The Below Deck Season 8 Crew Has a New Deckhand AND a New Stew

After Izzy Wouters told Captain Lee Rosbach she'd like to move over to the deck crew following the departure of one of the deckhands in the Below Deck Season 8 premiere, the captain decided the fate of the stew in the November 16 episode.

Captain Lee told chief stew Francesca Rubi that he had, indeed, decided to make Izzy a deckhand. "Izzy expressed an interest in moving to exterior, so we'll move her outside," he told Francesca while meeting with her in the bridge. "And then I will get her a replacement stew."

Captain Lee broke the news to the entire My Seanna crew during their first tip meeting of the season. "I'm devastated that you're leaving the team, but I'm super happy that you're going to be thriving in the area that you need to be in," Francesca told Izzy during the meeting.

However, it wasn't all smooth sailing during Izzy's transition to the deck team. While the interior awaited their new stew, Francesca still needed Izzy's help in finishing up some tasks. When bosun Eddie Lucas asked Francesca if Izzy could take part in his talk about line handling with the exterior crew, the chief stew said Izzy could participate only if she finished reorganizing the pantries first. Izzy wasn't finished with her stew duties by the time she went out on deck, but she promised to finish them up later (clip above). Francesca allowed this, but she didn't seem too thrilled that Izzy hadn't completed her assignment yet.

Luckily, new stew Ashling Lorger arrived just in time. Unfortunately, her journey to My Seanna didn't start off on the best foot with her luggage getting lost during her flight to Antigua.

But Ashling received a warm welcome from everyone in the crew, especially Francesca, who was delighted to hear she has experience working on yachts. "The reason I got into yachting, I had to get the hell out of Australia and just experience more life," Ashling shared in an interview during the episode. "I have 12 months of experience on a charter yacht that was 48 meters, and I killed it."

Ashling also noted that she's feeling much more optimistic about this charter season than her last gig. "The chief stew on my last job was just an a--hole. We didn't work very well together," she said in an interview. "But Francesca seems awesome, so hopefully we're going to get on like a house on fire."

Ashling was to room with deckhand James Hough, whose cabin had the only available bunk. However, Ashling said she preferred to share a cabin with a woman, so Izzy offered to room with James in her place. "I offered to move into James' room because I know not everyone is comfortable sharing with a guy," Izzy said in an interview during the episode. "On my last boat, I had to room with the chief engineer, who was a 60-year-old German dude. I think it's gonna be fine."

Even though she probably wished she could climb into her bunk in her new cabin after such a long journey to My Seanna, Ashling had no time to do so with the next group of charter guests arriving that day. "I had just flown 30-something hours, and I'm thrown into a charter, which I really didn't expect," Ashling said in an interview during the episode.

With the second charter underway, Francesca got Ashling busy with laundry and dinner service. Unfortunately, having so much to do right out of the gate seemed to be a little overwhelming for Ashling, who was in tears out of sheer exhaustion by the end of the episode.

We'll have to wait and see how Ashling and the rest of the My Seanna crew fare in the next episode of Below Deck on Monday, November 23 at 9/8c. Until then, catch up on this season through the Bravo app.

See more from the episode, below.

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