Hello. I'm Iain Flockhart, the founder of
The Yacht Crew Mentor.
"The reason I set up this service is partly due to the increasingly high number of young people entering the industry with very little idea of what they are getting into and with almost no concept of how much guidance they actually need to succeed."
I have been a professional yacht Captain for over 25 years. I had logged over 90,000 nautical miles of MCA verified command as an ocean sailor before I even entered the yachting industry professionally. I now have over 265,000 Nm logged in the capacity of Master.
I have held a MCA Master 3,000 CoC for 20 years. I started sailing yachts at the age of 18 and by the time I was 20 I had bought my first yacht from the proceeds of the business I was running in the early 80s when I was still in my teens. She was a 12m wooden ketch. I then bought my second yacht a few years later, a 18m Dutch build steel ketch which I coded to MCA Category Zero which meant I had no restrictions one where we could sail her and operate commercially. (charter). I did numerous Ocean passages with novice crew onboard and did lots of corporate team building events in the UK, Europe, the Atlantic Islands and in the Caribbean.
Very importantly, my experience unlike many Captains, reaches far beyond that of only yachting, and this brings with it a valuable set of professional and life skills and a broader experience and perspective.
I have an excellent reputation for crew loyalty and retention and am an industry expert on the subject having mentored many crew members throughout my career. I have well developed teaching skills and am both deeply analytical and creative at the same time. I am a very lateral thinker and frequently employ less conventional ideas. I have high emotional intelligence and am a great listener. I’m a natural leader and see mentoring as a fundamental part of a Captain's duty, which appears to be sadly lacking on many yachts.
I write many in-depth articles about the industry with a strong focus on crew issues. I also have a regular column published on The Superyacht Investor, called “View from the Bridge”, The Superyacht Investor’s audience as the name suggests, are the industry's tp level decision makers, so it's an excellent platform for me to be able to write on so regularly.
I also take on commissions to write articles for companies within the yachting industry.
I do regular hour long live sessions on Superyacht Radio and More recently on Yachting international Radio, discussing a wide range of subjects but with a strong focus on crew issues, mentoring, advice and guidance.