One woman shares her experience working for uber-wealthy men aboard their luxury superyachts. Photo / Getty Images
Courtney* worked for two very wealthy men as a crew member on their superyachts. One was a millionaire sex fiend who flaunted his riches and barked at his staff. The other was a hard-working billionaire who would change the course of her life.
“I remember going in,” says Courtney of entering the exquisite main-bedroom suite aboard her millionaire boss’ super yacht.
The night before, the crew had been alerted to a late-night delivery of 10 large boxes to be brought straight to his room where he was waiting with his girlfriend – his wife and children elsewhere in the world.
Asked if he needed assistance opening them all, he replied with a gruff "no" and slammed the door on Courtney, who was running into overtime on her usual 14-hour shift that day.
“We were used to him being rude, because we’re the help. You know, we are a different class. I believe they think that we are.”
The next morning, it was Courtney’s job to tidy the boss’s room – a daily task as soon as he or any of his guests left their suites. But on this particular day, she prepared herself for more than fluffing his giant bed, cleaning his toilet and wiping down the gold and marble of his bathroom after he’d showered.
"It started in this beautiful seating area that you walk into first," recalls Courtney. "There were a few boxes ripped open in there. I was like, okay. I just wanted to walk it through and sort of absorb what I was going to have to do before I started tackling it."
Moving through to his bedroom, Courtney discovered the rest of the boxes and their contents.
"They'd all been ripped open - it was like a kid had just ripped them open with their teeth. I've never seen so many dildos, so many butt plugs, so many sex toys in my whole life."
She turned to see a giant screen still streaming porn. She found sticky, stale-liquor-lined glasses on the sills of the suite's bullet-proof windows.
"Dildos had been dropped all over the floor. When I went into his bathroom it was like he'd just showered like a bird in a bath. There were towels everywhere, and toothpaste."
Courtney stood, incredulous. Then she began to laugh. "You've worked so many hours. You're busting your a***, and then you have this."
It wasn't the only incident that Courtney, a Kiwi girl who wanted to see the world by working on superyachts, encountered on her first of two big boats.
"One day, we had to change the sheets seven times."
"I don't know if they realise what they do," reflects Courtney of her five years working for the uber-rich across the Caribbean and Mediterranean. "Because they're so used to doing it and having people clean up after them. That's the weirdest thing to me. Like, your shower's never wet. Your toilet's never dirty. If anybody used anything, you'd have to reset it completely ... No one ever tells them no."
A man who had inherited his wealth and sported the title of a millionaire, Courtney describes her first superyacht boss as "an adult baby".
He was showy: "He liked to be seen pulling in to the Grand Prix. He liked the boat to be docked a lot. He liked to have his cars out the front. Walking in and on with his girls, the way he dressed was blazers, dress shirts, nice pants, Loro Piana shoes. He loved to wear silk kimonos around on the boat. But then he had his Yeezys, and he wore ripped, distressed, baggy kind of Kanye-style. Pretty much anything he saw that was fashionable, he would buy," she says, noting his wardrobe on board would have been one of several he had in homes all around the world.
But for four months of the year he could be found on his yacht rotating out "his boys - who'd drink and yell and eat avocado and have it all squished down their top, just like big babies - his family, and his girlfriend".
Often, that last guest was the biggest challenge for the crew.
"Sometimes these girlfriends, they want to be the main squeeze. They want to let the wife know that they exist. So sometimes they might hide panties down the couch or take photos on an iPad that you might not think to clear. And then the wife comes along ...
“Once the girlfriend left, and if he got off the boat too, we’d do a full flip. You’d literally take all the cushions up, all the iPads, all the scales, you would wipe everything, head to toe, make sure all the hair was gone. One long hair strand would just not be okay. You’d change all the products - because you would display toiletries out for any guests. So sometimes Madame would want different toiletries to the girlfriends so you’d have to make sure that it’s all swapped and put exactly back to where Madame had it originally.”
Courtney and the crew went as far as taking photos of everything to "make sure it was all correct."
"Madame preferred different sheets. You'd have to change the sheet set so when she comes back on, she's none the wiser. You'd have to hide all their sex toys, 'cause she'd be curious as to why there'd be so many."
And all of this was done in arguably the most impractical of attire: a silk top and white skorts.
"When all nine guest suites were in use, you were physically running and sweating and dripping and the clothes they wanted you to wear, sometimes they're just so impractical because they want you to look pretty - just in case you get called. [We wore] these little white skorts – which are pretty standard in yachting - that fly up and expose everything because, let's be real, you're bending over half the time. It's just, it's not so fun," she recalls of working for her adult-baby boss, who barked at the crew and wouldn't look female staff in the eye.
As she finished up on her first boat, Courtney says she felt hesitant about moving to her second, even though when she’d first arrived in the South of France she’d caught a glimpse of it - one of the biggest in the world - leaving a private dock and thought to herself, “I’m going to get on that boat.”
"After my first boat, I was a bit apprehensive of giving my time to these people that don't deserve my energy. If they're going to treat me in such a poor manner, I don't need the money enough to be treated like that," she says, adding that while it might be perceived as a well-paid job, the long hours mean that's not really the case. However, it does provide a chance to save well because your food and accommodation is covered.
But as she stepped on board the superyacht she'd eyed up when she first arrived in Europe, Courtney had no idea how encountering its owner would impact her life.
Her new boss, a "very powerful" billionaire, "renewed my faith in rich people, I guess you could say. I learned about how good things are happening in the world that these rich people are doing, which was actually nice. Because I'd thought, s***, all these people are just using their own money for their own good."
When it came to working for her new boss, Courtney says he was "an absolute pleasure to look after, after working with those sorts of men who just exploited."
"He was respectful. He was private. He didn't need to show off so much.
"He worked for his money, pushed for it every day. He knew what it was like to not come from a lot of money. I think that's why he was quite respectful of his things.
"He had a lot of butlers so, generally, before we would walk into his cabin, a butler would have picked up the main stuff so we didn't have to do it - it kept his privacy.
"He was the loveliest person to clean up after. He had a bed - I swear to God - that was like two king size beds put together. We used to have races, it took two girls 21 minutes to change the sheets and everything. But he slept almost in the coffin position."
Unlike the bacchanalian behaviour of the guests on Courtney's first boat, the billionaire's visitors aboard were "more business associates, lawyers, his right-hand man. I don't know if he had too many friends," she says. "I think once you get so close to the flame, you get sucked in and you end up working for him. I think his money bought him complete loneliness. Everyone that I've spoken to, all my girlfriends [working on superyachts} agree, all the bosses are lonely."
When it came to his dealings with the crew, Courtney says he showed genuine compassion.
"If he saw you were stressed or worried about anything, you could generally tell him."
And he could be extremely generous. So much so that, for Courtney, it changed her life.
Having returned to New Zealand earlier this year, she reveals to the Herald that she doesn't need to work for some time and will be able to set herself up in a way she'd previously only dreamed of.
"I was one of those lucky girls that my boss took a liking to. He had a type, I guess.
"He gave me a lot of money and gifts. I can now, potentially, buy a home without a partner. I can live independently, as a single woman. I'll still have a mortgage but there's no way I would have saved that huge of a deposit without him.
"I'd never be in this position. Had it not been for him or, technically, had it not been for the sacrifices I made to get to this position.
"I've paid my rent upfront for a year. Everything I own is all paid in cash, outright. It's just, it's a really nice place to be."
While Courtney is no longer in contact with her former boss she wishes she could see him again to thank him.
"I just want us to go back and tell him, face to face, 'You've changed my life'."
*Courtney’s name has been changed to protect her privacy.
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