Did you miss our interview on the podcast earlier this year with the infamous Yacht Stew, Gemma Christian? Gemma is the creator and face behind theyachtstew.com and was kind enough to sit down with us for a chat! So in case you haven’t yet had a listen, here’s the link again, but in the mean time, I hope you enjoy these soundbites from the podcast!
What inspired you to create The Yacht Stew?
I started in yachting in 2011 and initially just wanted to do a season but here I am going into my eighth year! I literally wrote my final exam in university and was on my first yacht in two days! I’ve been a Chief Stew for about four years now and I just felt like there wasn’t a lot of support and guidance for stews in the industry so thought wouldn’t it be great if there was a place we could all go for that connection? I was also feeling a little bit bored – we were heading into a winter season and felt like I needed a new place for my creative outlet. So that was how theyachtstew.com was born!
You and your husband are in yachting together – what is it like living and working in such close quarters?
We met about six years ago and we’ve been working on the same yachts together for about five and a half years now. To the outside world, it looks amazing – you fall in love, work together, etc. But one of you will always have to make a compromise – one may prefer a certain yacht or career opportunity and the other will have to bend, or at times, we’ve had to take roles on different yachts and that’s just life. I do enjoy having him onboard because I find it makes me want to be the best at my job, but also he’s working on deck and I’m interior so we often don’t actually cross path as much as you might think!
I think my absolute favourite place in the world is Provence in France. So much so, we actually got married there last year! The French Riviera just has it all – the water, the restaurants, the shops, etc. Can’t get enough of it.
