Dealing With Grief And Trauma Onboard Your Yacht

Sometimes things happen to us while we are working on yachts that are singularly so awful that we struggle to process them. The team from Seas The Mind understands this, and is here to talk about dealing with grief and trauma onboard your yacht.

We’re All Human

I think that sometimes the gloss and the shine of the beautiful vessels we work on can blind people to the fact that the crew manning them are human, in all our vulnerable, emotional and flawed glory. As humans, one thing that none of us will escape in our lives is grief. If we are lucky, that grief will not be compounded by trauma, but as anyone who has lost a close loved one can attest, grief itself can feel bad enough.

Recent events have made me reflect a lot on what it is like for crew when we lose a loved one, especially in sudden and terrible circumstances. In our sun-filled mid-season worlds of worrying about the next charter turnaround and the slightly delayed provisions delivery, our mortality can seem a very far off concept. But it is never really far away.

Most of us who have worked on board for any length of time have at the very least known of a colleague having to suddenly disappear home due to the loss of a loved one. Sometimes they don’t come back for a long time, sometimes not at all, and sometimes they are back a week later desperate for distraction. In less common cases some of us experience the loss of a colleague on board. In this case it really is essential we are mindful of the mental health of ourselves and those around us. Apart from the inherent danger of working at sea, we have also lost colleagues in recent years to suicide and illness. These things can have a seismic impact on crew.

What Happens When Distress Reaches A Crisis Point

As Mental Health First Aid trainers we are concerned with our duty of care when distress reaches a crisis point, and we try to teach our fellow crew how to signpost our colleagues or guests to professional help and how to stay safe in the meantime. But as ex crew ourselves and as human beings we also obviously think a lot about how we can help each other out in a more day to day sense. As ex-crew I desperately want my fellow yachties to know that they are never alone.

No matter how upset, alone, angry, sad, distressed or misunderstood you may feel on the particular vessel you are on, my wish for you is that you know that there are people out here who care, who understand and who want to help. Please reach out.

What to do when you need help

Underneath my article I’ll put details of professional resources and people who can help when we are in distress.

We are happy at Seas the Mind to put you in contact with any of them if you need us to. There are numbers for immediate help 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For less urgent needs there are also endless eloquently written books and articles online and I really recommend learning a little (or a lot if you are so inclined) about this particular mental health challenge which is guaranteed to touch us all one day. Even just being familiar with the common stages of grief and the fact that it can manifest in seemingly unconnected ways (including numbness, denial, anger, depression among others) can help us understand ourselves or our colleagues better.

There are amazing grief – and trauma – specialists out there – accessible from our phone in our cabin if need be. Most standard therapists will know how to help with grief and trauma even if it is not their specialist area. Grief is not something best tackled alone. Talking really does help. If trauma is involved then even more so I would encourage professional help – it really is miraculous the effect professional therapy can have on PTSD and other really distressing post traumatic conditions.

The darkness can lift. But also in my ‘human hat’ – I’d just like to encourage crew to look out for each other when one of our number have lost someone close. You really won’t do any harm by asking if someone is ok, or saying you are sorry for their loss. If they are a very private person you can leave it there, but they will know that you care. If they wish to share more, you can offer an ear and listen.

Everyone Reacts Differently

One of the notable features of grief that I have noticed, and certainly of trauma is a polarising of responses. Some push it down and never speak of it again. For others there is an urge to talk about what has happened: to talk about the person lost, or to describe the terrible event. Sometimes that urge can take us, and the person who happens to be sitting next to us in the crew mess, by surprise. We blurt out how amazing our lost person was, some random facts about them, that hilarious conversation we had with them once.

I remember a surprising occasion on board when a colleague I wasn’t even particularly close to suddenly shared with me something terrible that happened to them in their childhood. I have thought back to that occasion many times and hoped that I responded in a way that made them feel ok about confiding in me and that I in some small way gave comfort. Most of us are not professional therapists but we can still have a positive effect. We can try and get ourselves or our friends to those professionals if needed but before that point comes our compassion, a kind comment or a chat.

If this is all too touchy feely for you and you consider yourself to be of the hard-hearted variety then as Simon Grainge, CEO of ISWAN recently commented:

‘ultimately they have to see it (crew welfare) as an investment in people and it’s an investment for the business. There is an ethical imperative here but there is also a commercial imperative as well.’

How importance crew welfare really is

It is a plain fact that how supported someone feels when grieving has an impact on their ability to recover. Crew welfare isn’t a fuzzy little extra indulgence. It is pivotal to the performance of the team, whether that is delivering a service to a private owner or back to back charter.

For most, that more mercenary of motivations isn’t necessary though. I have always found the compassion of yachties to be up there with the best. Some memorials of sadly lost yacht crew in the past have been truly touching and have shown incredible displays of support from our community.

In more recent times the sounding of yacht’s horns and moments of silence in homeports have shown how many of us want and need to come together in grief and in the face of tragedy; especially when we have lost one of our own. We live together where we work and if we can’t be supportive and kind to one another when we have lost a loved one or experienced something terrible, then I’d say we should possibly question whether we should work in this industry at all, where we are all away from our home support networks at length. There are endless resources and professionals out there who can help. Before that the warmth of a caring crew mate, a cup of tea and a listening ear can go a long, long way.