…Because the environment has taught you that it is not safe to. Psychological safety — defined by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson as the belief that you will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes — is the foundation of every high-performing team and every genuinely safe workplace. A 2024 joint study by Edmondson, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Michaela Kerrissey and doctoral researcher Hassina Bahadurzada, published in the International Journal of Public Health and based on data from 27,000 workers, confirmed what maritime safety researchers have known for years: psychological safety is not a luxury. It is a measurable, essential resource that protects against burnout, prevents turnover and is most critical precisely when operating pressure is highest. On a superyacht in a high-season charter programme, it is also the difference between a near-miss that gets reported and one that becomes a serious incident. This guide explains why the silence exists, what it costs and how to change it.
In This Guide You’ll Learn
- What psychological safety actually means — and why it is the foundation of both crew wellbeing and vessel safety
- The data behind the culture of silence on superyachts — and the real cost when nobody speaks up
- The four most common reasons crew stay silent even when something is wrong
- How to recognise whether your vessel has a psychologically safe culture — and what to do when it does not
- Timothy R. Clark’s four-stage model — and where your vessel sits right now
- What crew deserve from their leaders and the practical steps that build safety from any position in the hierarchy
The Data — What Is Actually Happening to Psychological Safety in Yachting?
The Crew Hunter, in partnership with Nautilus International and CHIRP Maritime, published a 2025 crew safety survey across a wide range of superyacht crew from junior stewardesses to experienced captains. The results were, in the researchers’ words, ‘shocking but unfortunately not surprising.’
62% of crew surveyed had felt unsafe due to a colleague or superior — The Crew Hunter / Nautilus International / CHIRP, 2025
40% of crew had been asked or expected to perform a task without proper safety equipment or training — same survey
23% of crew had never had a safety drill on their current or most recent vessel, despite some having been aboard over a year
66% of women in maritime said male colleagues harassed and intimidated them — WISTA International
7% of women who reported sexual assault or harassment to superior officers were satisfied with the outcome — WISTA International
“One crew member was asked to remove safety rails from the bow before a crossing. They refused. They got fired.”
— The Crew Hunter / Nautilus International / CHIRP Crew Safety Survey, 2025”
The American Psychological Association’s 2024 Work in America survey on psychological safety — the largest annual US workforce study — found that workers who experience psychological safety are consistently more engaged, more productive, more willing to raise concerns early and significantly less likely to leave their employer. Workers in psychologically unsafe environments are more likely to conceal errors, underperform under pressure and disengage entirely. In a live-aboard maritime environment, disengagement is not simply a management problem. It is a safety risk.
Related: Nobody Told Me It Would Feel Like This — Crew Welfare and What You Deserve
Why Do Crew Stay Silent — The Four Most Common Reasons
1. Fear of losing the job
In the 2025 Crew Hunter survey, the most common reason crew cited for not reporting safety concerns or personal welfare issues was fear of employment consequences. This is not irrational: the yachting industry operates on informal reputation networks where a captain’s reference is the primary currency of career advancement. A crew member who raises a safety concern and is dismissed has not just lost a job — they have potentially damaged the reference trail that their next three positions will depend on. VIKAND Solutions’ maritime psychological safety analysis identifies this fear as the structural root of the yachting industry’s culture of silence, noting that when workers feel economically vulnerable, they default to compliance over safety regardless of the personal risk involved.
2. Absence of a formal reporting channel
The 2025 Crew Hunter survey found that a significant proportion of crew had no clear understanding of who they could turn to outside their direct line management when they did not feel safe turning to that management. The Maritime Labour Convention 2006 (MLC 2006) requires vessels to have a complaints procedure — but many crew, particularly green crew and junior interior staff, are unaware this requirement exists, let alone how to access it. Without a known, trusted reporting pathway, crew make a rational calculation: silence is safer than a complaint that goes nowhere and marks them as a troublemaker.
3. The culture of silence is already established
On vessels where a psychologically unsafe culture has been in place for more than one season, silence becomes the norm that new crew absorb on joining — not because they individually fear speaking up, but because every signal in the social environment tells them this is not how things work here. PMC’s 2024 maritime mental health systematic review identifies this normalisation process as one of the most difficult aspects of culture change: when silence is the established behaviour, it requires active, visible and repeated counter-signalling from leadership to shift it. A single open-door policy announcement is insufficient.
4. Previous speaking up went wrong
Gemma Hulbert, founder of The Yacht Stew, has described her own experience of systematic bullying by a chief stew that escalated to the point of severe anxiety — shaking at pre-brief team meetings. She initially stayed because she feared the professional consequences of leaving. When she did speak up — to a captain who failed to act — the speaking up itself reinforced the lesson that raising concerns was unsafe. This is the pattern the WISTA data on harassment reporting outcome satisfaction (7%) reflects across the industry: when crew speak up and nothing changes, or when the outcome is worse than the silence, the rational response is to never speak up again.
Related: How Do You Stop Drama, Conflict and Negative Energy From Destroying Your Crew
What Does a Psychologically Safe Vessel Actually Look Like?
Psychological safety does not mean an absence of standards, accountability or direct feedback. It does not mean every idea is a good one or every concern automatically acted upon. What it means in practical, operational terms on a superyacht:
- A junior Deckhand who notices something wrong during a manoeuvre feels able to say something, even in the presence of the captain, without fearing ridicule or dismissal
- A new Stew who does not understand the table-setting standard can ask the Chief Stew to show her again without the question being treated as incompetence
- A crew member who makes a mistake comes to the HOD immediately rather than concealing it and hoping nobody notices
- A Second Officer who disagrees with a navigation decision feels able to raise it through appropriate channels without the captain treating it as insubordination
- A crew member who is struggling with their mental health can speak to their department head without fearing that this information will be used against them professionally
VIKAND Solutions’ maritime psychological safety analysis describes this as a vessel where ‘crew members feel comfortable reporting any safety problems they encounter without fearing blame, punishment or negative consequences’ — and identifies this as critical not just for individual wellbeing but also for the vessel’s overall safety performance. The Harvard Business School Working Knowledge report on Edmondson and Kerrissey’s 2024 study puts it plainly: psychologically safe teams are not softer teams. They are teams that perform better under exactly the conditions — high pressure, high stakes, constrained resources — that define peak superyacht season.
The Four Stages of Psychological Safety — Where Is Your Vessel Right Now?
Timothy R. Clark’s model, developed in The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety (Berrett-Koehler, 2020), provides the most operationally useful framework for assessing where a team is and what it needs next. Each stage builds on the previous one.
Stage 1: Inclusion safety
Do crew feel accepted as members of the team? This is the baseline. New crew, particularly those from different cultural backgrounds, green crew and those in low-status positions — junior stews, deckhands — are most vulnerable to exclusion. Inclusion safety is built through active welcome, equal participation in briefings and zero tolerance for clique formation or social ostracism.
Stage 2: Learner safety
Do crew feel safe asking questions, making mistakes, and learning without embarrassment? This is where Gemma Hulbert’s experience sits: a chief stew whose response to a question makes the questioner feel stupid has destroyed learner safety in her department. Amy Edmondson’s nursing research found that the highest-performing teams reported more errors — because they felt safe enough to report them. Mistake-reporting is the output of learner safety. When mistakes are concealed, learner safety is absent.
Stage 3: Contributor safety
Do crew feel safe contributing their ideas, suggestions, and professional judgment? This is where the deckhand who spots a maintenance issue speaks up rather than waiting for someone else to notice it. Contributor safety is built by asking for input before giving answers, visibly implementing good suggestions, and responding to poor ones with curiosity rather than dismissal.
Stage 4: Challenger safety
Do crew feel safe to challenge the status quo, question a decision or raise a concern about a captain or owner’s behaviour? This is the rarest and most important stage — and the one most directly connected to physical safety onboard. The 40% of crew who were asked to perform tasks without proper safety equipment and did so anyway are operating in a vessel with no challenger safety. Building it requires the most senior person on the vessel to model it: a captain who asks the deck team before a complex manoeuvre ‘What do you see that I might have missed?’ creates challenger safety in a single behavioural moment.
Practical Steps — Building Psychological Safety From Any Position in the Hierarchy
If you are a captain or senior HOD
- Make your own fallibility visible. When you acknowledge a decision that did not work out well, name specifically what you would do differently. This single behaviour — modelled publicly and consistently — does more to build psychological safety than any policy announcement.
- Implement a structured Safety Management System (SMS) debrief cycle — not just for physical incidents but for interpersonal dynamics. A monthly ‘how are we operating as a team?’ conversation, facilitated by the captain with no operational agenda, creates a regular forum for issues to surface before they become incidents.
- Respond to every raised concern within 24 hours. Even if the response is ‘I cannot act on this right now, but I have heard it and here is why’ — a response demonstrates that speaking up has a consequence other than silence. The absence of response is what teaches crew that speaking up is pointless.
If you are a junior or mid-level crew member
- Know your MLC 2006 rights. You have a legal entitlement to a formal complaints procedure on your vessel. If you do not know what it is, ask your captain or management company directly. The existence of a written, accessible complaints procedure is an MLC compliance requirement, not a management choice.
- Document incidents as they occur. Date, time, what happened, who was present, what was said. If you later need to make a formal complaint, engage your HoD, Captain, DPA, Management Company or Flag State. If you deem these reporting channels as unsafe, then contact PYA or Nautilus. ( You’ll receive better support if you are a member) If you need evidence for a wrongful dismissal claim, this documentation is your most important asset.
- Contact ISWAN YachtCrewHelp — available 24/7 via live chat and phone — before you decide what to do, not after. A conversation with a trained welfare worker who understands the maritime context will help you assess your situation and your options without requiring you to take any formal action first.
The single most important thing any crew member can do
Tell one person. Research on psychological safety consistently finds that the shift from silence to speech is most reliably triggered not by policy change but by a single trusted relationship in which speaking feels safe. If you cannot speak to your HOD, speak to the crew member you trust most. If you cannot speak to anyone onboard, contact ISWAN. The culture of silence is maintained by isolation. Connection breaks it.
Where to Get Confidential Help Right Now
ISWAN YachtCrewHelp — free, confidential, 24/7. WhatsApp, live chat, phone, email. yachtcrewhelp.org
Nautilus International — legal access, formal representation and employment rights support for union members. nautilusint.org
CHIRP Maritime — confidential safety reporting system for maritime incidents. chirpmaritime.org
The Crew Coach Counselling — private online counselling with Karine Rayson, a qualified counsellor and former chief stewardess who understands the yachting environment from the inside. thecrewcoach.com/counselling-for-yacht-crew
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I do if I am asked to perform a task I believe is unsafe?
You have the legal right under STCW and MLC 2006 to refuse a task that you genuinely believe presents an unacceptable risk to your safety or the safety of others. The practical challenge is that exercising this right in a psychologically unsafe environment may have professional consequences — as the Crew Hunter survey documents, one crew member was fired for refusing a dangerous task. If you face this situation: state your concern calmly and specifically (‘I don’t have the correct safety equipment for this task — can we get the harness before I proceed?’), document the interaction and contact ISWAN if the refusal results in adverse action. No vessel owner’s preference or charter deadline overrides your right to physical safety.
My captain is the problem. Who do I go to?
The management company is your first escalation point above the captain. If the management company is also unresponsive, contact your flag state — the flag state authority all have jurisdiction and can support you. ISWAN’s welfare workers can help you navigate the escalation pathway appropriate to your specific situation confidentially and without requiring you to take formal action until you are ready. If the situation involves physical safety or criminal behaviour, Nautilus International provides legal access and formal representation for union members.
How do I know if what I am experiencing is a psychologically unsafe workplace or just a demanding one?
The distinction is not about the level of demand — high standards, long hours and direct feedback are legitimate features of professional yachting. The test is how the environment responds when something goes wrong. In a demanding but psychologically safe environment, mistakes are addressed directly, privately and constructively; questions are met with answers, not contempt; concerns are acknowledged even if not immediately resolved. In a psychologically unsafe environment, mistakes are met with public humiliation; questions are treated as evidence of incompetence; concerns disappear into silence; and the underlying message is that your job security depends on your compliance rather than your performance.
I work on a vessel where psychological safety is genuinely good. How do I protect it when new crew join?
Protect it through your onboarding process. Explicitly introduce new crew members to the vessel’s communication norms — how concerns are raised, how feedback works, that questions are expected and welcomed. The first 14 days of a new crew member’s tenure are the period in which they are most likely to adopt either the healthy communication patterns of a psychologically safe vessel or the self-protective silence of an unsafe one. Active, deliberate integration during this window preserves the culture you have built.
Can I build psychological safety in my team even if the captain does not model it?
Within your department, yes — and it matters. A chief stew or chief officer who models psychological safety within their own team creates a protective micro-environment that, to a meaningful degree, buffers their crew from the vessel-level culture. The limits of this are real: Challenger safety — the ability to question the captain’s decisions — cannot be built without captain participation. Inclusion safety, learner safety and contributor safety within a department are entirely within an HOD’s power to create, regardless of the vessel’s broader culture. Your department can be the safest team on the vessel, even if the vessel itself is not safe.
Ready to Build the Leadership Skills That Create Psychological Safety?
The Crew Coach Foundational Leadership Course includes a complete module on psychological safety — covering how to build it within a department, how to repair it when it has been damaged and how to make it structurally robust against the pressures of a high-season charter programme. The Advanced Leadership Course develops the challenger-safety skills that captains and senior HODs need to create genuinely safe vessels at the highest operational level.
