Yacht Workers Council (YWC) has announced a new global registry designed to give yacht crew one verified record of their identity, certifications, sea service and career history.
The global fleet of yachts over 24 metres now stands at 13,866 vessels, according to the MYS / BOATPro Market Report 2026. Every one of those yachts depends on professional crew, yet yachting still has no single career registry that follows a crew member throughout their working life.
After more than two decades working at sea, Captain James Battey founded Yacht Workers Council to bring the fragmented elements of a crew career into one secure, crew-controlled profile.
A YWC profile stays with the individual as they move between yachts, employers and recruitment agencies. Certifications are verified through Crewdentials, sea service recorded through Digital Sea Service and employment history and professional references retained as part of a long-term career record rather than repeatedly rebuilt every time somebody changes yacht.
“Yachting prides itself on excellence and high performance, but the infrastructure behind a crew member’s career has never really caught up,” said Battey.
“Crew still move between yachts carrying certificates, sea service records, references and employment history across different systems, inboxes and pieces of paper. YWC brings that together into a professional record that belongs to the crew member and that they control. For crew, it means building a verified career rather than continually starting again. For captains, managers and employers, it means being able to understand who they are considering far more quickly and clearly.”
Yacht Workers Council aims to support crew career paths
Yacht Workers Council will officially launch during Monaco Yacht Show, placing the platform in front of crew, captains, owners, recruiters, managers and the wider superyacht industry at the same time.
“We are not trying to replace the records that already exist. We are connecting them. Yacht Workers Council is the infrastructure layer that has been missing, and our aim is very simple: to leave this industry better than we found it.”
The ambition is to create one trusted professional registry that stays with a crew member throughout their career, reducing the industry’s reliance on scattered documentation, repeated registration and informal word of mouth.
ABOUT YACHT WORKERS COUNCIL
Yacht Workers Council is an independent professional registry and career infrastructure platform for yacht crew, bringing verified career history, document verification, automated sea service tracking and wider professional services into a single crew-controlled profile.
Founding membership is available to the first 1,000 crew members at £99 per year.
The platform will launch during Monaco Yacht Show 2026. Follow updates here: www.linkedin.com/company/yacht-workers-council
