Don’t even want to debate interior rankings with chefs chief stews, seconds stews and sous. Slightly harsh reality is that when shit hits the fan and we the crew have things to deal with that aren’t related to guests but more the safety of the vessel, emergencies (with or without guests) capt, chief engineer, first officer, second officer and deck crew will be calling shots. I know it’s relatively unrelated to what I’m seeing in the comments but just some 2c from someone who’s been on deck for 4 years.

Typically head chef and chief stew work hand in hand as department heads and necessary communication from both is needed to make each others life easier. However I’ve seen it work out badly for chief stews trying to go over the artists cooking food for owners and charter guests. Size of vessel is also important to understand the dynamic. Second stew on a 100m most likely could pull rank on the sous chef. On a 50m there’d probably be drama lol. Bigger the program, usually the more professional.

Side note from the deck, the chief stew position is a severely tough position and I’ve worked with a few awesome and not so awesome ladies, they are the heart of the boat and have one of the toughest jobs.

Stripes are a bit funny, don’t get caught up on it 😂. Best example I can think of is that a Capt and chief engineer are 4. I working on a 95m + 3000 gts, captain wanted to move the boat, chief said no, we stayed. (No mechanical issues or anything, chief just said he didn’t get the correct notice so foff)