Rick & Resilience

Rick is 29 years old & currently working as a deckhand on the super yachts. He comes from a very small village in the eastern cape of South Africa, like really small, only about 70 people live there! He grew up on his family farm, where they farm wool and mohair livestock. It was a very frugal existance, they only got constant electricity when he was around 10, so he has a deep rooted love for nature.

He worked briefly in Durban for a men’s fashion brand but he missed the nature element of the farm, so he returned to the family farm and lived my dads dream of having his son back to farm for about four years which he loved but it didn’t make me enough money for the life I wanted. Travel was alwyays his main goal so he started exploring his options. 

Since he spent many holidays at at his grandparents house near the ocean in South Africa, it seemed perfect to work on superyachts, the perfect answer to all his wishes. Putting everything into making this a reality, he chased his dream, booked a flight to France and started his yachting career.

However, the reality of living in France was a big shock for me, he had never travelled overseas and realised quite fast that his South African Rands didn’t last very long. He did somehow manage to get some day work within a week of being there and got his first pay in euros.

He really did think that after this yachting would be easy but that turned out to be all wrong. He didn’t get work after that for another 2 months. He lived in a slum of an apartment with 4 other South Africans, eating only canned fish and couscous. He sat on the beach with one of his close friends telling him that “I think it’s over for me, my money has run out”. He didn’t even have enough for the next weeks rent and had no responses from any potential job, but at that exact moment his phone rang, it was a job from a guy he’d met a few weeks earlier at the bar. He couldn’t believe it!

He’s been on several boats since then, he’s also had the most incredible run of bad luck and misfortune, but he has such a positive mindset which is the only thing that kept him going. He talks about resilience, being al about backing yourself, being able to take no and rejections and bounce back, knowing your reason for being there and wanting this and don’t lose faith. Great tips and he’s a shining example of this.

He met his girlfriend on a temp job in Barcelona and although they work separately now, they have taken time out to travel for 6 months and work hard at making long distance communication part of their commitment to each other.

His story is truly inspiring and worth listening to for lots of other reasons so listen in for his story on the podcast life of a superyachtie on spotify – click here to listen