Spring in Mallorca
With Courtesy of Erica Lay & The Mallorca Bulletin. #26/0063. Erica Lay is owner of EL CREW International Yacht Crew.
Spring in Mallorca doesn’t ease in gently when it comes to the Superyacht Industry. It kicks the door down.
One minute Palma’s shipyards are in full winter mode – and that’s not quiet, despite what anyone who doesn’t work in yachting might think. It’s a full-blown hive of activity. Enormous yachts up on the hard covered in scaffolding and plastic wrap getting paint jobs, grinders screaming, teak decks being re-caulked, engines being taken to bits, generators getting replaced, new rigs going in, new sails arriving, interior refits, galley upgrades… contractors and crew juggling seventeen jobs at once and surviving almost entirely on caffeine and mild panic.
Then the sun comes out… and everything speeds up.
Boats that have been cocooned for months are suddenly unwrapped like very expensive Christmas presents. Fresh paint gleaming, stainless polished to within an inch of its life, teak looking suspiciously perfect.
Meanwhile, all the yachts which were winterised and kept quietly ticking over in the marinas start to wake up, like Sleeping Beauty after a particularly splendid slumber.
For a brief, glorious window, everything seems pristine.
Give it a week.
Because as the yachts emerge from their winter chrysalises… so do the crew.
Palma in spring turns into a live-action job hunt, and it can be savage. Dockwalkers everywhere. CVs clutched like golden tickets, trying to look casual while very much not being casual. There’s always one in full whites (ambitious), one wildly overdressed for 8am, and one who has clearly underestimated just how much walking is involved and is now rethinking their life choices and footwear somewhere between STP and Club de Mar.
The cafés fill up fast. You’ve got returning experienced crew swapping winter stories like they’ve come back from war, and green crew trying to decode what “just keep showing your face” actually means in practice, making one coffee last three hours.
Meanwhile, onboard… Spring is when captains are having a quiet crisis.
That creeping realisation that recruitment for the looming summer Med season was meant to be sorted weeks ago has well and truly landed. Now it’s an inbox full of CVs, a couple of key gaps, and guests arriving far sooner than feels reasonable. Cue the frantic scrolling, the “we’ll just trial them and see” hires, and a sudden appreciation for anyone who can tie a decent fender knot without Googling it first. And that’s usually when I come into my own, as a superyacht recruiter of nearly twenty years, this is The Most Wonderful Time of The Year (yes ok, I sang that). Captains? Call me. Let me take the strain.
Whilst the bridge desk floods under the captain’s tears of frustration, down on deck, it’s controlled chaos.
The job list is endless, the pressure is on, and just as someone finally gets stuck into something important… another dockwalker appears. And then, inevitably, there’s Gary.
Many yachts have a Gary. Lovely guy. Solid worker. Absolutely incapable of just taking a CV from a dockwalker and moving on. What should be a five-second interaction turns into a full breakdown of Gary’s “journey,” his three previous boats, a full CV review, and a story that definitely does not need to be told right now.
Somewhere behind him, the deck team is mid caulking, someone’s holding a power tool, a can of varnish got knocked over and Gary’s still chatting. This is when the First Materesorts to placing a basket on the passerelle labelled “CVs here please” alongside a note that might as well read: Please do not engage Gary. He has no self-control and we are on a deadline.
And then – just as the mayhem peaks – along comes the Palma International Boat Show.
This is it. The unofficial but very real start of the Mediterranean season. Palma sharpens up, the docks fill with immaculate yachts, red trousers, bare ankles, and suddenly everyone is exactly where they’re meant to be. Meetings, deals, reunions, a little bit of gossip… and a lot of people pretending they’re not already slightly exhausted.
From here, it’s game on. Boats leave, ready or not, charters begin, and Mallorca slides effortlessly into full summer mode.
But this bit – this slightly frantic, sun-soaked, slightly unhinged build-up known as Spring – this is where the magic is.
It’s hopeful. It’s chaotic. It’s full of opportunity.
And somehow, despite the panic, the pressure, and the Garys… it all comes together.
Just in time.