Life as a tour guide on a yacht might sound like a sweet deal, but according to the crew of Tropical Charters, it’s not always smooth sailing. The challenges they encounter can exert both a mental and physical strain on them.

For starters, crew member Josef Van De Kamp said tourists can be difficult to deal with sometimes.

“It’s tough. Sometimes people shout at you. You need to have a strong personality and not take it personally,” he admitted. “If visitors are unsatisfied about anything, the crew has to do its best to cater to them. We try to be calm, friendly and professional.”

However, Van De Kamp is firm about not letting obnoxious tourists with unreasonable demands walk all over him.

“In Germany, we have a saying: ‘the client is king’. But I say the client is only king if he behaves like one.”
The crew of Tropical Charters has also encountered various types of emergencies while out at sea.

According to cruise captain Mohd Ariff Aalzali, one of the scariest ordeals they faced was when their boat was thrown against a rock because of a low tide. Although it took them approximately fifteen minutes to get off the rock, the hardest part for the crew members was to keep their composure throughout the ordeal to avoid worrying their passengers.

Felicitias Koppers from Germany works part time as an on-board medical officers for Tropical Charter.

“As a captain, I can’t let my panic show or else the passengers on board will be even more panicked. So, I have to relax and do my best to solve the issue,” said Ariff.

The weather, of course, is another challenge the crew has to face. When there is heavy rain, the top deck of the yacht has to be cleared and the passengers have to move to the lower deck for safety. After closing the lower deck windows, the crew then has to go outside to help navigate and look out for obstacles, said Ariff.

The safety and health of all onboard is also of utmost importance, especially considering that medical emergencies can happen at any time. Therefore, a medical officer is required whenever there are over 25 passengers on-board. When an emergency occurs, the crew will take the injured passenger on a small life boat and quickly transport him/her to the nearest island with a medical centre. They must ensure they are always 15 minutes from one.

Luckily, according to Tropical Charters’ medical officer Felicitas Koppers, they have yet to have an emergency that required them to use the life boat.

Cruise control: Captain Mohd Ariff Aalzali admits one of the toughest part of the job is to remain calm when everything else goes wrong to ensure panic doesn’t break out.

“There haven’t been any cases because I have been watching the passengers closely,” said Koppers, who also runs a podiatry clinic. Clearly, a day in the life of a crew member aboard a Tropical Charters cruise includes a lot of challenges and hardships. Nevertheless, when the crew members all play their part and work together, there is no obstacle they cannot overcome.

Check out the BRATs’ video interview of Tropical Charters crew member Olivia Laurent, who left her home in France to travel the world!

Wanna join the BRATs 2015 programme? Go to rage.com.my/bratsrecruitment.