We sat down with everyone’s favourite reality captain, Below Deck’s Captain Sandy!
She’s reality TV royalty, known for her forthright personality, fabulous sense of humour and her incredible journey that has culminated in her turn as Below Deck’s beloved Captain Sandy.
But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing (what a pun) for the gorgeous telly star, who just kind of ‘ended up’ in the maritime industry after a less-than-ideal start to adulthood that saw her arrested a whopping 14 times due to alcohol-related incidents. Kicked out of high school with a huge addiction issues and suffering through a wild combination of “jails, institutions, car crashes, motorcycle accidents, hospitals, bankruptcy, heart attack and cancer”, it took her until her mid-20s to reach out for help – and she’s been sober for more than 30 years.
Now life is bloody brilliant for the star who, along with her fab TV career, married the love of her life, Leah, in a gorgeous ceremony in May this year – and of course season nine of Below Deck: Mediterranean is out now. (Watch on Hayu!).
On a whistlestop visit to New Zealand, Sandy Yawn sat down with Capsule for a little chat – read on!
Kia ora Captain Sandy, welcome to Aotearoa!
Thank you! It’s a bit of a short trip, but I can’t wait to come back already and explore. That harbour is looking pretty great right now. Kiwis are awesome – of course I work with Aesha [Scott] a lot and she’s just fantastic! Since I’ve been here, she makes a lot of sense – and I’ve always had lots of Kiwis on my boats.
We absolutely adore her! What do you think it is that draws Kiwis to the maritime industry?
I think that they want to travel, you know, because you’re quite isolated here. You go to Europe, there’s boats everywhere and you’re sitting in a pub and hear about the job. Next thing you know, they’re telling their friend and then you’re on a boat! it’s almost like a rite of passage, I think, for New Zealanders.
I was really, really interested in hearing you talk about how you ended up in this industry – you didn’t have a plan to end up in this industry and where you are now is pretty insane! I really liked what you said about this industry being a bit of a saving grace for parents who are a bit concerned if their kid doesn’t want to go to uni or tertiary education – this is such a good option for them, because it was for you?
Yeah, absolutely. You don’t even have to finish high school – I didn’t, I got kicked out! But it’s an opportunity for people who want to explore – maritime is at sea jobs and then marine jobs encompasses everything, like shipyards. If you don’t want to travel, you want to have family, I think you have some shipyards in New Zealand and marinas. But the maritime jobs, you travel, you get paid. You have you pay for nothing. You have to work hard, but you can advance. If you work hard and you take your courses, you can advance and be on the bridge.
it’s attitude and determination more than having a fancy degree.
And when you entered the industry, was it all about being a skipper, or did you just work up the ranks and it happened?
Not really. It was like I was just digging what I was doing. And next thing, you know, I worked really hard, and the doors opened and I walked through them. And so is that, when I drove my first boat, I was like, this is cool.
I don’t know how you do it – how do you deal with the difficult, rude guests on your boat? And I know they are paying a lot of money to be there, I get that, but when they are just so rude – you must get the odd one that you just want. to push them off the side!
[Laughs] Yeah, we do! I think because I’m in this industry… I always have my crew’s back first – they come before the client. To me, of course, the client is the client – we’re there to serve – but when they start abusing the crew, it’s like, the bear comes out!
It’s a momma bear thing, right – it must be a toss up between wanting to slap them and give them a hug!
It’s kind of like that child psychology, because to be so blatantly rude, you kind of want to do it in a way where they get it without actually saying it – yeah, do you need a hug!? I actually said that to an engineer was he came to the bridge, he was complaining about everything, and I was like, ‘do you need a hug? Well, you’re not fucking getting one. Go back and do your job!’ Whiner! Oh, you have those. But mostly, I’m very kind – I take each individual and I think about their mental state, and then I address them. You don’t know what anyone else is going through.
There was something that you’ve said that really struck me – that you just try to ‘do the next right thing’. I thought that was a really cool way to sum up the way that you approach things. Is that something that you’ve learned throughout your life?
Especially after I got sober – because before that, I always did the next wrong thing. I tell myself, it’s simple Sandy – just do the next right thing. I do focus on that.