Lauren Beck is the former editor of Dockwalk and was with the publication from 2006 to 2023. At 13, she left South Africa aboard a 34-foot sailing boat with her family and ended up in St. Maarten for six years. Before college, she worked as crew for a year, and then cut her journalistic teeth at Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal online. She loves traveling, reading, tennis, and rooting for the Boston Red Sox.
Capt. Lord Luke Hammond has been in the industry for almost 20 years, working for the last 3.5 years as captain on board the 45-meter Feadship M/Y Bella. You might also recognize him from his Instagram videos where he shares his perspectives on the industry. But his new endeavor may be even more interesting — he’s launching a new recruitment platform, Refrr.io, a “referral by recruitment platform.”
As Hammond explains, a referral in yachting carries a lot of weight, sometimes enough to skip the usual hiring steps. On Refrr.io, you can see jobs from your personal network and have people vouch for you.
“The people we all want [come] via word of mouth or via a referral because it carries more weight. In yachting, having a fun, good crew is paramount.”
Hammond came up with the idea in 2013 and has been “workshopping” it until now. Being a rotational captain has given him the opportunity to work on his new business in his off time. He also puts in time every morning, evening, and weekend on getting Reffr.io off the ground. “What set the idea off was always being asked about jobs and how to get into yachting,” he says. “So from a purely B2C standpoint, I wanted to just open my phone, look at an app, and see who was looking for work, so I could just connect them to the job. I also selfishly wanted to know who in my network was looking for work so I could reach out and hire them if needed. The hardest part has always just been knowing who was looking when I was.”
His platform will aim to solve a few of the recruitment issues he’s noticed in his years in yachting. If you’re unfamiliar with using recruiters, his system offers a suite of tools to help you. “More importantly, it lets you find the types of people that you want,” he says. “The people we all want [come] via word of mouth or via a referral because it carries more weight. In yachting, having a fun, good crew is paramount.”
His platform, he believes, will eliminate the time crew usually spend scouring the web for job leads, emailing about jobs, and calling to follow up. “All we all want is transparency in the process, and a simple ‘sorry, you didn’t make it’ would suffice. We have solved this problem,” Hammond says. His platform will also help on the recruiter and human resource side, he says — “we have made it easier to connect people in your network with jobs as they come available (and we make it worth your while).”
The platform is aimed at a mixed demographic but is mostly targeted at men and women from age 18 to 40, plus captains, management companies, and recruiters. Hammond is aiming for a soft launch in early November after the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show and is still working on pricing — there will be both free and paid options, but jobseekers will not be charged. Hammond is also offering a free copy of his ebook Super Yacht Secrets: How to get into Yachting as a bonus for signing up pre-launch.