guests,” Matt stated. The owner sends in 3 divers to clean the bottom of the
boat. It takes 3 hours, once a month. “The boat gets hauled out of the water
every 12 months, so the boat can get re-painted. Most mega-yachts get hauled
out every 10 months or so,” Matt informed.
“The crew is allowed to use the amenities
while the owner isn’t there,” Matt explained. “The owner is on the boat 5-10
days each month, from November to July. From August to October we do
maintenance and repairs.” Matt elaborated. “I am starting to get to know the
owner, but I don’t know him that much yet.” The crew calls the owner “Boss” and
does anything he asks, from putting a TV in the bathroom, to filling gasoline
into the jet skis. The crew has to work on holidays, from 8-5 from Monday to
Friday, sometimes on weekends. There are 6 permanent workers onboard, and 5 fly
in when the owner is there. The captain is almost always onboard, and he is the
one that gives the orders. There is 1 chef, but when the owner is onboard an
assistant helps to prepare food too. Anyone who works on the Calex has food
given to them and prepared by the chef. Everyone knows each other, and are
comfortable with one another. To dock the Calex, they put down the fenders,
which takes 2-3 people per fender. Then, one person drives the mega yacht while
2-3 other people are on the decks telling distances and informing which way to
turn and how many degrees.
“I travel with the boat, working on
it all the time. My jobs go from cleaning the outside of the boat, to fixing some
wires that have burned out,” Matt explains. “I got this job through my brother.
He was on a mega yacht next to the Calex, and the owner walked over and asked
if there was anyone he knew that could be a possible employee. My brother
recommended me, and I was then offered a job on the Calex after I had a few
interviews over the time period of 2 weeks.” Matt has worked on this boat for 3
months now, and he gets plenty of time off from his job.
The interview with Matt was very
informative and fun! I think that working on a mega yacht would be a great
experience, and a lot of fun, with quite a lot of work, too. Matt says that
this mega yacht is different than others because the Calex spends most of its
time in port, while the other mega yachts spend most of their time out at sea.
I think working on a mega yacht would be fun!
-Cindy Elston
The Calex
I wanted to interview Matt from the crew of the mega yacht Calex
because I wanted to know more about privately owned mega yachts. I got a tour
of the boat and Matt came on our boat for interviewing.
There are eleven crew, with two cooks and nine workers, when
the owners are on board. When the owners are not on board there are five crew
that are fixing and cleaning the boat. They work harder if the owners on board.
They work from eight a.m. to five p.m., Monday through Friday. Sometimes they
work on weekends and holidays if it’s their shift. They clean the outside and
inside of the boat. Divers are hired to clean the bottom of the boat. One cook
does the cooking and the other one does the cutting. They help themselves to
T.V., treats, and Jet skis.
The boat has four floors. It is one hundred-sixty four feet
long. They use colors to mark which floor items belong to. The staircase is
zigzagged. The master bathroom has a T.V. on the opposite wall of the toilet. The
kitchen has tons of expensive tools for cooking. The boat has an iPad for each
room that you could control the boat with (besides driving). The boat has a lot
of security cameras. What I found really funny is that you could see our boat
in the security camera.
And that is the words of Matt. Everything inside the boat
and on the outside of the boat was really expensive and I could only dream of
having that much money. It sounds like a lot of fun to work on the Calex!
-Kevin Elston
Great job you two! I really enjoy reading your compositions about your experiences in Mexico.
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