When you own a yacht, you don’t just buy the vessel, but the assumption that, if something goes wrong at sea, your crew will know exactly what to do.
Most of the paperwork around safety is designed to prove compliance: that the right manuals exist, that the drills have been logged, that the audits have been passed. But compliance and safety are not the same thing. You can pass Flag and Class with a perfect audit and still have crew who have never really absorbed what is in the safety manuals.
For an owner or family office, that gap can be hard to identify. The good news is, you don’t need to be a maritime expert to ask the right questions.
Below is a simple, 10-question checklist you can use with your management company and captain to understand whether your yacht is genuinely ready, not just compliant.
At the end, we’ll show how tools like FATHOM turn the answers into a transparent, data-driven readiness score you can understand at a glance.
10 questions every owner’s office can ask today
You can use these in a review meeting, send them ahead of an annual report, or build them into your standard oversight checklist. None of them require technical knowledge, but the way they’re answered will tell you a lot.
1. “How do you measure safety knowledge between audits and drills?”
You’re looking for something more than “we do the mandatory drills” or “the crew sign they’ve read the manual”.
Stronger answers will mention:
- Regular, trackable knowledge checks (not just once a year).
- Evidence that results are recorded and compared over time.
- Action taken when gaps are found (extra training, focused drills, follow-up checks).
If knowledge isn’t measured between audits, safety has become a snapshot, not a continuous process.
2. “Can 100% of the crew know where all the safety equipment is and how is that demonstrated?”
This isn’t a trick question. In an emergency, seconds matter and people may not be standing at the safety plan.
Good signs:
- The captain or management can describe a recent exercise that tested this in a realistic way (e.g. from normal work locations, not lined up in the crew mess first).
- They can tell you what percentage managed it, and what was done for the ones who didn’t.
If the answer is, “We assume they can,” that’s a gap.
3. “Which three emergency scenarios are you most worried about and how do you know the crew are ready for them?”
Every yacht has its own profile: heli operations, toys, guest parties, long passages, remote anchorages.
You’re listening for:
If they can’t name the top three risks, it’s harder to believe training is truly targeted.
- A thoughtful, yacht-specific answer (not just “fire and abandon ship”).
- A clear link between those top risks and recent training, drills and knowledge checks.
4. “When new crew join, how do you verify they’ve really understood the SMS, beyond signing that they’ve read it?”
Most systems rely on a signature to say “I have read and understood”.
Robust approaches include:
- Structured familiarisation that is specific to your yacht, not just generic STCW certificates.
- Short tests or practical walk-throughs to verify understanding.
- Re-checks after a few weeks on board, once the initial rush has passed.
You’re not checking whether people do familiarisation, you’re checking whether anyone can prove it worked.
5. “If I asked today, could you show me which parts of our safety manual the crew struggle with most?”
This question gets to the heart of whether safety documentation is a living tool or a shelf item.
A strong answer might include:
- A dashboard, report or summary showing which topics produce lower test scores or more questions.
- Plans to simplify or clarify those sections in the next manual revision.
If no-one can tell you where the weak spots are, that’s something to address.
6. “What percentage of crew passed their last internal safety knowledge check on the first attempt?”
You’re not looking for 100%. In fact, “everyone always scores perfectly” can be a warning sign that the questions are too easy, or the system is treated as a formality.
Healthy indicators:
- A realistic spread of scores on first attempt.
- Evidence that crew who scored lower were supported and re-tested.
- Improvement in scores over time, not just a one-off result.
This turns safety from a box-tick into measurable, continuous improvement, exactly what ISM 1.2.2.3 expects.
7. “How do you decide what to focus drills and training on each month?”
Many yachts rotate through a fixed drill schedule, that’s compliant, but not always the most effective.
Best-practice answers will mention:
- Using data from knowledge checks and previous drills to select topics.
- Focusing on areas where performance has dipped or systems have changed.
- Adapting to seasonal patterns (for example, man-overboard and tender operations before a busy guest season).
You’re checking that training time is targeted, not just traditional.
8. “If the alarm sounds at 03:00, how quickly can you confirm who is on board and present at the muster station?”
This is about real-world execution when everyone is tired and off-watch, not a daylight drill when everyone is in uniform.
Reassuring signs:
- A clear, practised process for mustering and headcount, out of hours.
- Crew who know their own primary and secondary duties without needing to check the manual.
- Evidence that this has been tested in realistic conditions, not just “on paper”.
9. “How are you demonstrating continuous improvement in safety knowledge to meet ISM 1.2.2.3?”
ISM 1.2.2.3 doesn’t just ask for procedures, it asks for continuous improvement in safety management skills and knowledge.
You’re looking for:
- A system that tracks individual and team knowledge over time.
- Records that can be shown to a surveyor and to you.
- Examples where those trends have driven a change in procedures, training or documentation.
If “continuous improvement” is only mentioned at audit time, you’re seeing compliance, not culture.
10. “If I asked for a one-page, non-technical safety report today, what would it show?”
This question shifts the focus from raw data to clarity.
You’re looking for evidence that the captain or management company can translate the detail into something you can use:
- A concise, visual summary of safety performance (not a 40-page PDF of drill logs).
- Trends over time, not just a one-off snapshot: are we getting better, staying flat, or slipping?
- Clear indicators of where the yacht is strong, and where attention is needed, by department or risk area.
If the only answer involves “digging something out” from various systems and spreadsheets, there’s probably no consistent way of giving you calm, objective reassurance, or of flagging problems early.
Turning answers into action: from questions to a readiness score
Asking these questions isn’t about catching anyone out. Most captains and management teams do care deeply about safety, they are simply under pressure for time and cost, and traditional tools don’t make it easy to prove what the crew really know.
This is exactly why FATHOM was created. It takes the ideas behind your checklist and turns them into a simple, transparent readiness score that you can understand in seconds:
- From manuals to meaningful checks
FATHOM breaks your vessel’s own safety documentation into short, targeted questions and micro-learning, accessible on crew smartphones and tablets. It doesn’t replace the safety manual; it unlocks them. - From assumptions to data
Every answer is recorded. You can see, by topic and by crew role, where knowledge is strong and where it’s fragile, whether that’s liferafts, fuel systems, watertight doors or guest evacuation routes. - From one-off drills to continuous improvement
Because FATHOM runs regularly, weekly, monthly or tailored to your operation, it builds a trend line, not a snapshot. That trend is powerful evidence for ISM 1.2.2.3 and for your own peace of mind. - From complexity to a single score
All of this rolls up into a clear, visual readiness score for your yacht, broken down by department or topic. Owners’ offices don’t need to interpret raw drill logs, they can see instantly whether the yacht is moving in the right direction, and where questions to management should be focused.
Where to start
You don’t need to overhaul your entire safety management system overnight.
A simple first step is to sit down with your captain or management company and work through these 10 questions together. Ask them to show you what evidence sits behind the answers, not to challenge their professionalism, but to align everyone around the same goal: a yacht that’s safe, not just compliant.
Using typical data from yachts of a similar profile, we can walk you through what a FATHOM readiness score might look like for your vessel and how turning assumptions into numbers gives you, and the owner, genuine peace of mind.
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