Chef Dean Harrison has spent 14 of his 22 years as a chef cooking on superyachts — from a 100-footer that rode out a cyclone in the South Pacific to a 280-footer spending $50,000 a week on provisions. This episode is for anyone who's ever wondered what's actually on the other side of the "yacht life" fantasy, and for any chef weighing whether a different version of this career exists.

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"You need to leave that ego in the restaurant. But honestly, if you can do that, you're going to be a successful yacht chef."

The Job Nobody Warns You About

Dean's first yacht job was a six-day crossing from Brisbane to Fiji — and it put him inside the eye of a cyclone for the entire trip. Two sailors racing in the same storm system died and fell overboard. The boat's stabilizers failed, the hydraulics overheated, and the captain hand-steered for 48 hours while the hull rolled hard enough that Dean kept a mask and snorkel by his bed, working out which doors he'd swim through if the boat flipped.

That's not the version of yacht life that makes it into the brochure, or the reality show. And it's the story Dean leads with now — not the biggest boat he's worked on, not the fanciest guest — because it's the truest one.

Why Yachts

Twenty-two years ago, Dean started his apprenticeship at 15 in what he calls "the Gordon Ramsay era" — yelling, getting burned, abusive kitchen culture treated as normal. He wasn't chasing Michelin stars. He was looking for a version of this career that let him travel, get paid what he was worth, and keep his sanity intact. Yachting checked every box he didn't know he was allowed to want.

What "Below Deck" Doesn't Show You

On a superyacht, roughly 70% of the boat belongs to guests — the flowers, the leather, the finishes. The other 30% is crew country: bunk beds, shared cabins, thinner carpet, harsher lighting. You can feel exactly where you cross that threshold. It's not exploitation, Dean is clear — it's just the part nobody photographs.

The economics on the guest side are almost absurd by comparison. A week charter on his last boat ran $1.2 million. The chef's food budget alone was $50,000 a week — not because guests eat that much, but because you're provisioning for anything they might ask for, at any hour, with no grocery store to run to mid-ocean. Tips ran $4,000–$8,000 a week per crew member. Which is how you end up getting woken at 3am to make chicken fingers, and being genuinely fine with it.

The Village That Gave Him a Freezer

The two places Dean says actually changed him weren't the biggest boats — they were Alaska and Raja Ampat, Indonesia. In Vanuatu, his yacht stopped at a remote village the owners had given solar panels the year before. Dean asked the chief's son the reflexive question — "what do you do for a living?" — and got looked at like it didn't compute.

"I fish, I grow my vegetables, and I live," the man told him. "I smoke a bit of weed." In the year since the solar panels arrived, the village had built a small economy around freezing fish to sell in town. Dean's takeaway wasn't a lesson about simplicity — it was a correction to the assumption that wealthy people are careless with what they have. He's met, in his words, some of the most generous people he'll ever know, on boats most people will never set foot on.

What It Actually Costs

The entry price is almost nothing — an STCW safety course and a basic medical exam run about $1,300 total. The real cost shows up later: missed weddings, relationships that don't survive the distance, and years living in shared cabins with people you didn't choose. Dean calls himself lucky — he started young, with no baggage — but he's honest that the mental toll compounds, especially for anyone who isn't naturally good with people in tight quarters.

His one non-negotiable: coffee on deck every morning, watching the sunrise, before the day starts. And a rule he wishes he'd learned faster — know when to leave. "This is bullshit. I don't feel happy waking up every day. I leave," is how he puts it now, after staying on boats longer than he should have more than once in 14 years.

Eight Years to Feel Like a Real Chef

Despite steady work on increasingly high-end boats, it took Dean about eight years to fully trust that he belonged — that he could walk onto any yacht, read what the guests actually wanted, and deliver it. Now running a coaching program and recruitment agency for yacht chefs, he says the imposter syndrome is gone, not because he became perfect, but because he can see exactly where he went wrong and hand newer chefs a shortcut around it.

The One Thing That Still Worries Him

Not the storms. Not the isolation. The mental toll of chefs sacrificing themselves for people who, in his words, "couldn't care less if you stay or leave" and "forget about you within a year." Three or four burnouts into his own career, it's the part of the industry he's most focused on changing — both through his coaching and by pushing owners and agencies to actually pay chefs what they're worth.

Big appreciation to everyone building something real out of an industry that doesn't always make it easy — this conversation is for anyone quietly wondering if there's a different way to build this career.

Chapters

00:00 — Cold Open — The Hallway Where the Yacht Changes

02:04 — Almost Dying in a Cyclone Crossing the South Pacific

06:13 — Welcome, Chef Dean Harrison

06:35 — Why Yachts? Leaving the Gordon Ramsay Restaurant Era

10:31 — What "Below Deck" Doesn't Show You

13:36 — Provisioning $50K a Week for One Charter

16:01 — The 365-Day Operation: Where the Extra Food Goes

17:17 — Temp, Full-Time, and Rotational Contracts

18:43 — Recession-Proof: Why the Rich Keep Chartering

20:39 — The MLC: The Law That Protects Crew at Sea

21:40 — The Creative Freedom of Not Costing a Plate

24:15 — Alaska, Raja Ampat, and the Village That Changed Him

26:56 — What It Actually Costs to Get In

27:55 — What It Costs You Emotionally, Physically, Romantically

29:26 — Coffee, Sunrise, and Knowing When to Leave a Boat

31:50 — Safety, Predators, and What the MLC Actually Protects

34:31 — The Thorns: 24-Hour Service and Leaving Your Ego Behind

35:46 — How to Actually Prepare for This Industry

37:41 — Why Chefs Leave: Camaraderie, Burnout, and the Clock

39:36 — Eight Years to Feel Like a Real Chef

40:50 — Imposter Syndrome on the Other Side of the Table

42:29 — Building an Agency and Fighting for Better Pay

43:00 — What He'd Tell His 22-Year-Old Self

44:28 — Play: Snowboarding, Free Diving, Staying Human

45:00 — The Next 12 Months

46:14 — The One Thing That Still Worries Him

• Become a Yacht Chef | Get Hired, Get Paid, See the World
• About Dean Harrison — Yacht Chef & Founder
• The Yacht Chef
• Dean Harrison | The Yacht Chef

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Adam M Lamb

Chef Life Media LLC

Welcome back to the show, chef. There is a hallway on a 280-foot yacht where the finishes change.

One side smells like fresh-cut flowers and hand-stitched leather.

You cross a threshold, and the carpet gets thinner, the lighting gets harsh,

and you're in crew country.

Bunk beds, shared cabins, maybe 30% of the boat carved up for the people actually running it.

The other 70% belongs to guests who will never walk back there.

That's the version of Yacht Life nobody puts in the brochure or the reality show.

My guest today has spent 14 years living on that 30%, cooking on a boat that

drops $50,000 a week on food it might not fully use,

for guests paying over a million dollars for seven days while he sleeps in a

cabin the size of a walk-in cooler with someone he didn't choose.

Chef Dean Harrison didn't set out to chase Michelin stars. He set out to leave

a restaurant industry that, in his words, taught him that yelling and getting

burned was just part of the job.

The Gordon Ramsay era, as he calls it.

22 years ago, he made a choice most chefs never even consider.

Instead of grinding towards accolades, go find a version of this career that

lets you travel, get paid what you're worth, and keep your sanity intact.

Yachting gave him that. It also cost him.

Things like weddings he missed relationships that couldn't survive the distance

eight straight years of quietly not believing he was good enough to be standing in that galley

He'll tell you straight, leave your ego at the restaurant or this life eats you alive.

So today we're skipping the resume version of this conversation,

the biggest boat, the fanciest guest, the highlight reel.

We're getting into what it actually costs to build a life on the water.

The burnout, the imposter syndrome, a village in Vanuatu that changed how he

saw wealth entirely and why he now spends his time fighting to get other chefs

paid what they're worth instead of just collecting a commission.

All that and more right after this message. So what do you mean you almost died in the South Pacific?

So we were, I was on a smaller boat. This is the first boat I ever worked on.

It was a 100 footer, so quite small. But we were crossing from Brisbane to Fiji,

which is about a six day trip across the South Pacific Ocean.

And we kind of knew the system was there. The captain was like,

look, we should be on the outside of it most of the time. But we actually just,

were in the fucking eye of it for the whole entire six days.

And when you mean the system, the cyclone?

The cyclone, yeah.

Are you riding the cyclone the entire time?

Right in the cyclone. And just so you get an idea of how powerful this storm

was, there was a race across from Australia to Fiji at the same time,

these sailboats, they do this race every year.

And there's this really fast Vodafone catamaran and it's broken many records,

but it broke the record for that trip. It took about four and a half days for

this boat to go across the South Pacific. It takes us six days, right?

So just imagine it went almost twice as fast as what we did because the wind was so strong.

And in that same race, on two separate sailboats that were racing at the same

time, two people died and fell overboard.

So we're in the same system. And basically, we were two days,

three days in, and the hydraulics overheated in the boat, which controls the stabilizers.

So we have these fins on the side of the boat that keep the boat a little bit more stable.

And this was a Taiwanese-built boat. So as soon as we lost these stabilizers,

this thing just started falling apart. And...

We lost the stabilizers, hydraulics overheated, and the whole boat was just,

you know, TVs were coming off the wall. All the cupboards were just smashing open.

It was just about survival at the time and just trying to get through this.

So the captain had to hand steer the boat for about 72 hours,

sorry, 48 hours to keep it from basically capsizing.

So we had to kind of follow the, we had waves basically coming on the aft quarter

there that would basically make the boat violently tip forward.

The waves would fasten the boat and the boat would come back like this and just flip.

So it would be this violent, every single wave, man. And we're just holding on for our lives.

White knuckled.

Absolutely white knuckled. And,

I'm at a point where I'm like, fuck, man, we're getting, like the boat's tipping

over so close to the water that it's like, feels like it's going to capsize

because it's the hull for this boat was like a, it was like a fast hull.

So it was very shallow. So it created way more role than any other boat.

So I was like, holy shit, okay, I need to start figuring out how the hell I'm

going to swim out of this boat once we capsize.

I was so certain that we're going to capsize. So I've got my mask and snorkel

beside my bed when I was trying to have my breaks.

I didn't sleep, but I kind of had my mask and snorkel there ready to swim my

way out of this boat upside down to figure out which doors I can get out of.

But yeah, we got through it. The hydraulics didn't really come back on until closer to Fiji.

And yeah, that was probably the only time I thought I was going to die for sure.

Other than the pirates, but we'll save that one for the next story.

Yeah, the Libyan pirate story. That's a fun one.

Oh my God. Welcome to Chef Life Radio.

I'm Chef Adam Lamb. This is a show for culinary leaders who are done pretending

burnout is a badge of honor and ready to build kitchens people actually want

to work in. Talent gets you noticed.

Leadership gets you followed. Let's get into it.

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with other chefs who are actually in it, that's what the Leadership Lab is for.

It's not a course. It's not coaching theater. It's a room where we slow down

things enough to tell the truth.

It's every month. It's free to join. And you can register at thecheflifebrigade.com

forward slash the lab. And the links in the show notes.

Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Excited.

It's a pleasure, man. And I'm really excited about the conversation because

we're going to be talking about something that I think for most chefs doesn't

really come to mind when we think about

typical career paths for chefs and certainly what it takes to be successful

in that, in that your specialty has been working on yachts.

Yeah. So the last 14 years I've been on yachts, 22 years as a chef,

and yeah, it's been fantastic. Yeah.

And I'm sure everybody's got a lot of questions as well as I do.

And I guess the first thing would be, like, why yachts? Why did you think that

that was, like, because I can imagine that there are inherent problems with

that type of environment out on the ocean.

Sometimes you're on big boats. Sometimes you're on smaller boats.

Sometimes you have clients who are very demanding, sometimes not.

Walk us through that. Why did you make that decision?

And what were some of the things that you had to learn quickly?

Yeah. So, I mean, maybe I was a little bit naive about it, but my goal here

was to travel the world and just earn a little bit better money than what I would in restaurants.

And so, I came across Yachting and this just ticked all the boxes for me of what I wanted to do.

I wasn't someone that wanted to chase Michelin stars and have these accolades and stuff like that.

And I was just like, I just want to live a great life, cook food and travel the world.

And this was one of the things that kind of piqued my interest was yachting.

And it's, yeah, fantastic. There's been lots of obstacles to overcome.

Obviously, you know, being at sea and provisioning for 16 days or 18 days at

a time crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

And a lot of hard lessons learned, that's for sure.

And you're originally from Australia. Now you're in France right now,

currently. Is that where we're speaking to you?

Correct, yeah.

So I guess coming from an island like Australia, even though it's an enormous

one, surrounded by water, yachting in that entire industry is probably prevalent everywhere.

Now I happen to spend 25 years in South Florida, Fort Lauderdale.

My daughter was a yacht captain. She became a master diver.

So we're kind of inured in that type of culture. But for folks who might be landlocked,

probably doesn't pop up as like, oh, that's one thing I want to do.

So give us an idea of your upbringing, where you grew up, your sibling count,

why you decided to get in the culinary industry to begin with.

Yeah. So growing up in Australia, there's a very small yachting industry and

it wasn't necessarily from living in Australia was what piqued my interest into the yachting world.

It wasn't until I traveled Europe and saw these massive million,

multi-million dollar yachts or billion dollar yacht, some of them.

But yeah, growing up in Australia, I was always moving around and went to many different schools.

And I hated school as much as a lot of chefs. You hear that same story.

I hated school, enjoyed cooking, left early and started my apprenticeship when I was like 15.

That was my first experience as working in restaurants.

And I kind of pushed into it because it was kind of by default,

but I really enjoyed it. And it was something that I excelled in.

So I thought I would use my skills and at least do something useful if I wasn't

going to go to university or college.

So yeah, very tough. That was 22 years ago, the Gordon Ramsay era,

yelling, screaming, getting burnt, as you know, all of that abusive stuff.

Super tough to go through. And I think seeing these chefs and how affected they

were by that industry and the way that they're treating people was always something

that I could either join them or I could make a change and be something different.

And I decided to, I didn't want to be those people. So even though it was a

tough lesson to go through and experience all of this stuff,

it was almost like a motivation of like, you know what, I don't actually want

this life. I want a different life. There's got to be something better out there than just...

Doing your crazy shifts, same restaurant, same thing every day,

getting in, getting abused. And yeah, so that's kind of what made me look for

other opportunities. I've worked in chalets in the French Alps. I've worked on yachts.

I worked in the Greek islands. All of these different things that involve something

more than just that day-to-day restaurant life.

Yeah, and I know I'm not a big fan of reality TV, at least of all which cooking reality TV.

But I know that there was a series out here in the United States for the past

couple of years about kind of yacht life, where they're kind of like doing the

yacht version of upstairs, downstairs, right? What's all the naughty stuff going on downstairs?

And, you know, of course, as much reality, you know, it paints a very particular

picture that may not necessarily be accurate.

What's the biggest yacht you've ever worked on?

280 feet is probably the biggest.

Yeah they they would classify that as a yacht i mean i know at times have changed where you know

i think anything less than 100 feet they don't consider that a yacht anymore

but again growing up in south florida i spent a year and a half at pier 66 which

is a landmark hotel close to the on the intercoastal

and when i was there there was a private equity company called Ron Properties

that unbeknownst to me, well, they bought the hotel and marina.

And it wasn't until later that I discovered that what their real game was is

that they were buying all the deep water slips on the intercoastal and they

harbored some enormous, enormous ships.

And at first blush, people might think that that's really kind of,

I don't want to say romantic but there's a certain amount of glamour to that

being on those types of ships what's a thing that you discovered quick quickly

that wasn't very glamorous

You know what? With any job, there's lots of positives and negatives.

You see these big yachts and yes, you get to experience a certain percentage

of their life going to all these beautiful places.

But there's a separation, which not many people know is you can tell when you

pass into the crew areas, they get slightly less nice. Yes.

You open, there's all these doors throughout each level and you walk through

them and it's clearly a crew area.

It's basic, it's plain, it's less fancy furnishings and stuff like that.

So you're living in, let's just say, the percentage of the yacht,

70% is probably like guest and 30% is crew. And there's always a lot more crew

usually on these big boats than there are for guests. So it's a very small area.

You're sharing a bunk bed. So you're like, you're sharing the same cabin with

one, two people sometimes so there's always that living in someone else's space

that maybe some people aren't used to,

but you know what it's not that bad,

I think you get used to it over time if people haven't done that before haven't backpacked,

Asia or Europe or all these other places and it might be a bit of a shock but it's not too,

exactly, you're only sleeping in the cabin for eight hours a night or whatever

it is and the rest of the time you're, you know, in the galley or in the crew

mass or you're outside having a coffee or whatever it is when the guests aren't there.

And on a typical, and I throw the word typical out, understanding that they're

all very unique situations, but what's a typical charter, if

you could say one, like lengthwise, and what is that provisioning,

getting on the boat and then getting off the boat look like typically for a yacht chef?

Yeah, let's just base it on a week charter. So the difference between below

deck, below deck's like two days or three day charters, which doesn't really exist.

People are going to charter a yacht for at least a week to two,

three, four weeks, sometimes months. But so a week charter, you're kind of looking

at provisioning for the whole entire seven days, right?

And there's certain places that are harder than others. So the Caribbean is

super difficult because you're flying in for the Netherlands or you're flying in from the US.

So you need to get that order in 10 days ahead of time and have enough stuff

to last you for that whole entire week without running out because it gets quite

difficult in the islands there.

The Mediterranean is a lot easier. You're in ports all the time.

You're around beautiful produce and supplies and stuff. But it's a lot of planning,

preparation, and making sure you...

Even though that you might be close to shops, you basically want to be able

to create anything at any point in time that the guests request.

So that's the idea that you're over-ordering your...

You've got $150,000 worth of meat in the freezer ready to go.

If they want something, you've got $20,000 of everything.

So that's the biggest part of provisioning is overdoing it. You're spending...

The boat that I was on, the 280-footer, we would spend $50,000 a week for food,

just so we would make sure that we would be able to fulfill every request.

It's not like a restaurant where you're getting exactly what you need, the orders every day.

You're going above and beyond of what you even think you might need because

you just don't know what they're going to ask for.

Right. I guess that's one little bit of due diligence on your part about investigating

the client and getting to understand what their food preferences are and how

apt are they going to be requesting chicken fingers at two o'clock in the morning.

And then what's the offloading like? Because as you said, you might have overordered.

Now you've got some stuff left in the freezer. At the end of the,

when it comes to port, I mean, is that it? You're done and you just walk away and

No. So it's a 365-day-a-year operation, right?

The crew live on board all the time. There's always, for example,

28 crew are living on board all the time.

So what you do is anything that is going to go off, you recycle for the crew.

So as a chef, you're kind of used to that maybe with staff meals and things

like that. So that's kind of how we operate.

So anything that's kind of going, you have a crew chef on board or you are the

crew chef if it's a smaller boat.

And they will just recycle the food and serve it up like that.

So rarely, I don't like to waste stuff.

So a lot of people think that it's a huge amount of waste, but it's actually

not that bad if you have really good chefs that can utilize that stuff.

So yeah, there's no offloading. The offloading goes to the hungry crew,

which eat basically three times a day, but it's a 24-hour operation as well.

So there's crew up during the day, there's crew up during the night.

So you always have to have food ready to go all the time in the, in the cool room there.

And forgive my ignorance about this entire market segment, but do you contract

to a particular ship and owner that's now letting out for say different,

different contracts for folks coming and going?

Do you, do you get hired for a particular trip? How does that all work?

So there's basically three contracts. So the first contract is temp.

So temp stuff, it could be a couple of days to a few months.

Usually temp is like 90 days or less.

And then if you've got full-time contracts, so full-time contracts,

you sign them and you basically stay on until you get fired or quit.

That's kind of the situation there.

And then you've got a rotational contract. So this is the one that people aim

to go for, which is time for time.

So your rotational contract is usually eight weeks on, eight weeks off,

or 10 weeks on, 10 weeks off, and you get paid the same salary every single

month, whether you're on the boat or off the boat.

I think that a lot of cruise ships work that way, correct? The rotational schedules.

The smaller ones. I believe so, yes.

And it's so weird because I understand that it's been a pretty tough economy since COVID.

And one of the things that I also understood is that luxury brands never really

suffer in recession or a downturn. So is business still good?

Business is always good on yachts. The rich get richer during the...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even COVID. COVID changed slightly.

The charter market changed ever so slightly where people were a little scared

to come on board, but there was protocols and people had to quarantine and stuff.

But generally, it's an unaffected industry in that way, which guarantees you

work, which is another great thing about the industry. Yeah.

And I guess, again, having worked in Florida and understanding seasonality,

you know, there was a whole troop of waitstaff that would, you know,

come to Florida in the wintertime and then go up to Block Island in Maryland for the summertime.

Is it a seasonal business? I mean, I got to imagine that there's,

as an independent contractor, there's always that risk of, you know,

making hay while the sun shines and all of a sudden things dry up.

What's a typical release cycle?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people that just temp and you make a lot of money

really quick, but there's always that risk of not being able to secure the next contract.

But there's over 10,000 yachts out there. So you're looking at,

let's say, 13,000 chefs, roughly, chef position.

So I mean, it is risky, but the thing about yachting is that you're able to

create that safety net because all your costs are covered,

flights are covered, all your

insurance, everything is basically covered under the MLC law, which is,

the law that yachts operate under.

So you can go in, you can do two weeks, you can make 12 grand,

get out, relax for a bit, and then start looking for the next job.

You're not feeling that need to get that next job because you make so much money

super quick and you're able to just relax. you know so.

And you know at the time of this recording there's uh you know a little hubbub

in the strait of hormuz where ships have been caught there for months and there's

all kinds of horror stories about

ships running out of food um and i know that we're talking about another market

segment in the in the yacht and mega yacht

but i imagine that that's always a risk talk tell me more about the about the

maritime law that you were talking about earlier what does it cover?

What are the guarantees?

And is that for everywhere that a ship is flagged or are there some sketchy

places, you know, sketchy flags where, you know, things might not necessarily be as above board?

Yeah, there's definitely, there's a few, I think, I mean, I'm not a captain,

so I don't fully understand it. But there is, you know, you've got your ship,

which is registered in a certain country.

So, you know, some of the best countries to be registered under is like Cayman flag.

There's a couple of others that are really good, but there's some like Jamaican

flags, which they can get away with a lot more. But then you've got the MLC,

which is every yacht has to run under this standard of operation.

So they need to make sure that the crew are fed, they've got accommodation,

the quarters are nice and they're substantial. There's all these things that

they have to abide by to make sure that the crew are comfortable and looked after.

And insured, anything that goes wrong, they're basically covered under this MLC.

Contracts, which is what we sign every time that we go on board a boat.

It's under these contracts.

We spoke a little bit before we got on, had a conversation about,

you know, this amazing life that you've created for yourself and a version of success that is,

you know, purely yours, which I think the successful chef is adamant about,

like successes can only be measured by the one who's experiencing it,

whether that's, you know, being at home by seven to have your kids or being

able to swim with nurse sharks.

Does it help to have an affinity for the water?

Like if you're out there and you're not really a diver or a fisherman,

like what is there to do on board?

You know what? Like, I mean, there's some people that, you know,

aren't a big fan of the water, but as you have a position as a chef,

it opens these doors that you wouldn't have in restaurants.

So you're, you know, you're not having to cost every plate.

You know, I'm putting out some plates that would cost, you know,

500 euros a plate because you don't have to make money on that, right?

So it opens up this creativity that you've never had the opportunity to have

before because you're under all these strict, the manager or the owner of the

restaurant or the head chef is trying to make money.

So the creativity is there for the chef. There's all these other bonuses like

traveling, going to ports, eating at all these restaurants, experiencing different

cultures, all these things that just keep you ticking.

It's not necessarily all about the water and wanting to go for a swim or dive

or whatever it is about the water. There's more to yachts for chefs especially

than just what people usually think.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of the phrase travel is the cure for ignorance, right?

To be able to go experience other cultures. And I imagine like right now,

you've been in France for how long?

Just a few weeks now.

Yeah. To be able to spend that amount of time kind of immersed in a culture

without anything like, oh, I got to catch my next plane or now we got to get

the bus to do the tour. Like that's got to be really, really rich experience.

Yeah, you're able to almost, you know, some boats might stay in a,

you know, one port or one town for weeks or months. You know,

you might move around to multiple different countries within a week.

Some of these charters you'll go from, you know, France to Spain to Italy to Croatia.

So you're not necessarily seeing all these places. I'm not going to paint this amazing picture.

When you're on charter, you're working. But when you're stopping in between

trips, you get off, you go eat at restaurants and explore and have a bit of time to do that as well.

What's the country you were most impressed with? I think... Or surprised you the most?

Yeah, surprised me the most. I mean, there's so many, you know,

traveled all through the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Mediterranean, Caribbean, Alaska.

Two places that come to mind is Alaska. I know it's not a country,

but particularly Alaska and a place called Raja Ampat in Indonesia.

Very different places. But I think Raja Ampat for me in particular was,

you know, quite special. It's.

You wouldn't be able to afford to do something like this. I mean,

you can't even do something like this.

It doesn't exist because you got to have a yacht to visit these remote islands.

And one experience I had actually in Vanuatu, we went to this small little village, this tiny island.

And the owners actually gave them solar panels the year before so they could,

expand and make money and freeze their fish.

So yeah, really cool. Like there's all these stories that people just assume

rich people are bad people.

But I've met so many amazing people, which I'll get into later.

But they gave them solar panels. And they basically built this empire,

let's say, by the time they came back the following year.

Because they were able to freeze their fish to take into the main town to sell.

So we came back and they had a freezer now.

And they had a full garden and set up. And they're living a great life now.

And I stood next to the chief son of the village. and I was just trying to make

chat with him. I stupidly said, what do you do for a living?

That's the first thing you kind of ask someone. And he kind of looked down,

he was this big villager and he kind of looked down at me. He's like, what do you mean?

I fish, I grow my vegetables and I live.

I smoke a bit of weed, he said at the end there. But it was such an eye-opening

experience and changed my perspective on life because these people are living,

the most incredible lives with the most simplest things. and they're happy.

Those experiences, I really look back on and appreciate that I just wouldn't be able to get.

Anywhere else yeah and unfortunately that island is under

particularly interesting threat due to climate change so you know their entire

lifestyle could be washed away so to be able to experience these while they're

why they still exist i mean it

has kind of a zoo-like quality or museum type quality but yeah to be able to

experience that and to your point yeah what else is life right except You know,

fish a little bit, make my vegetables, feed my family and, you know, have play. Uh-huh.

And I'm curious from your standpoint, because it seems like there's all these

benefits to this particular lifestyle. What's it cost you?

Like the setup of certificates. Yeah, I mean, if you want to break it down to

the basics, the minimum that you need is a STCW, which is basically firefighting at sea and first aid.

So basically you need to be self-sustainable as a crew. There's no firefighters

that you can call. There's no police that you can call. There's no ambulance.

So everyone needs to be trained in these basics. So you do a week course,

cost you about, let's say, $1,200, $1,200, roughly.

And then you have an ENG1 medical, which is basically you go into a doctor,

do an hour session with him, check your eyes, check your ears,

do a couple of squats and say that you're medically fit.

Lift 50 pounds, yes, sir.

Yeah, yeah. So they're the two basics without getting into too much more detail.

There is like food handling, level two, three.

There's a ship's cook certificate, but it gets a little complicated.

But those first two certificates is, you know, $1,300 is the basics that you

need to get into the industry.

What does it cost you, particularly emotionally, physically, romantically?

Like, what are the things that you've had to maybe, you know,

saying yes to a yacht life probably means saying no to other things in your life.

So I'm just curious from your vantage point now where you can kind of see back

along your journey and maybe acknowledge or not acknowledge that,

you know, there were some choices that you had to make.

Yeah. I mean, for me, I think I've been quite lucky compared to maybe some other people.

I was young when I started, so not a lot of baggage. I was pretty free,

single, perfect for someone like that.

There were times where I wish maybe I could have gone back home a couple of,

occasions, maybe weddings and stuff like that.

But you miss those. You miss some of those things,

and then relationships is also hard you know especially if you're not on rotation

you're you're away for a lot of the time and you're not able to see your family

and partner or whatever and then i think uh you know,

the mental aspect same as restaurants but you're almost in you're sharing a

space with other people as well so it's like,

i guess it's more slightly mentally draining maybe for some people that don't

get along with, you know, aren't good around people so, you know,

if you're not really ticking those boxes, maybe it's not for you,

but there's ways to deal with that as well there's ways to deal with those things

and figure things out yeah.

So can you talk a little bit about how you figure some of those things out? You know

we beat the drum pretty consistently around mental wellness or what we like

to call tactical wellness here on the show about

actionable items that we're doing every day in order to keep ourselves healthy

and I don't want to say balanced, but resilient, pliable, like,

you know, less oak, more bamboo, that type of thing.

But I'm just curious in your experience, are there any wellness practices that

you've adopted just to kind of keep, again, to your point, there's very little

privacy on board. And so you don't really have, you know, your own space.

What are you doing on a day-to-day basis when you're out on charter just to

kind of keep yourself even keeled and a happy chef

Yeah. I mean, just starting from the beginning, I think know what you're getting

yourself into is the most important thing. A lot of people go into this blind.

And once you get past those things that, okay, I can do this and I can be away

for this long and have a relationship or don't have a relationship,

I think that's the biggest part of it.

And then the day-to-day, I think for me is going out on the deck every single

morning in a different place or a different port and having that coffee and just,

appreciating where I am and just clearing my head for the day is like that's

a non-negotiable for me is to go have this coffee and just and watch the sunrise

over the ocean and that just like almost just you know relaxes me a little bit

and makes me appreciate where I am.

And I think it's important for people to understand or know the time that they

should leave a yacht because a lot of people stick around and put up with some

shit when they're not necessarily when they don't necessarily have to do it,

and I probably could have left some boats earlier than I should, than I did, sorry.

And now, 14 years later, the last five years, I'm like, you know what,

this is bullshit. I don't like it. I don't feel good.

I don't feel happy waking up every day.

I leave. And you're quite fortunate as a yacht chef because you're able to save

so much money. You can do things like that. You can leave and be established

to be able to get jobs after that. It's not like a...

So that's kind of how I work at the moment is leave when I'm not feeling comfortable

And yeah, I mean, there's not much,

I'm not sure what, you know, I work out, you know, there's gyms on board,

some of these boats when I can go for a run, go for a walk in port,

clear my head, stuff like that.

Thank you for that. I appreciate your vulnerability. My daughter having worked

on plenty of ships and boats, you know, she's told me stories,

you know, especially about owners who,

expect extra services if you'll excuse the expression and i gotta imagine that

that's not exclusive to her experience

so when you're out in the water and there's nowhere else to get to

or get away from the situation i imagine that's got to be difficult and and

i don't think that that's exclusive to women as well so what's been your experience

in either having that happen or witnessing it or?

Yeah, no experience, honestly. And yeah, I'm not trying to sugarcoat it because

I haven't really, you know, you hear these stories and,

these tales and stuff that have maybe been slightly exaggerated,

but honestly, like there is a lot of protection on really good boats with these MLC contracts.

The captain is always there to make sure the crew, there's no weird crossover

of crew and guests and, you know, we are the crew, they are the guests and,

sometimes you find it happens on smaller boats and the reason for that is they're not as policed and,

they might have a shitty flag like a Jamaican flag maybe or something like that

I hate to say it but like American base boats you hear a lot of these stories

you see them on Facebook of the captain harassing the stewardess more so than the guests correct,

Yeah. So there are stories in any industry. And I think people think...

I run a Yacht Chef recruitment Instagram page and I'm attracting a lot of people

that don't know about the industry.

And just because I put a position there saying I'm looking for a female chef

or a male chef, they're assuming that it's trafficking or something,

but it's just because of...

It's been crazy. But it's down to the cabin sharing. We never put males with females and vice versa.

I always put the females with females, males with males. But,

you know, it's, I don't know, there's all these like, you know,

stories that people are coming up with, but I've never experienced it myself. Or, yeah.

Yeah, fair enough. And in our previous conversation, we talked about,

you know, the roses and the thorns and about how you want to make sure that

people know about the thorns and are

educated enough to make a decision based on their own autonomy and an agency

What are some of the thorns that are just there and kind of baked into this

enterprise that you think are important to make sure that prospective yacht chefs understand?

Yeah, I mean, as restaurant chefs, we're used to long hours.

And sometimes in yachting, it can be longer hours depending on,

what kind of yacht you're on. But some of these big boats expect 24-hour service

and you're going to get woken up in the middle of the night to make a cheese

toasty or chicken fingers, stuff like that.

You prepare yourself for that. But then also those times that I get woken up,

it's like, you know what, they're paying a lot of money to be here.

1.2 million a week, I think the last boat I was on.

I'm getting paid a lot and the tip is usually between for that yacht was $4,000

to $8,000 a week per person so it's just like,

you know what I'm going to cop it on the chin, get my $8,000 at the end of the

week and cook some chicken fingers and go back to bed Right.

So if you have an ego this is probably not the best gig for you

100% you need to leave that ego in the restaurant but honestly if you can do

that you're going to be a successful yacht chef.

And if I was, you know, looking to get into that industry, what do you think

are some of the ways that I could prepare myself, again, physically,

emotionally, mentally, to make that jump?

I think, you know, a lot of people want to rush into this industry as soon as

they see the salaries and the tips and stuff like that and the travel.

And I like to just be like, okay, slow down. The yachts aren't going anywhere.

Like, let's prepare yourself.

Some of my students I coach in my program is preparing them for absolutely anything

that can be thrown at them. So having those core skills that you learn in restaurants,

and not just one cuisine.

I try to tell chefs to go and do stages in different restaurants so that you

learn all these different skills.

Because one day you're doing omakase sushi bar outside.

The next day you're making these pizzas in front of the guests.

And the next day you're doing authentic Indian cuisine. So it's very important

to have those basics to create absolutely everything. The whole week you're

cooking 30, 40 different cuisines over that period of time.

So that's the one thing that catches people. So prepare, work in lots of different

restaurants, even work in bakeries, do pastries in another place because you're doing everything.

And then just understand the industry and understand how it works and what you're getting into.

Be prepared. you're going to be living with a bunch of different people.

And I think that's the thing that shocked.

Me the most. You might not get along with them.

But you make so many amazing friends. You have friends with a 60-year-old German

engineer that you would never meet. And you're having these amazing intellectual

conversations with someone that you would never talk to at a bar,

but you're friends with him. And there's a 30-year age difference.

I have lifelong friends, hundreds of them, working on all of these boats.

So there's these things that,

you know, you can prepare yourself for, but until you do the job,

you're never really going to know.

Right. And as far as people leaving that market, do you think that it's because,

and again, understanding that everybody's, you know, has individual circumstances,

do you think generally it's because someone had a different expectation walking

into the job than what it was?

Or is it, you know, we were physical human beings and, you know,

there's probably a time clock on being in this industry anyway on a day-to-day basis.

What do you think are some of the things or some of the reasons why folks end

up going back to, say, a regular chef lifestyle?

I think the biggest one is camaraderie is that you get in a restaurant, people miss that.

You have these real solid restaurant chefs and they miss the banter and having

the big team there. That's one of the biggest reasons why people actually leave

because you can be sole chef on yachts by yourself.

It's you and the music pumping in there and your thoughts. So you see these

restaurant chefs that miss that. So that's one of the biggest reasons.

Another reason is burnout.

You do tend to get burnt out. If you're on a busy charter boat,

it happens and it's okay to happen.

You're living at your workplace and it's okay to take a break and maybe come back a few months later.

And then obviously the time clock for women is always there.

You can't start a family, have babies.

So there is an expiry date for people like that that want to start a family, and males as well.

But there is lots of males in the industry that have families and they do eight

weeks off. They're completely present for those eight weeks with their family.

So it's a balance and there's lots of people that do it and it works for some

people, some people it doesn't.

Yeah.

What's been the biggest challenge for you

Biggest challenge.

I mean, I guess I would probably break that down because there's your career

on ships and now you're sharing that path with an agency.

So I imagine that that's got to change the nature of how you spend your days.

Yeah, yeah, definitely very different to what it is, you know,

cooking on boats than running, you know, coaching in the recruitment business.

But that in itself has been a challenge, but a fun challenge.

And, but I guess with yachting, my biggest challenge was being confident in myself as a chef.

You know, I wasn't, it was, it was weird. Like I never had, I don't know what it was.

Maybe I was comparing myself to other chefs and thinking I wasn't good enough,

but it took me about, let's say eight years to be completely confident that I could walk on a boat.

I could read the guest preferences and know that I could nail it.

So that's been a big struggle for me. And thankfully, I got there.

But yeah, you don't have to be the best chef in the world to work on yachts.

It's really interesting. We think that the top chefs are on these $1.2 million,

$3 million a week yachts, and it's not necessarily the case.

Sometimes you're cooking burgers and hot dogs most of the trip.

Sure. And as now a coach and agency owner, do you still experience that imposter syndrome?

No, because I think I'm so confident in the things that I've learned the past

14 years as a yacht chef that I'm like, I see it so clearly when I talk to people

that are entering the industry.

I'm like, I can literally give you a path to success because I fucked this up and I did that wrong.

And I made, you know what I mean? Like with anything, you know?

So it's actually been really fun because I'm like I'm doing I'm helping people

with things that I screwed up and I can help them avoid that and it's actually

really it's really fulfilling you know.

What's one thing about that pivot that surprised you

I think,

well, the recruiting side, which is the other side of the business,

is trying to get better salaries for chefs.

And being on the other side, I need to educate the owners of the yachts,

the captains, and the people recruiting.

And I really enjoy that. I really be like, you know what? That's a shitty salary.

Let's try to get more for these guys because they deserve it.

So the pivoting of instead of just collecting my commission or whatever,

I'm actually fighting for these chefs and I actually really enjoy that as well.

That's been an interesting pivot.

So what's the split of time? Are you still taking contracts?

Are you still going out on the sea? Are you trying to spend the majority of

your time working in the agency and the coaching?

Yeah, mostly setting up this agency and coaching.

I've actually just fractured my leg a couple of months ago, so taking some time off.

But the idea is to keep my foot in there. I still want to stay on top of the

game and still keep creating content, inspiring people to get into the industry.

So I'm going to be taking like temp contracts on on yachts in the future.

Great and if you could tell your

young self 22 year old dean from your perspective now what would it be

I would tell him there's multiple things that i'll tell him,

i mean tell him that everything's going to work out it's going to be fine be

more confident in yourself believe in yourself and spend a lot more money on provisions.

I was always in the mentality of a restaurant chef and ordering just enough and all these things.

I got myself in this shit a couple of times because I was always worried about

spending money. But I got to a point where I was just like, I'd rather spend

more money than ruin a trip for someone that's paid lots of...

You know what I mean? So I don't know if that makes sense.

I lived on the island of Tortola, British Virgin Homes for a year and a half

and have gone back to the Caribbean to do retreats and stuff.

And there is nothing but frozen map because it all comes over in a barge.

It's tough in those islands.

Man, it is. I mean, there is barely zero agriculture because it's all been taken up by living space.

And so everything comes over from the US in barges. And I think there's like

one or two days where there's fresh produce available. And if you're not there,

when that hits the shelf, you're out of luck.

I've even done some events on Dimini, which is even worse because,

you know, the grocery store there is the corner store that's got,

you know, the newspapers and some bananas and tobacco and that's so what do you do for play?

Play? Snowboard.

I'm sorry?

Snowboard.

Snowboard.

Did you say, what do I do for play? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Snowboard, free dive. For me, play is absolutely critical for the creative spirit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love to free dive. I used to spearfish a lot more.

Snowboard, I love to hike.

Yeah, I think it's important to have these hobbies outside of cooking and yachting.

And what is your hope for your business and the industry within the next 12 months?

So there's two hopes. There's the coaching. So I'm hoping to bring this in front

of as many people as possible and help them make a decision before they commit.

So the idea is that they can watch this wherever they are in the world,

South Africa, America, anywhere in the world.

They can get through this whole entire course showing them. It's all filmed

on board yachts. Actually, me sweating, doing the job, provisioning,

cooking for the guests and all of these other things.

So I want people to, before they commit, which is about a $10,000 commitment,

by the time you fly to Fort Lauderdale or Antibes in France,

you're spending money on all these accommodation flights, blah, blah, blah.

And then help people decide. I want to show the reality of it,

see how hard it is. I tell you how hard it is. And so I want to help people,

figure out if that yachting is for them.

And then the recruitment side, I want to get the salaries to a point where chefs

are getting paid what they're worth.

So, you know, the salaries are good, way better compared to restaurants,

but I think they could be better.

And what's the one thing you worry about, about our industry and craft?

As a chef?

What's the one thing I worry about?

I think the mental aspect is, you know, we've all been through it.

You know, I've been burnt out, you know, three, four times in my career.

I think that's the biggest thing that worries me about this industry is,

you know, people getting burnt out and not looking after themselves,

sacrificing, you know, their time for money for people that don't give a shit.

And they couldn't care less if you stay or leave and they forget about you within

a year. So I think that's the biggest thing is the mental aspect of it,

which I think we're all worried about.

Yeah, I would agree. Well, Chef Dean Harrison, I want to say thank you very

much for coming on the show.

I know I've learned a lot. And I imagine that some of our listeners are probably

going to be checking you out because I'm going to make sure that all the links

to your work are in the show notes.

Amazing thank you so much for the call man appreciate it.

Thank you brother hope to connect in person soon yeah hopefully

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