The yacht engineer CV: AEC, MEOL, Y4 and what captains check

Engineering is the one department on a yacht where a certificate decides whether you are eligible before anyone looks at you. A recruiter filtering a database is filtering on the ticket line. A chief engineer reading the CV wants to know what you can be handed and left to do. A captain wants to know you will not put the boat in a yard for a month. The CV has to answer all three in the first third of page one.

This guide covers the junior and mid-level engineer: AEC holders, MEOL holders, and second engineers working towards a Y-ticket. It also covers the diesel fitter, refrigeration engineer or auto-electrician who has more transferable skill than most sea time confers and does not know how to show it.

The tickets, and how to list them

State the ticket you hold, with its official name, issuer and dates. Put maritime tickets above everything else, highest first.

• AEC 1 and 2 (MCA Approved Engine Course). Entry level. It qualifies for engineering roles on small yachts and support roles on larger ones. It feeds MEOL, but list it alongside MEOL rather than dropping it: recruiters search on both, and AEC is named in job adverts in its own right.
• MEOL(Y) (Marine Engine Operator Licence). The standard junior engineer ticket. Broadly, chief on smaller yachts and second on larger ones.
• Y4, Y3, Y2, Y1. The yacht chief engineer ladder, each with a higher tonnage and power ceiling.
• EOOW for the commercially endorsed watchkeeping route.
• STCW Basic Safety Training and ENG1, always, with expiry dates.
• PDSD, and HELM at senior level.
• Trade tickets: F-Gas and refrigeration, high voltage, welding, AV and IT. These go under certifications, not education, because they are skill credentials and they widen the roles you fit.

Two rules. First, remove anything expired; a certificate that turns out to be out of date can disqualify outright. Second, present the ticket, not the entitlement. Tonnage and power limits are revised periodically, and a chief engineer will know the current figures better than your CV does. "MEOL(Y), MCA, issued June 2024" is safe. "Qualified to be chief on anything under 500 GT" is a claim someone will check.

A ticket in progress is listed as in progress, with the expected date. Never let the CV imply a ticket you do not hold. Chiefs and agencies talk to each other across the whole industry, and this is the one that ends a career rather than an interview.

What a chief engineer reads first

After the tickets, in roughly this order:

1. Engine makes and power. "Twin MTU 16V 4000 mains, 2 x 2,720 kW" tells a chief more about your last boat than a paragraph.
2. Gross tonnage. Tickets are measured against it, so put the GT on every vessel line.
3. Breadth of hands-on systems. At second-engineer level, breadth sells better than management claims. Gensets, HVAC, watermakers, hydraulics, black and grey water, refrigeration, stabilisers, tenders and outboards.
4. Yard periods. A refit inside a role is often the strongest single item on a mid-career engineering CV, because it is project work rather than routine watchkeeping.
5. How long you stayed. Month and year dates, reason for leaving in one clause.

The vessel line

One line per boat: role, M/Y or S/Y, vessel name in bold, length in metres and gross tonnage, private or charter, Month Year dates. Then two or three fragments. Engine make and kW, generator count, systems, yard periods, watch rotation.

Before: Responsible for the maintenance and repair of all engineering systems on board, ensuring the vessel operated safely and efficiently at all times.

After: Twin MTU 16V 4000 mains (2 x 2,720 kW), three Kohler gensets, two watermakers, PMS on IDEA. Duty engineer rotation on charter, bunkering, black and grey water, HVAC and galley refrigeration call-outs.

The first version could be any engineer on any boat. The second could only be you, and a chief can picture the engine room.

Writing the yard period

Keep it inside the vessel entry it belongs to, as its own bullet. A separate dated block implies you left the boat. Give the yard, the duration and what you actually did.

Generator top-end overhaul and stabiliser seal replacement during a 6-week yard period at Compositeworks, La Ciotat. Contractor coordination for the HVAC chiller replacement.

That bullet does more for a second engineer than any profile paragraph.

The land trade is not "previous employment"

A diesel fitter, plant mechanic, refrigeration engineer, auto-electrician, HVAC technician or industrial maintenance fitter arrives with more directly transferable skill than most yacht time confers. The mistake is filing that history under "other employment" as a title and a date.

Give it room, and write it in marine language: systems, fault-finding, overhauls, planned maintenance, compliance.

Before: Worked as a diesel mechanic servicing engines and generators for a range of clients.

After: Field service on Cummins QSK and KTA engines in mining and marine: overhauls, fault-finding, commissioning. Planned maintenance on a fleet of 30 generators to 1,500 kW, fuel and cooling system repairs.

Before: Refrigeration technician.

After: Serviced and repaired commercial refrigeration and air-conditioning plant: gas handling, compressor changes, controls. F-Gas Category 1.

The trade qualification itself goes under certifications, not education. A Certificate III in Heavy Diesel Fitting is a skill credential, not schooling.

What sells at junior level

Chief engineers want to know you can be handed a task and left to it. Listing peripheral competence widens the roles you fit: air-conditioning, refrigeration, small craft and outboards, crane operations, AV, security systems, helicopter deck systems on larger boats. If you have it, it goes on the page.

Engineers are not exempt from the crew-fit test either. Keep the interests line, and make it specific. Rebuilding a Land Cruiser between seasons says more to a chief than "mechanically minded".

The rest of the CV

The personal block matters as much for an engineer as for anyone: date of birth, nationality and passports, visas with expiry (B1/B2 for the US circuit, Schengen for the Med), current location, availability, smoker, visible tattoos, ENG1 status. Captains fly engineers in at short notice; "Fort Lauderdale, available immediately" is a different candidate from "Sydney, available in six weeks".

Profile: five or six sentences, one voice, no adjectives.

Second Engineer with four years on motor yachts to 65m, holding MEOL(Y) and AEC 1 and 2, with a heavy diesel fitting trade behind it. Hands-on across MTU and Caterpillar mains, gensets, HVAC, watermakers and hydraulics, and two yard periods including a generator overhaul at Compositeworks. Seeking a 2nd Engineer position on a 60m+ programme, Y4 in progress.

Three named references: your chief engineer, your captain, and the service manager from the trade if you are newer. Phone and email for each. Not "available on request".

The rules for every section are in what to include in a yacht CV. If you are working from a land CV, upload the CV you have and it is rebuilt in this format: tickets first with dates, vessel lines with GT and kW, the trade written as engineering, two pages.

Three mistakes that bin an engineer CV

1. A ticket implied that is not held. "Chief Engineer" on a 500 GT boat with an AEC. A Y4 listed without "in progress". Reference calls expose it, and the industry is small.
2. Systems claimed, none named. "Experienced across all engineering systems" is a sentence a chief skips. Name the engines, the gensets, the watermakers, the PMS.
3. The trade buried. Four years on 1,500 kW generators is the reason a chief will trust you with a top-end overhaul. It belongs on page one, in engineering language.

Then the universal ones, which apply to engineers as much as anyone: typos, years-only dates, unexplained gaps, more than two pages, a photo that is a selfie. If you have sent a CV and heard nothing, why yacht CVs get no replies covers the usual reasons.

When the target is a stretch

Engineering has a harder ceiling than other departments because tickets gate eligibility. If you are aiming above your ticket or at a vessel size your experience does not reach, the honest CV still works: applying slightly above your level is normal and a well-presented near-miss gets remembered. What does not work is a CV that implies a ticket or a tonnage that is not there. Say what you hold, show the systems and the yard time, and state the ticket you are working towards.

Next step

Upload the CV you have and it comes back as a yacht engineer CV: tickets at the top with dates, every boat as a vessel line with GT, the trade rewritten as engineering, two pages, clean A4 PDF. Free, no account needed to start.