The two-page rule for yacht CVs: why it exists and how to hit it

Every guide tells you two pages. Almost none of them tell you why, so crew treat it as an arbitrary style rule and quietly break it. Here is the real reason, from the person the rule exists to serve. I built SeaPapers, so read this knowing that, but the rule predates me by decades and every serious source in the industry says the same thing.

Why the rule exists

Thirty seconds. That is roughly how long your CV gets on the first pass, and it happens standing up, at the top of a passerelle, often while somebody waits for me to hand it back or take it. It is not a decision. It is a filter. All I am doing is sorting into two piles.

By the end of a good dockwalking morning in April there might be forty of them. Some go straight in a folder for the chief officer, some go in a drawer, most go in the recycling before lunch. The ones in the folder had the same quality: I could answer four questions from page one without hunting. Who are you. What position do you want. Are you legal to work. What do you hold.

A third page does not add information in that scenario. It removes it, because everything on it is unread, and because it tells me something I do not want to know about you. Judging what matters and cutting the rest is most of the job on a yacht. Your CV is the first evidence of whether you can do it.

This is not just my preference. YPI Crew, a crew placement agency, puts two pages as the target in their own 2026 CV guide, on the grounds that it is enough space to show experience and short enough for a captain to scan quickly (seen 2026-08-18). Everyone who reads these for a living lands in the same place.

What goes on page one

Page one is the filter. Nothing on it is optional.

The photograph does more work than anything else on the page. Head and shoulders, plain background or the sea behind you, a plain polo or crew shirt, hair tidy, looking at the camera, smiling like a person and not like a passport. I am deciding whether you fit inside a small steel box with nine other people for six months.

Position sought sits under your name and says a job title. "Deckhand". "Junior Stewardess". Not "seeking opportunities within the yachting industry". I have a vacancy or I do not, and I need to know in one glance which pile you belong in.

Visas with expiry dates earn their space every time. A B1/B2 already in your passport can be the entire reason I call you in October when the boat is crossing. Nationality matters for the flag state paperwork and for the crew mix, so it is a fact, not a formality.

Certificates with dates close out page one. That block is covered properly in what certificates go on a yacht CV, including which ones need expiry dates and which do not.

What goes on page two

Vessels first, and write them so I can picture the boat. Length, type, your role, and the dates. "52m motor yacht, private, deckhand, May to October 2025" tells me the programme, the workload and the crew size in nine words. A yacht name on its own tells me nothing unless I happen to know her.

Put daywork on there. Green crew leave it off because they think it does not count, and they are wrong. "42m motor yacht, daywork, six days, exterior detailing and tender support, reference available" is real evidence that you turned up, worked and were asked back. I would rather see three honest daywork entries than a blank page two.

Land experience goes on as habits, not duties. Nobody needs the responsibilities list from your hospitality job. They need the transferable proof: early starts, service under pressure, working to a standard someone else set, being trusted with expensive things. Two lines each, past tense, concrete. A plumber, a hotel receptionist and a rugby player have all worked out well for me, and in each case it was the habit visible on page two that made me pick up the phone.

References last. Names, roles, and a contactable email or number, with permission asked first. If you would rather hold them back, "references available on request" is fine and costs you nothing.

From the bridge: I have never turned a CV over hoping for more. I have often turned it over hoping the vessels were on the back, and put it down when they were not.

What to cut, in the order to cut it

When you are over two pages, cut in this order and you will almost never lose anything a captain wanted.

1. The profile paragraph that opens with a motivated and passionate individual. Replace it with two lines of fact, or delete it entirely.
2. Skill bars, rating wheels, icons and any graphic rating you at 80% for teamwork. They eat the space where your certificates should be.
3. Hobbies, unless they are directly useful. Diving, sailing, freediving and competitive swimming stay. Reading and travelling go.
4. Your full home address. City and country is enough. Nobody is posting you anything.
5. Land jobs described in duties. Compress each to two lines of habits.
6. Duplicate certificate entries, and the land first aid certificate you already hold inside STCW.

Do not cut the font size below 10 point to force a fit. Shrinking type to squeeze in more is the same mistake as running to three pages, only now it is harder to read at arm's length in daylight.

How the editor holds you to it

This is the part I built, so weigh it accordingly.

The SeaPapers editor shows a live preview of the actual page while you type, with the page break visible. When your content approaches the end of page two, you see it happening as you write rather than discovering it at export. The templates are laid out so that page one carries the filter set above by default, in the order a captain reads, and you have to work to break that.

Six department templates cover deck, engineering, interior, galley, officers, and a junior template for people with no sea time yet, in 23 colours chosen to print cleanly on a marina printer. The editor is free to use, with a Pro tier for clean PDF export.

If you would rather pay for a designed template file, that is a fair choice, and I graded the biggest catalogue on the market so you can pick well: is SuperYachtResume worth $47 a template.

Do this now

• Print your CV, or open it at full page size, and count the pages honestly.
• Check page one answers all four questions: who, what position, legal to work, what you hold.
• Add every daywork day you have done to page two, with lengths and dates.
• Cut in the order above until you are at two pages, then stop.

Start on the SeaPapers editor and watch the page break as you type.