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June 20, 2025 12 mins

A new season of Below Deck has set sail on our screens. 

The reality show has been running for over a decade, chronicling the high pressure, high stakes world of super yachts.  

Captain Kerry is the man at the helm of this season’s superyacht, sailing the St David in Below Deck Adventure.  

Though many reality TV shows are hammed up for entertainment, Kerry told Jack Tame that on Below Deck, it’s all “fair dinkum”. 

He says that everything is real, it’s just a much more intense environment than a regular yacht season. 

“A season would be three or four months, we’re doing it in six weeks,” Kerry revealed. 

“Where a lot of the stress comes into the job is turning the boat over – so when the guests leave, turning it over, getting it ready for the next trip, that’s so much pressure.” 

When Kerry runs a yacht off TV, he says he’ll give it three or four days between charters, and each charter is about a week, but on the show, they’re doing nearly three charters a week. 

“Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, for six weeks.” 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Teams podcast
from News Talks at Be.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
A new season of Below Deck has set sail on
our screens. The reality show has been running for more
than ten years now. It kind of chronicles the high pressure,
high stakes world of super yachts, where crews not only
have to navigate the normal challenges of life at sea,
but also have to deal with the whims of their
super rich clients. Captain Kerry is the man at the

(00:35):
helm of the super yachts Sint David, and he joins
us this morning. Kilda, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Good a mate, and zem.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oh, it's so good to be speaking with you and
so good to see you down under. At the moment.
I'm going to start with a really ridiculous seeming question. Okay,
imagine that I was an ostrich, I had my head
buried in the sand. Imagine I've been living in a
cave for the last fifteen years. How do you explain
Below Deck?

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Mate? It's it's a docudrama about all us guys worker
on a big yacht, and it's shown all the stuff
that guests they get to see.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah more and I reckon if you call it a
docu drama. It's heavy on the drama.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's a docu.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Softly, I mean it is amazing because it combines big personalities,
glamorous locations, money. You know, it has all the ingredients
for an amazing and compelling show, which I think probably
explains some of its success. But take us back a
little bit. How did you get involved with super yachts?

Speaker 4 (01:39):
So?

Speaker 3 (01:39):
I grew up in the middle of Queensland, out in
the bush family of trades people, so there was never
a vision of me being on a boat. My earliest
memory of a boat was, you know, being on a
toboggle behind my dad's boat, or going a little bit
Sundays and seeing the guys running around and there buddy
smugglers doing the parasailing. But it was never anything I
was going to do. I was destined to be electrician

(02:01):
and I ended up giving that a shot. Things didn't
work out with the company I was. I was pumping
fuel at a servo, dipping the oil that we used
to checking a tie pressure and a job popped up
to be a deckhand and a parasailing boat. Back then,
I had a lot of flowing along locks of hair,

(02:22):
and I rocked up at the boat and I'm like,
how good is this? You know, as electrician, you get
the phone call and they don't want to give you money.
And you know, doing tourism, you know, on a parasling boat,
people have throw money at you and get to be
out in the sun and meeting awesome people. And that's
kind of how it started off. While I was doing that,
this yacht pulled in beside us in Towns will and

(02:46):
I was just amazed at just forty meter yacht and
which you know those days, was massive. And I saw
the captain of his epaulets and all the crew, and I, oh,
one day I want to do that.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
And they offered me a job, but you know, I
was young and in love and wasn't ready to leave.
And probably fast forward fifteen years I met that captain
of Fort Lauderdale, and then five years later, by chance,
a captain that same boat.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Well, it's amazing how it's kind of a full circle thing, right,
Like you you know, you have to wonder about the
higher power or something, you know that can it kind
of explain that serendipity when you think of a journey
like that and what is it that you love about
being on the water so much to this day because
you've been doing it for dear, I say, almost three decades.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
But your spot on. I got on my first boat
was eighteen and I'm forty nine now fifty coming up
in December. It's just it's incredible, mate. Like I said,
I grew up in the bush, you know, but I
always love water, you know, go on the river, you know,
making a rope swing, you know, waiting for the floods
to come by and getting up to no good. So

(03:58):
it's just where I'm meant to be, mate. I love
being in the water. I love the environment and the
energy of people around. Like most people who have a
boat are smiling. You know. It's just a great col
too part of and you know all lands are connected
by water, so I get to explore the world. Yeah
someone else has done. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, that's the key, bet, I reckon, Yeah, yeah, exactly. So,
So what did you think of below deck when you
were working as a captain, working in the industry, presumably
being aware of the show and the kind of impact
that was having, but being on the outside.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
It's really evolved into a showcase of our industry where
it's it's mainly people all bad. There's actually a job
out there to do, you know. As Ossie's and Kiwi's
we pretty much owned the market and dotting up until
the recession happened in the States in two thousand and
eight and the keys and eases went home. But especially
for America, there's people there in the middle of the country.

(04:57):
They had no idea that God existed. So it's opened
up the market for crew more Americans to join the
industry and those around the world. And it's also of
a market of people who had no idea they could
rent a yacht for a week. Yeah, so it's quite exciting.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, you mentioned the Kiwis and Aussies. I mean I've
got mates have gone and spent years working on to
be yacht's kind of as an oe, you know, it's
the kind of their right of passage if you like.
They go overseas and it's a great way to see
the world, meet interesting people, learn some valuable skills. What
is it about Kiwis and Aussies that you think make
for good crew? Onto beyonts.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
I really think you know more I travel than those
who have travels. This Commonwealth thing's real you know, it's
it's same with the Brits, same as the Canadians. You know,
we just had this work ethic and we don't take
go sol too seriously. We're used to doing the hard yards,
you know what I mean. And I think what makes
and I think the real factual part of it is is,

(05:54):
you know, we get so excited that we're going to
go and travel, and they're gonna wherever it might be,
right like a lot of Ozzes go to Whistler, you know,
or London, and the last thing we want is to
pull the pin and go home with it legs. I think,
I think our pride gets in the way, so force
is asked to stick it out when it's tough, you know,
and you know, when you're in the US, you know,

(06:15):
you get some you know, some young guy from Kansas
and it gets a little too hard. One hundred bucks
is flown over his mum's house. Yeah, for us, we've
got to stick it out because you know, you know,
our matel shamous.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
If we don't, that's a good that's that's not actually
a side of things I considered before. That's a very
good point of it. So how does it work when
you when you're filming the show and you're filming a
series like like, I'm sure people ask you this all
the time, but how much of what we're seeing on
Telly is real?

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Thworfed InCom porfed InCom Now what people are going through
at the time, you know, is all their own thing happening.
And you know, the the environment is a lot more
intense than a regular yacht season. Okay, we're filming what
a season would be three or four months, we're doing
in six weeks, where you know that we're a lot

(07:05):
of stress comes into the job is turning the boat over,
so when the guests leave, turning it over, getting it
ready for the next trip, that's so much pressure. So
when I run a youat off TV, I'll try and
give three or four days between charters and it's a
one week charter. We're here, we're doing nearly three charters
a week for six weeks. So everything is real. It's

(07:29):
just the environment is a lot more intense than you
would typically find in the industry.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, And going back to the docu drama thing, often,
I mean, a thing that makes the show so fun
and so compelling is the relationships between different members of
the crew and the various ways in which they either
work together or work against each other when problems come up,
and that kind of thing, and the personal intimate relations
between crew. So how how realistic is that stuff?

Speaker 4 (07:57):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (07:57):
You know?

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Is it? Is it amplified? Do you think by that
really strict schedule, that really intense schedule, do you think
the personal relationships are kind of amplified as well?

Speaker 5 (08:10):
Well?

Speaker 3 (08:10):
I think all of us after a long, hard day
at work hard, don't.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
We make sure I mean, things going beyond the heart.
I've seen the show, don't worry.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean so you know, no
one is could be you know morning radio. We need
to make sure that we are you know, take care
of that. But but no, mate, it's I was cruel
as well. You know, I'll work.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
I've worked on you know, Liverpool vessels between cans and
towns all and you know, you know I met some
people on those cruises and they're only a four day,
four day cruise, right, So you know what's interesting is
is you know you get these people who former relationship
from different walks of life that you would never normally

(08:53):
be hanging out to it with each other. Yeah, and
seeing how they both change and grow together or you know, yeah, yeah,
so you know it's it's it happens.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
You know.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
You imagine like you're putting two people into a cabin
small at a prison cell, yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Right, and putting them under a lot of pressure, a lot.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Of pressure and different nationalities, right. I mean, you know
I was in here. We expeak the same language. With's
some things we say to each other that might offend
one or the other that wouldn't really offend each other. Right,
Imagine imagine putting an American and resilient there and Argentinian
in there, Scott, you know what I mean, Like we're
all speaking English but a different version of it. And
and that's where a lot of the drama comes from,

(09:37):
as people misunderstanding each other. But you know, within that, mate,
I'm a huge advocate of mental health and I want
to make sure that people are on the right page.
And if that means that he cudlgs at night time
to be ready to work the next day, well that's
fine with me.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
So what what's the craziest thing you've seen in a boat?
What's the craziest request you've ever had from a client?

Speaker 3 (09:59):
You know, you got the typical ones where a Russian
oligar who wants his caveat flown in. You know that
one's been overdone. But probably the I was working as
captain of a mate. I think I was doing as
a mate at the time, and there was Russian guests,
and you know, we're on anchor, so the boat's laying
let's just say, the boat's laying to the south, and
the guest is sitting on the on the back cushions

(10:22):
of the aft deck and he's looking left and he's like,
I want the sunset over there. So you just got
the set, you know, and the crew were like getting upset.
The captain said, moved the boat and said the captain says,
carry make it happen. I said, no, where it is, mate,
So he put all the toys back in the boat.
We got the tender and I towed the stern of
the boat and just brought it around the other way.

(10:44):
So now you could look over the same shoulder and
see the sunset.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
That's so good. So you're so you're in the tinder,
just basically trying to pull the bow of the boat round.
So yeah, probably the boat round right. But and then
and then kind of holding the position there, the whole
thing went down.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
I something went down. I held it for twenty minutes
and then it went down and then you know, to
the edge off of the flat back around it.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
That's outstanding. Yeah, god, it must be, it must be.
It must be a hell of a life. Do you
do you misstry Land? Is there any part of you
that thinks, you know what, I've been doing this a
few years now. I've had some crazy experiences. But maybe
it's time to, you know, have a bit more time
on Terra Firma.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah. Yeah, So I filmed the show each year, and
when I'm not filming the show, I have my own
yacht manager company in Florida. So I formed that when
I was filming blow Dek Adventure so I could be
homeward by kids. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You've got to
have some balance, especially if you're going to be working
as intensely as you are.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, I'll put I'll put my time in. You know,
I'll put in my twenty years so nothing, you know,
injoy the fruits in my labor. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Well, look, congratulations on the new series. Thank you so
much for giving us your time. We really appreciate it
and good luck out there.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Thanks mate. And is it I remember this?

Speaker 5 (12:03):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Cura cura? Very good?

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yea, so good. Yeah, it's a good effort for Mathodochy
weekend as well. We appreciate it. Captain Carey is one
of the stars of Below Deck.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News Talks at B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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