Below Deck Sailing Yacht's Captain Glenn Shephard on How He's Different from Captain Lee and Captain Sandy
The Below Deck Sailing Yacht boss describes the unique way he leads his crew.
There are so many reasons why we can't wait for Below Deck Sailing Yacht to premiere on Monday, February 3 at 9/8c. But if we had to name just one, we can't meet to meet a whole new batch of dynamic yachties, especially the new sheriff in town, Captain Glenn Shephard.
Originally from Montreal, Canada, Captain Glenn first got into yachting while he was traveling in Rome and saw an advertisement in the hostel he was staying at looking for someone to help prepare a boat for the summer and serve as a deckhand on the vessel as it sailed the islands around Sicily, he told BravoTV.com in the above clip.
"I thought when I saw it, 'This sounds too good to be true.' I thought somebody was playing a prank on someone to get their phone to ring off the hook all weekend. But I took the number and called the guy and met him," Captain Glenn recalled. "And a couple days later, I was living on this boat near Fiumicino, near Rome Airport. I ended up staying on that boat until Christmastime."
Captain Glenn realized he had found his calling. "I think the rest of my life I've kind of been trying to recreate that summer because it was magical," he said. "I just fell in love with the idea of cruising on a little boat in the Mediterranean."
It was "the travel, the money, and the freedom that you can take time off regularly" that made yachting really appealing for Captain Glenn. "That's what hooked me," he said.
Captain Glenn has now been in the yachting industry for almost 20 years with 10 of those spent as the captain of the Parsifal III, the vessel featured on Below Deck Sailing Yacht.
The captains of the crews always have a special place in fans' hearts with Captain Lee Rosbach and Captain Sandy Yawn quickly becoming beloved on Below Deck and Below Deck Mediterranean, respectively. And it's Captain Lee and Captain Sandy's different yet equally successful leadership styles that make them both so thrilling to watch.
So, does Captain Glenn see himself more in line with Captain Lee's mode of management or how Captain Sandy runs her ship? "I may have a little bit of both of them, but I'm probably a little bit more laid back than they are, I think," Captain Glenn recently told E! News. "I have a very laid back [style], not completely hands off but I like to give ownership of the departments to my department heads. I don't want to stifle their initiative. I keep an eye on everything but I consider myself a macromanager rather than a micromanager. In a way I pride myself on that…but I think I get the best out of my people by doing it that way."
Of course, what really sets Below Deck Sailing Yacht apart from the rest is the fact that the boat uses the wind, rather than just a motor, to get to point A to point B. Captain Glenn told E! News that his crew is really made up of "sailors" in that regard, and they have "a little more active mentality, a little bit more up for a challenge and up for a little bit more excitement."
"It definitely adds an element of unpredictability," Captain Glenn said of sailing. "There's always danger in everything—if people are careful, we advise them how to move around the boat when we're sailing and stuff like that so our guests are safe but it's still exciting for them."
We're getting chills just thinking about how epic this season of Below Deck Sailing Yacht is going to be.
Check out the Parsifal III's sailing in action, below.
