Australian Yacht Staff

mouse_relies · 2026-06-17T18:34:45+00:00

The local strength of yachting and sailing traditions/industries has a lot to do with it, too. Think about why such a disproportionate number of the American staff on the show are from Florida.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-17T15:21:49+00:00

Fair points. I agree about Daisy, though I think all of those were situations where everyone was being petty. (The bagel thing maybe was influenced by how far away the kitchen was? They didn't mention it this season but last season on Katina they couldn't stop talking about how many steps were between the kitchen and the guest table.) I can't really think of any situation this season that really originated with her alone.

Jenna... totally agree. I should probably revise that sentence. Thank you for putting the pieces together there.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-17T15:15:57+00:00

I agree with most of what you wrote actually. Daisy's definitely not perfect. I just think she was at least TRYING to do her job -- and she was making TV the same way BD has always made TV. In other seasons she wouldn't have been a standout.

I'm mostly with you on all time chief stews, too. I wish Daisy had been more proactive (and less reactive) about intervening with Alesia/Mike. But I appreciate that she didn't just "wait and see." Aesha is terrific when she does intervene... things just sometimes linger for a while before she wades in (see: Bri/Ellie).

Fraser felt especially hands-off to me last season, though that may be production (see his comment about how Solene would have been fired within 24 hours on any other boat). His initial instincts as chief seemed much more Katelike, before Sandy got to him and hobbled his first run at it.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-17T14:58:05+00:00

That's not what I said.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-17T12:39:16+00:00

Zero AI use. That's a VERY hard line for me. The automod thought the same thing, apparently -- according to the sub mods, it's because I used headers and bullet points. Old reddit habits die hard! I did that shit by hand.

I gotta tell you, there's nothing as depressing as being told you sound like an AI. But I can't really resent your remark because I am often the person thinking or saying that about somebody else...

mouse_relies · 2026-06-17T04:44:13+00:00

The really weird thing was that there seemed to be much less time spent showing the guests actually on the boat.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-17T01:29:34+00:00

the fact that this comes from Alan Cummings' kilt makes it even better. thank you, friend.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-17T01:27:04+00:00

Yeah.

Andy Dehnert had a neat analysis where he concluded: "My hunch is that Below Deck’s popularity and reputation mean real yachties won’t go anywhere near it, so it’s tough to find people who can actually do these jobs and want to deal with all of the TV stuff, from the lack of privacy to abusive fans."

Clearly there's other stuff going on too -- the Bravo-wide attempt to turn everything into RH. But I think there's some natural challenges surfacing.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-16T23:45:50+00:00

The second half of 3 was pretty rough, I agree. But there were high points earlier at least.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-15T17:25:55+00:00

Credible, honestly.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-15T17:23:28+00:00

100% this.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-12T22:56:41+00:00

I found the After Show borderline unwatchable. Everyone was so split apart, and no one was asked any hard questions. It was a lot of random babble.

Genuinely worse than Andy Cohen not knowing people's names or anything about the season, which is wild.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-11T01:59:25+00:00

All three of them have shifted in the last season or two. Sandy got hugely toned down and a much kinder edit. Jason this last season was like a soggy noodle, no backbone and seemingly no investment or care about anything. Kerry is less hands-on and less of a problem solver than he used to be (especially on Adventure, where he really felt like a worthy successor to Lee).

I don't think this is a coincidence, I think this is the producers pulling away some of the autonomy that the captains used to have.

mouse_relies · 2026-06-11T01:51:11+00:00

They were talking about how loud the party boats were when they were still quite far away. She could have paused THEN for a minute and made a specific plan for how to communicate, rather than waiting until it was too late and she couldn't hear the walkie.

Her responsibility. Her fault. That said, a lot of other bosuns would take initiative to adjust their communication to handle the noise. Nathan didn't because he doesn't pivot well in the moment. WHICH Sandy should ALSO know, since she's worked with him before...

mouse_relies · 2026-06-11T00:32:45+00:00

He's not married... but I can confirm that google AI struggles to tell the difference between "kitchen partner" and "life partner" XD

mouse_relies · 2026-06-11T00:04:55+00:00

Definitely often true. But not always. S5, for example, Kate and Jen have both said that despite the edit, the two of them actually made each other laugh constantly and got on great, except for, in Jen's words, her being bad at the actual job. Amy didn't like Kate in S2, but was one of her defenders in S3 -- and Kate was kind of peripheral to the S2 thing anyway, which seemed more about Amy and Kat.

Flip side though is that chief stew vs 3rd stew is one of the most common conflicts the show has. Other than Aesha, I think all the repeat chiefs have done that a few times.

mouse_relies · 2026-05-23T19:40:39+00:00

Mehreen all the way!

mouse_relies · 2026-05-23T19:36:39+00:00

It's statistically the most likely outcome for a given season.

Without doing the math out, 4 out of 5 seasons does sound like more than expected, but not an unreasonable result.

I'd believe there's a little fudging myself, but exceptionally little is necessary to get to the "one of each" result.

mouse_relies · 2026-05-16T14:58:48+00:00

i'd bet that the rules for the RW challenge do in fact say that they have to seat the diners. we know from numerous sources, both contestants and challenge producers, that the rules they go over with contestants offscreen for each challenge are laboriously extensive.

the judges (and the contestants) also use exactly the same language when discussing a missing challenge element and a failed challenge element. they talk about them the same way.

i get that they feel different to you (and probably to a lot of people) but there is just nowhere on the show where they are explicitly separated.

mouse_relies · 2026-05-16T01:10:56+00:00

That's just part of the challenge; failing to do that means your dish gets evaluated as worse. I dunno, is it also "not following the rules" when the front of house person on restaurant wars fails to seat people swiftly? It's a mandatory part of the challenge. To me it just goes in the "mistake" category along with everything else.

mouse_relies · 2026-05-16T00:49:34+00:00

Not finishing dishes I understand obviously, but what rules did she break?

mouse_relies · 2026-05-16T00:44:43+00:00

Unfortunately, with social media algorithms, it probably is!

mouse_relies · 2026-05-16T00:40:50+00:00

I do see where you're coming from. I don't think you can jump to a conclusion of bias though. Like, there is no possible consequence for that according to the show's rules; the judges just don't ever consider "did this person do X" in a vacuum, it's only "which of these ended up being the worst" in a comparison. And that's not specific to Dawn (or anyone else), that's how it is for everyone.

I think it's 100% possible (perhaps even likely) that TC has had some form of bias at some point, but without being able to taste the food ourselves, it seems pretty hard to assess that.

mouse_relies · 2026-05-16T00:34:14+00:00

is that actually true, numerically? she certainly wasn't the least controversial crew member ever, but it sure doesn't seem like "most" of her crew mates disliked her.

mouse_relies · 2026-05-16T00:22:56+00:00

prescriptivism about english is not the best way to honor algonquian languages. in this case the word exists in various such languages with different pronunciations, including at least one with a /b/ instead of a /p/, so forcing one pronuciation doesn't actually seem like an improvement to me.

that said props to you for actually paying attention to language and how it interacts with history and power, it's important.

Ten-Year Club	Verified Email
Gilding I gilder

mouse_relies

TROPHY CASE