Why Divide Up the Ship at All?
Your skipper has all the experience, and they can run the boat alone if they have to. They shouldn’t have to. The more small jobs the crew picks up, the more headspace the skipper has for the things only they can do — reading the weather, picking a harbour, threading the entrance at dusk. Dividing up ten friendly job titles is not pretending to be the Royal Navy. It’s giving everyone a bit of ownership and keeping the skipper free to skipper.
Below are ten roles for a ten-person charter. Some are serious (skipper, navigator, bosun). Some are jokey on the outside and genuinely useful underneath (the purser — keeping bananas off the boat and the dinner bill fair — is one of the most important non-sailing jobs on the week).
And don’t be scared to cross-delegate. Just because you have a purser and an assistant purser doesn’t mean the scribe isn’t pulled into the shopping run. Just because you have a navigator doesn’t mean the second mate can’t check the plotter. Every role below is a starting point, not a fence.
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