SeaPapers vs SuperYachtResume: templates, price, and what you see before you pay

Two products, one job: put a CV in a captain's hand that survives thirty seconds of scanning at the top of a passerelle. I built SeaPapers, so read this knowing that. Every fact below about SuperYachtResume comes from their own public pages, crawled on 2026-08-18, with the URL beside it. Where I could not confirm a number, I say so instead of filling the gap with an adjective.

What each one actually is

SuperYachtResume sells CV template files. You browse a gallery organised by department, pay, and download a Microsoft Word version and an Apple Pages version to edit on your own machine. Their help page is direct about the requirement: you need a licensed desktop copy of Word, or Pages, and the browser based versions of Word will not work with the file (superyachtresume.com/cv-template-help, seen 2026-08-18). Individual template pages carry a price of $47.00 USD, confirmed in the product data embedded in the page itself (superyachtresume.com/officer-mate-templates/tableau-officer-3, seen 2026-08-18). Their sitemap listed 540 URLs on the same date, most of them one template each.

SeaPapers is an editor that runs in a browser tab. You type into fields shaped for yachting, and the page rebuilds beside you as you go. Nothing to download before you start, nothing to install, no licence to own. The editor is free to use. A Pro tier covers clean PDF export and reads the document type and expiry date off a certificate you upload. Six department templates, including a Junior template for people with no sea time yet and a Galley template, in 23 colours chosen to survive a marina printer.

One sells you a file to fill in. The other fills in with you. Most of what follows comes off that single difference.

The comparison, line by line

Two lines in that table need their receipts. The refund line and the update pricing both come from SuperYachtResume's own pages, seen 2026-08-18 (cv-templates-and-tool-kit and crew-cv-service-packages). Their written CV service packages, CV Express and the two Pro tiers, showed no dollar figure in the page source I pulled, so I am not quoting one. If you want that service, ask them for the price directly.

What SuperYachtResume does well

I want to be fair here, because the easy version of this page would not be.

They have the largest yacht CV template catalogue I have found anywhere, and they organise it the way crew actually think, by department rather than by some abstract design name. They publish a refund guarantee in plain language on their own site, which most small products do not. They sell a human writing service for people who would rather have someone else find the words, and that is a real need. Their site is maintained, not abandoned.

And the templates themselves are not bad. Here is how I know, stated plainly so you can discount it as you see fit. On 2026-08-17 I captured every template SuperYachtResume had listed, 419 of them, and graded each one on the same ten point scale I apply reading a CV on the dock: does my eye land on photo, name and position first, do certificates and their dates get a real block, does it hold to two pages, does it print without drinking ink, does it read standing up. One serving captain, one scale, one sitting. The mean score was 7.0 out of 10. The best single template scored 9.0.

A 7.0 is a competent CV. Nobody bins a 7.0.

Where the difference bites

You cannot read the thing before you pay for it. Across those 419 template pages I found thumbnails of the layout and the layout's name, and no page showing readable, filled in CV content. So you are paying $47.00 for a design you have squinted at. That matters more than it sounds, because a CV layout only reveals itself once real content is in it. Nine bullet points under a vessel look fine in a thumbnail and fall off page two in life. Sorted by layout rather than by product name, those 419 templates resolved to 27 distinct designs, which means much of the catalogue is the same handful of layouts in different colours and department labels. Twenty seven good choices, presented as 419.

Dates are data, not decoration. A certificate without a date reads to me as a certificate you do not hold. In a Word file, expiry is a string you typed, which means it can be in three different formats on the same page, or missing on the one certificate that mattered. In SeaPapers the expiry lives in its own field, renders in one consistent place, and the folio can check it against today. That is not a design preference. That is the difference between me trusting your page and me squinting at it.

Your papers live somewhere. A CV gets you the conversation. Then the purser asks for STCW, ENG1, passport, visas and two references, usually while you are standing on a dock with a phone on 6% battery. SeaPapers keeps those in a private folio, dated and validity checked, with one link you can send and revoke afterwards. SuperYachtResume does not do this, and does not claim to. It is a template shop, and it is honest about being one.

From the bridge: I have never once thought "good layout" about a CV. I have thought "where is the ENG1 date" more times than I can count. Design gets you read. Fields get you called.

So which one

If you want a file you own outright, you have Word or Pages on your own laptop, you are confident about formatting, and you would rather pay once and be done, buy the template. It is a real product and a 7.0 average is a fair deal at the top end of the range.

If you are green, working off a borrowed laptop in a crew house, unsure what a yacht CV is meant to contain, and you would like to see the thing before you commit to it, use the editor. Type your name into it now and look at the preview. That is the whole argument: you can test mine before you spend anything, and you cannot test theirs.

If you want the wider field, including the free Word templates from a recruitment agency that shows its filled in examples, read SuperYachtResume alternatives that do not cost $47 a layout. If you want the full grading of all 419, that is here. And whichever tool you land on, get the two page rule right first, because no layout survives a third page.

Start on the SeaPapers editor when you are ready.