Advice for American license holder yachting in the Med

Need some advice on how to get a foot in the door in yachting in the Med, maybe not in the entry level. Long story short I’m a ferry captain in the states (100 ton near coastal-1st mate offshore/ STCW/AB/RFNPW/) wife is from Italy, and going back to Europe is a possibility. Yachting is the best paying boating jobs out that way from what I gathered.

If I wanted to get anything more than entry level deckhand position, should I go for Royal yacht master license? Upgrade USA license to 1500? Can you land a mate job with 100ton out there? Crewing agencies have been kinda useless answering this questions, thanks for any/all advice in advance!

Royal Yachtmaster is what you want. You may find being a USA citizen a large handicap, we have a rep for suing and not having health insurance. May want to ask around about this.

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If it helps, I would be gaining Italian citizenship through marriage… I have got whim of this issue though.

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That license is meaningless outside the USA. You would need an STCW endorsement for it to be useful.

If you can get STCW II/3 Master less that 500 GT you could probably use that but getting an RYA license also would be beneficial.

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That should be a large assist :smiley:

Are you married already? If not I believe you can apply after 6 month if you are living in Italy, otherwise it is after 3 years. I won’t tell you how long it then takes to actually get it once you have applied…

Speak with MPT in Ft Lauderdale

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I worked with a Dutch supplier for a decade and if I had a nickel for everytime i heard that i would have been able to pay for all of the broken parts they sent me.
I don’t know where they get this. Probably from working with Fugro and getting them confused with Americans.
The health care thing is real.

Course for STCW Yatch Master <500 GT:

Or;

If that was not what you are looking for, maybe this can help: