Eddie Lucas Reveals More About His New Captain Job, Shares Why It Was “Terrifying” to Settle Down
After moving up to the first officer rank on Below Deck, Eddie has officially earned his captain’s stripes.
During his tenure on Below Deck, Eddie Lucas truly rose through the ranks. After starting out as a deckhand on the show, Eddie was promoted to a bosun position on the sophomore season, and he ultimately earned the title of first officer at the end of Season 8.
Now, Eddie has landed his latest job promotion off-camera: He is the captain of a tugboat named Lynne Moran.
In an interview with The Baltimore Banner, the Below Deck alum opened up about his life and career now, including how he worked his way up to the captain position, what it’s like on his current vessel, and how he really felt about laying down roots in Baltimore.
Eddie Lucas revealed what it really took to become a captain.
According to Eddie, the vessel he’s now in charge of is just one of three tugs doing “ship-assist work” in Baltimore. His schedule now is a bit different from the one he had when he was a cast member on Below Deck.
“The tugs are manned 24 hours per day, seven days per week. You’re scheduled to run a two-week-on, two-week-off schedule. So when I do my two weeks, I then get off and there’s another crew that comes in and relieves me,” Eddie said. “They take over the vessel at that point.”
Unsurprisingly, it took a lot of hard work and dedication for Eddie to become the captain of the boat — especially since he didn’t go to a maritime academy. He shared that he started out as a “hawsepiper” and “work[ed his] way up.”
“Since there’s so few tractor tugs or ship-assist tugs, it is pretty rare to be able to get it, and you can’t just walk in off the street and get a captain’s job,” he explained. “You’ve got to start at least on deck and then understanding the deck and work your way up.”
In addition to knowing the deck well, Eddie said that sailors have “got to be tough” in order to have a shot at rising through the ranks.
“A lot of it was just hard work, keeping your mouth shut, being quiet. You know that whole ‘squeaky wheel gets the grease’? Well, the squeaky wheel also gets replaced. So just keep your head down and your nose to the grindstone and work hard. And do the right thing. That’s treating people with respect. I think that’s huge, and in my industry, the hierarchy is important. You’ve got to respect it,” he continued. “You don’t want to start arguments until you get to be a captain. Now, I can be a pain in the ass.”
The Below Deck alum said it was “slightly terrifying” but also “liberating” to settle down.
Before Eddie took a spot on Lynne Moran, he spent much of his adult life moving around from place to place. He gravitated toward Baltimore because it has “so much character” and it’s not too big, so “everybody knows everybody in some way.” He bought a house in the Hampden neighborhood.
While Eddie is happy that he picked the Maryland city as his home base, it was the prospect of staying in one place that made him feel a bit scared.
“It’s terrifying,” he told The Baltimore Banner about settling down. “I think one of the parts about being a sailor is, like, you’re always going to jump on a boat and go. You can always be gone. And I like that sense of adventure and not being tied down. And so now that I’ve got a captain’s job and I’m here, I bought a house, and I’m really settling down, it's slightly terrifying, but it’s also liberating. You’re just like, all right, I can just kind of relax now and just get on with it.”
Now that Eddie has all of his stripes, take a look back at the throwback moment when Captain Lee Rosbach gave the now-captain his third stripe in the video above.
Watch Below Deck on Bravo Mondays at 8/7c and the next day on Peacock. Catch up on the Bravo app.
