Obtaining and maintaining a license is just part of life as a yacht captain, agreed the captains gathered on both sides of the Atlantic for our monthly From the Bridge luncheon.As in our survey this month [see story and stats beginning on page C1], these captains acknowledged that, sure, no law requires the skipper to have a license to drive a private recreational vessel. But they also said any captain would find it much harder to land a job without one.

A few short years ago, crew enjoyed a crest in the yachting industry driven by a strong economy and bustling growth.Now, not so much. But if the current state of the industry can be seen as a trough, then higher times are ahead.With that in mind, we gathered seven captains to talk about how best to steer the industry out of this low point. What weak spots need to be fixed? What good parts need to be protected? And how do we have a little control over the state of the industry in the months and years ahead?

It happens. Crew get in trouble ashore. Sometimes it’s physical, like a bar fight; sometimes it’s legal, like possession of drugs. Usually, though, it causes delays or worse for the yacht, her captain and the rest of the crew.

As crew meet with placement agents, pore over online job postings and walk the docks, who better to offer them some tips for landing a job than the ones who actually do the hiring?

So we asked nine megayacht captains gathered for this month’s captains’ luncheon to offer job-searching crew their best advice on what to do and what not to do to get that next job.

The topic of getting in debt with the boss has come up quite a bit lately. Lawyers talked about it at our monthly networking event, friends talked about it over my dinner table.

So we decided to ask captains how often it happens.

To be clear, we’re not talking about being owed salary. Yacht crew, like most employees, work first, get paid afterward.

This month’s discussion topic comes courtesy of a captain who is worried.

I bumped into him at the Ft. Lauderdale boat show and he wanted to know why we don’t write more about safety, a topic he considered the most important in the industry. And he spent the next 15 minutes telling me why.

It’s a common to hear captains say that managing crew is a lot like parenting. The lament usually gets a chuckle and conjures up images of unruly children.

But as any parent knows, the responsibility isn’t quite so funny, nor childish. The hard part of guiding people – whether they be children or employees – is figuring out how much not to do so those under your charge can take flight on their own.

One of the ways to mitigate crew turnover is to offer sufficient time off. Too often, though, that’s easier said ??" or even promised ??" than done.

Job rotations and relief work have been suggested as a way to offer time off to full-time crew, but few boats actually do it. We wondered why, so we asked the captains at this month’s roundtable discussion if they thought job rotations were a good idea.

Yachts and captains have been around for generations, but this contemporary business of running yachts has really only developed in the last 40 years. The time is coming when pioneers in yachting -- not just captains -- have hit retirement age.

Anecdotes abound of captains who hit certain points in their lives -- most often, young children -- and seek to come ashore. And there are others who use the occasion of children leaving the nest to get (back) into the industry.