Mzi From ‘Below Deck Med’ Says Stabilizers Loss Was ‘1,000% as Scary as It Looked’ [Exclusive]
Were Below Deck Mediterranean producers overexaggerating the danger that superyacht Home could have sunk when it lost stabilizers? Not really, deckhand Mzi “Zee” Dempers revealed.
After breakfast service during the first charter on Below Deck Med Season 7, the boat’s stabilizers completely fail. Producers show the boat slowly rocking as water in the hot tub sloshes. Captain Sandy Yawn receives an alarm on the bridge that they’ve lost their stabilizers. The crew and guests are knocked off their feet as the boat begins to dangerously sway.
Yawn is heard on the radio telling her crew to “hang on” as some of the guests start to panic.
‘Below Deck Med’ stabilizers loss was scary, Mzi said
A Below Deck Med camera operator joined deckhand Storm Smith on a tender and the perspective they capture was nothing short of terrifying. The boat sways so hard it appears that it could tip over. Dempers said the crew was terrified.
“Like 1,000% as scary as it looks,” Dempers told Showbiz Cheat Sheet. “You don’t expect something like that out at sea. Especially a very modern boat, you think everything is very much in line. But I think at the same time, with these modern boats, there’s quite a bit of a teething process in order of figuring everything out. And I think that teething process is what we were doing on the show. So, yeah, very unexpected. And it was as dramatic as what people thought.”
What were the ‘Below Deck’ crew’s priorities when the stabilizers failed?
The crew’s ability to keep the guests calm, while keeping themselves calm in a terrifying situation was put to the test. Plus, Dempers pointed out that anything on a counter crashed to the floor. So the crew also had to secure any unsecured items.
“Obviously the first thing is to make sure the guests are alright,” Dempers said. ” But then after that, like running around the boat trying to make sure that parcels aren’t going to be falling loosely or just all of the equipment that we have on board isn’t going to get ruined or cause a bigger accident.”
“And so it just comes down to safety when you get into a scenario like that,” he continued. “Guests, first because guests are the main priority. But then after that, it’s like, OK what can we do with the boat? Make sure that we’re not going to make anything worse than what it is already. And already then even it’s a little bit late because you’re in the process. So anything that can fall will fall and it’s a difficult one to get through.”
How serious is it to lose stabilizers on a boat?
Dempers reiterated that what viewers saw in the first episode was extremely accurate. And it felt like the boat would tip over. “Yeah, it felt like that,” he said about the Below Deck Med stabilizers loss.
So how dangerous is it to lose stabilizers on the boat? Pretty major. “One of the leading causes of boat accidents is damaged boat stabilizers that sink the watercraft,” according to Starboard Yacht Group. “The emergency seals that surround the driveshaft are liable to take on damage or fail to prevent water from rushing in when the driveshaft breaks.”
Adding, “In fact, there are reports about a family that lost a more than 100-foot luxury yacht while sailing in 2016. Though everyone was saved, the boat itself was a complete loss.”
So how does Yawn regain control over the boat? Stay tuned. Below Deck Mediterranean airs on Monday at 8 pm on Bravo.
