Crew Gyms - Making a Very Positive Difference

Life as crew onboard a busy superyacht can at times be frustrating. The cramped conditions, unstable environment and long working hours can cause unnecessary stress and tension- how you deal with it can be the difference between a good season and a bad one.

The Superyacht Operating Systems team are all about efficiency, and believe that good health is closely associated with crew productivity so we're going to introduce some health oriented editorials to compliment our document library and functional design features.

So how best to unwind? Research made by yachting health-and-fitness experts GymCompany Marine suggests that the vast majority of crew members would prefer to work on a yacht which provides a gym for its crew; and that working out after-hours is an effective way to counter the stresses of a busy season.

‘’The first ever yacht I worked on had a very popular crew-gym,’’ says GymCompany Marine founder Edward Thomas, ‘’it was a 70-odd metre Turkish build and probably one of the busiest private boats I’ve ever encountered. The gym space was tucked away in a tunnel leading from the crew area to the engine room, which was a clever use of what was otherwise a ‘dead-space’’. Though, it was an area also shared by the garbage freezers- which made for quite a smell!’’

Far from ideal, but the theme of placing crew-exercise equipment in some unlikely places deep within the bowels of a yacht is not an uncommon one.

“We tend to find at GymCompany Marine that whenever we are asked to put a proposal together for a new-build yacht, there is usually a separate list of equipment for the crew too. Captains and management companies have woken up to the fact that crew-turnover is an expensive problem, and providing additional gym facilities for the crew can help reduce this. This expense is twofold because the financial loss of losing people is equaled and often surpassed by the implications of loss-of knowledge and the time needed to train new crew.’’

“Equipment selection here is really important. Usually space is tight, so items that stow cleverly like the LifeFitness F1 folding treadmill, or the Powerblock series of free-weights are really popular. Powerblock is particularly good because, unlike conventional dumbbell sets, there’s no risk of it rolling about in a seaway and the unit’s total weight is a fraction of what a full set of dumbbells could add up to- often as much as one metric ton! Suspension trainers like the TRX are really good too- you can secure them to overhead pipes or wherever suits and have a really varied workout taking advantage of bodyweight resistance.’’

Aside from the benefits of keeping the crew healthy having a crew gym can in general improve the lifespan of guest equipment by limiting its use.

‘’The problem with having a shared gym is that suddenly the kit is being used every day at quite a high intensity.’’ says Edward Thomas, ‘’It’s a simple fact that a crew of 18 or 20 plus will use the kit much more than the guests ever will when they’re onboard. So you can bet that the kit will start to look scrappy really very quickly. Keeping the crew and guest gyms separate saves the crew valuable time in preparing for charters, because it takes less time to get the guest facing gym area up to standards pre-arrival and it’s easy to keep it up. Gym equipment generally has a lifespan of about 2 years if well maintained, therefore if it’s guest-facing you want to do everything in your power to keep it looking as good as it did on day-1 on day-730!’’

A facility that saves the yacht-owner money, and keeps the crew happy?! We can’t think of a better feature!!

Edward Thomas is the Founder of GymCompany Marine- the yachting industry’s only specialist independent retailer of all the world’s major fitness brands- with a full portfolio of services ranging from gym-design to crew training and recruitment.

Find out more at www.gymcompanymarine.com

Email- hello@gymcompanymarine.com

Tel- +44 203 488 0750