‘Below Deck Sailing Yacht’: This Is One Big Change the Series Made This Year
Now that fans have met the Below Deck Sailing Yacht crew from Parsifal III, they have likely noticed one big change in the show’s format. For the first time, viewers are introduced to a crew who was already working together before the season started.
Below Deck and Below Deck Mediterranean seasons begin with the majority of the crew being strangers. Of course, the captain and chief stew are constants on the show, but typically the viewers (and the captain) meet the crew for the first time at the beginning of the season. But this time, Captain Glenn Shephard, first mate Paget Berry and deckhand Ciara Duggan were already working together.
They worked together during the off-season, preparing the boat for the next season, with Duggan working the interior and Berry in charge of the deck. As they greet the new crew members, the previous team has to deal with comments from some of the new crew about the state of the boat.
The existing team were a little nervous about the new crew
Duggan, Berry, and Shephard meet to discuss the new crew coming on board. When Shephard shares that he’s found some good crew members to join the team, Duggan jokes, “The best people are on board already.”
Shephard says the move will be a big change for the team. “The boat’s still a little bit of a mess with all the things we’ve been doing, all the prep, but now we’re in charter mode,” he tells Duggan and Berry. That’s when Shephard says he plans to move Duggan to the deck team, which means she’ll be working directly with her boyfriend. Duggan and Berry had been dating for some time, so the move should prove to be interesting.
Berry admits he’s nervous about working with the new crew members. “We did have this family between Glenn, myself and Ciara,” Berry says in a confessional. “So yeah, the new crew coming on board feels weird.”
They made repairs and updates but hear about the disarray
Although Duggan and Berry were updating the sailing yacht, it was left in a bit of a mess. Cushions were piled up in the interior and chief stew Jenna MacGillivray doesn’t hold back in her criticisms. She and her stew team worry about being able to clean up the boat in time for the guests. “Prior to this season, we had a lot of maintenance to do,” Duggan says in a confessional. “So the boat’s not charter ready and I’m not going to pretend like it is. Do you like the new teak? We did that.”
Meanwhile, another former crew member rolls up. Chief engineer Byron Hissey worked with the crew in the past and ends up bunking with Shephard too. Shephard told Showbiz Cheat Sheet that Hissey is an old friend and had worked on this yacht before. “He’d been working here for a year and worked on a sister ship that’s owned by the same company.”
Hissey is also someone who is one of the few who are married while on the show. Captain Lee Rosbach was the only current crew member who was married, but now Hissey joins him. Hissey is not only a husband but also a father too.
Below Deck Sailing Yacht airs on Mondays at 9 p.m. / 8 p.m. on Bravo.
