Ships At Work

Since 2006, The Insiders’ Guide to Becoming a Yacht Stewardess has been a must-read guide for hopeful, young travelers and those intrigued by a career path in the super-yacht industry. Hundreds of yacht crew in the industry today used Julie’s book to get started---and succeed---working aboard yachts. Entertaining and educational, this book not only covers who owns luxury yachts, where they travel, and what taking care of their eccentric owners is like, but it describes the awe-inspiring benefits of the job, the skills required, and a clear-cut roadmap for how others can do it, too. If the terrific pay and benefits that come from accompanying celebrities and dignitaries on their private journeys around the world appeals to you, consider Julie Perry your new career coach. Let her guide you to the sea of opportunity that awaits young travelers in one of the world’s most adventurous and mind-boggling industries: LUXURY YACHTING.

If you are reading this intro, then I take it that you have an interest in cruise ships. It could be you want to work on a cruise ships, you want to or have taken a cruise, maybe you are looking for tips on cruising or maybe you just like fun stories about cruise ships. If you are interested in any of those items I just listed, then this book is for you.Before we begin our journey, I guess I should tell you a little bit about myself and why I have written this book. For my cruise ship experience, I worked about 12 years on cruise ships around the world and 2 years working in shore side offices in Florida. I worked with 4 different cruise lines and worked as a scuba instructor/dive manager, shore excursion manager and then in the shore side offices as an IT geek, and finally a few years as an IT officer (yeah, I know, scuba instructor to computer geek, what can I say, it has been an interesting journey).Stories in this book include ones about:Getting a job on cruise shipsLife on board shipsOn board romanceHurricanesRunning agroundAdrift at seaKick backsFalling overboardLiving on a tropical islandCrazy things the crew and passengers doand much much more........................I also have photos about my life at sea that can be seen at: www.cruiseshipstories.comLooking at these photos will bring my sea faring stories even more to life.

“One of the 12 best business books of all time…. Timeless principles of empowering leadership.” – USA Today "The best how-to manual anywhere for managers on delegating, training, and driving flawless execution.” —FORTUNE Since Turn the Ship Around! was published in 2013, hundreds of thousands of readers have been inspired by former Navy captain David Marquet’s true story. Many have applied his insights to their own organizations, creating workplaces where everyone takes responsibility for his or her actions, where followers grow to become leaders, and where happier teams drive dramatically better results. Marquet was a Naval Academy graduate and an experienced officer when selected for submarine command. Trained to give orders in the traditional model of “know all–tell all” leadership, he faced a new wrinkle when he was shifted to the Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine. Facing the high-stress environment of a sub where there’s little margin for error, he was determined to reverse the trends he found on the Santa Fe: poor morale, poor performance, and the worst retention rate in the fleet. Almost immediately, Marquet ran into trouble when he unknowingly gave an impossible order, and his crew tried to follow it anyway. When he asked why, the answer was: “Because you told me to.” Marquet realized that while he had been trained for a different submarine, his crew had been trained to do what they were told—a deadly combination. That’s when Marquet flipped the leadership model on its head and pushed for leadership at every level. Turn the Ship Around! reveals how the Santa Fe skyrocketed from worst to first in the fleet by challenging the U.S. Navy’s traditional leader-follower approach. Struggling against his own instincts to take control, he instead achieved the vastly more powerful model of giving control to his subordinates, and creating leaders. Before long, each member of Marquet’s crew became a leader and assumed responsibility for everything he did, from clerical tasks to crucial combat decisions. The crew became completely engaged, contributing their full intellectual capacity every day. The Santa Fe set records for performance, morale, and retention. And over the next decade, a highly disproportionate number of the officers of the Santa Fe were selected to become submarine commanders. Whether you need a major change of course or just a tweak of the rudder, you can apply Marquet’s methods to turn your own ship around.

Asbestos, explosives, and chemical waste are only a few of the hazards involved in the meticulous work of destroying a giant ship. When new labor laws and environmental standards came to Europe, the ship-breaking industry moved to places like Chittagong on the coast of Bangladesh-places where the lives of workers seem expendable, and the environment is someone else's problem. follows the demise of the Asian Tiger, a ship destroyed at one of the twenty ship-breaking yards along the beaches of Chittagong. BBC Bangladesh correspondent Roland Buerk takes us through the process-from beaching the vessel to its final dissemination, from wealthy shipyard owners to poverty-stricken ship cutters, and from the economic benefits for Bangladesh to the pollution of its once pristine beaches.