Meet Ty Falkenstein, Captain of a 65m charter yacht Callisto. Born in Australia into a commercial fishing family, Ty spent his life on the water and has worked on prawn trawlers in the Gulf of Carpentaria, small cruise ships on the Kimberly Coast and dive boats on the Great Barrier Reef. All of this created a perfect foundation to build a successful yachting career and allowed Ty to pursue his passion for delivering a consistent five-star guest experience.

Ty shared with us what he looks for when interviewing crew, what his favourite cruising ground is and how he prepares for charters.

What do you look for when interviewing yacht crew for a job?

Something that I look for when I'm interviewing crew is definitely attitude and presentation.

The rest you can deal with afterwards. But if someone doesn't have the right attitude when they rock up for an interview and if they're not presented well, for me, they're two pretty much massive red flags.

I'm really impressed when people can converse properly in an interview and not be shut down by the nerves or being intimidated by being on a massive yacht for the first time. If they can just run a conversation and talk to me properly, that's one of the things that gets me through an interview, because interviews aren't easy for the interviewer or the interviewee.

So that's what helps the interview go more like a conversation as opposed to sitting there and asking someone lots of questions.

Some red flags for me, when interviewing or looking at someone's CV, is a poorly written CV sticks out to me straight away. Grammar, spelling mistakes, bad photos. I just can't believe when someone puts a horrible photo on their CV and of course bad presentation, someone needs to come looking the part.

What are your favourite cruising grounds?

I'd have to say my cruising around Australia has been fantastic. It is my home cruising ground, so to speak. I've cruised up in the Kimberley coast in Australia, which is some of the most beautiful cruising I've done.

French Polynesia. The contrast between mountainous, dense islands and then, you know, our coral atolls all in one, all in one area. Some of the most beautiful cruising I've done.

Croatia, some of the easiest, which is crazy to think, but some of the easiest cruising I've done.

There are so many islands to hide away. Every island you go to, there's so much protection, so much natural beauty. The weather stays pretty good. All, all, all the time you're there and just how old and beautiful it is. Yeah, Croatia definitely sticks out in my mind.

How do you prepare for charters?

The biggest things you've got to make sure was for charters is provisioning preferences, so knowing what each charter guest wants.

That's a big one, takes a long time before each charter. A big one is also the engine room, making sure that the boat's going to work for the duration of the charter. That's huge.

Any sort of discrepancies or non-conformities that we need to sort out before the charter guests come on board. The itinerary needs to be perfectly planned and thought out according to the guest's wishes and demands.

You know, whether it's their first or 5th time they've chartered a yacht.

Essentially they're paying for the holiday of a lifetime. You know, every single time we go into an anchorage, port or other destination, we really need it to be a wow factor. And that's absolutely what we strive for in any way.

AV/IT is massive. It's amazing when people come on board, they want to make sure that even though they're out in the middle of the Pacific, they want to make sure they can still watch TV and watch a movie when they want to. If the weather goes bad, that kind of stuff.

Music, making sure that that all works, and making sure that the engines are going to turn on when they want to go from one anchorage to another is really important.

And obviously talking to the chefs, making sure they're all onto the food, make sure the food is excellent.

So, there's quite a lot to sort out before a charter. I'd say the most important thing in my eyes is making sure that when they want to move, I can turn the boat on and we can take the boat to sea.