a yacht in kneed

A Yacht in Kneed

Captain Sandy returns to Croatia at the helm of the mega-yacht Lady Michelle in hopes of guiding a new team through calmer waters along the stunning Dalmatian Coast. Previously a Chef to celebrities and the uber-wealthy, Mathew takes over the galley, where his ambitions quickly conflict with his on-board reality. An exceedingly accomplished yachtie, Katie joins as Captain Sandy’s first new Chief Stew in years. Meanwhile, the deck team discovers one of their deckhands is greener than they could imagine. By the time the first charter guests arrive, the team is left in an impossible situation that threatens to derail the season before it can even begin.

Season 6 - Episodes

It's Not Easy Being Green

It’s Like Rain On Your Wedding Day

Love At First Night

Ship Happens

The Morning After

Can’t Fight This Feeling

At Your Lack of Service

Brews, Stews & Management Blues

Burning Down the House

Should I Stay or Should I Go

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

A Hard Day’s Night

All I Need is a Miracle

Three's a Crowd

Sleepless in Croatia

Nothing Comes Over Easy

Below Deck Mediterranean After Show

Katie Flood: "I've Never Worked with or Had Anyone That Horrible"

Was Lexi Wilson Pulling Her Weight During Charter? Lexi and the Crew Speak Out

Captain Sandy Yawn: "We're Smoke and Mirrors, We Don't Show Them We're Failing"

Does Lloyd Spencer Regret Being so Vulnerable with His Crewmates?

Katie Flood: "I Was Fuming Inside"

Katie Flood Reacts to the Interior Crew Being Called out for Their "Lack of Attention"

The Below Deck Med Crew on Bringing on Another Stew: "It Definitely Caused Some Anxiety and Worry"

Lexi Wilson Shares Why She Didn't Want to Join the Oktoberfest Party

Katie Flood: "Why the F--- Is This Girl Here!?"

Chief Stew Katie Flood Reacts to New Stew Delaney Evans' Lack of Experience

The Crew Weigh In on the Chaotic Cabin-Switch Situation

Captain Sandy and Chef Mathew React to the Galley Fire

Lloyd Spencer: "I Think Captain Sandy Can Smell When Something Is Going Wrong"

Captain Sandy: "People Make Mistakes...Just Be Honest"

Mzi "Zee" Dempers and David Pascoe Reflect Back on Their Unforgettable Strip Tease

Katie Flood Was Glad Delaney Evans and Lexi Wilson Got Along

Delaney Evans: "It Didn't Seem Like I Got a Fair Shot"

The Below Deck Med Crew Reacts to Katie Flood's Decision to Let Delaney Evans Go

David Pascoe Reacts to Lexi Wilson Interrupting His Heartfelt Speech

The Below Deck Med Crew Reacts to David Pascoe's Shocking Fall

Courtney Veale: "Our Whole Crew Day Had Basically Been Ruined"

The Below Deck Crew Reacts to Chef Mat and Lexi's Tense Encounter During Dinner

Captain Sandy: "Everybody Is Replaceable, Even Me"

Katie Flood: "It's Always Nerve-Wracking Serving Your Captain"

The Below Deck Crew Reacts to Katie's Decision to Finish the Season with Only Two Stews

Chef Mat Reacts to Captain Sandy's Critiques on His Dinner

The Exterior Crew Is Amused by Delaney Evans' "Copy/Paste" Farewell Text Message

Lloyd Spencer: "I Felt Almost Disembodied From the Minute I Woke Up"

The Deck Crew Reacts to Being Called Out by Captain Sandy After a Chaotic Docking

The Below Deck Med Crew Shares Their Feelings on How the Tense Vineyard Dinner Unfolded

Lloyd Spencer Gets Candid about His Experience Getting Sick Before the Final Charter

Katie Flood: "We're Not Puppets!"

The Below Deck Med Crew Reacts to Lloyd Spencer's Health Scare

Katie Flood on the Charter's Talent Show: "Cringe! Cringe, Cringe, Cringe!"

Chef Mathew Shea on Receiving Negative Feedback: "I Just Want to Cry"

Malia White: "Next Thing I Know I'm In a Bra, Stripping on a Lazy Susan"

Lloyd Spencer Shares His Thoughts on This Season: "Summed Up We Had Some Highs, We Had Some Lows"

The Below Deck Med Crew Dishes on Their "Wild" and "Messy" Final Night Out

The Season 6 Crew Makes Below Deck History By Keeping the Party Going After the Charter Season Ended

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Chef Mathew Shea's Nerves and Knee Get the Better of Him Before the First Charter

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Below Deck Mediterranean - Season 6 Episode 1 - A Yacht in Kneed

A Yacht in Kneed

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'Below Deck Med' 6.01 Review: A Yacht In Kneed

Bravo's work-in-a-beautiful-place drama reality series sets sail for a new season, running into crew and guest drama almost immediately..

What to Watch Verdict

Even if the show's producers actively cultivate drama with demanding guests, the new season kicks off with plenty of obstacles no one could have anticipated.

⛴️ While personality conflicts are already on the horizon, everyone seems likable so far — among the crew, anyway.

⛴️ Watching Mathew express his anxieties (or not express them) and Sandy find solutions feels like a study in workplace conflict resolution.

⛴️ It remains unclear how much drama the producers cultivate by enlisting terrible guests, but the group on the first charter crew is kinda awful.

This post contains spoilers for Below Deck Mediterranean.

If viewers experience a love-hate relationship with virtually all reality television, Below Deck and its spinoffs, Below Deck Sailing Yacht and Below Deck Mediterranean at least offer enough different dynamics to make them easy to love. First, there’s the locales, which cover an indefatigable series of beautiful landscapes that audiences wish they were visiting; then there’s the luxury of the vessels, which even at their smallest are fancier than anything ordinary mortals will get to sail on; and then there’s the wish fulfillment of being waited on hand and foot by a crew that will do anything possible to meet your every need, from food to watersports to the most elaborate and idiotic party ideas imaginable. Oh, and then there’s the soapy melodrama, the (literal) upstairs-downstairs conflict between demanding guests and harried blue-collar staff, the juxtaposition between deck hands and galley stewards, and inevitably, the personality conflicts and copious amounts of alcohol that exacerbate weeks of isolation in too-cramped quarters.

Season 5 of Below Deck Mediterranean offered all of this and more, including a mercurial chef and several misguided boatmances (both of which there almost always are), even before the creeping threat of Covid scuttled the end of Below Deck Season 8. Season 6 of Below Deck Med opens with Captain Sandy trying to kickstart the yachting industry in the looming shadow of the pandemic, bringing back Malia as Bosun but without Tom, the cranky chef she had to manage both personally and professionally. In his place is Mathew, a Rhode Island native who initially seems easy to get along with but quickly becomes the problem child after ordering too many provisions for the first charter and then injuring his knee while climbing the many staircases of the Lady Michelle, a 180-foot yacht that the crew will call home for the next several weeks. While Mathew’s disposition is much kinder than many of his predecessors, he simultaneously faces a crippling bout of anxiety while trying to assess his injury, leading to some quick thinking from Sandy and the crew that unfortunately does not meet the guests’ needs.

Kiwi Katie is the season’s Chief Stew, and it remains to be seen if her clear-eyed assessment of her leadership style will prove accurate, though as she and her team prepare the interior for their first charter, everyone seems to be getting along. Nevertheless, her subordinate Lexi, a former beauty queen from the Bahamas, admits that she prefer to be the one receiving drinks than taking orders for them. Meanwhile, Courtney, from Wales, cheerfully calls herself “queen of laundry,” a designation that may earn her more time washing clothes and linens than she wants. Working beneath Malia, there’s David, Lloyd and Mzi, whom she declines to rank until she sees them in action; Mzi is the resident greenie, with limited experience on a boat as big as the Lady Michelle, but the fact that he carries a notebook in hand to learn process and routines endears him to Malia, who four years earlier was the inexperienced crew member, again working for Sandy, so she’s excited to pass along her knowledge of super-yachting.

Docking for the season in Sibenik, Croatia, Sandy and the crew adjust readily to Covid protocols, and make a fresh start obeying the Number One rule on all iterations of Below Deck : no drinking while on charter. But after Mathew spends a sleepless night nursing his knee and worrying about whether or not he’s prepared for the first charter, he approaches Sandy to request an MRI. Their exchange highlights one of the other interesting elements of this show, which is, it regularly prompts the question, how would you handle this sort of interpersonal conflict? It’s slightly too early in the season to know anyone well except for Sandy and Malia, but if you were injured while the rest of the crew was depending on you, what would you do? And if you truly felt like you couldn’t do your job, how would you articulate that to your captain (or boss) with just hours before guests were set to arrive? It sounds comical to suggest, but this show feels sorta uniquely instructional in watching these workplace issues and learning how to resolve them — and somewhat predictably, how not to resolve them. By comparison, it feels like other shows are driven by the engine of the cast’s personalities, and inevitably this one is as well, but so much of the drama is concentrated because the entire location in the “workplace,” so it becomes more important than whoever might be ailing, or just an asshole, in the moment.

Speaking of “assholes,” there are of course the guests, who it seems reasonable to believe that the show’s producers cast and possibly encourage to be demanding and unpleasant. It’s by far the most consistent thread throughout all of the different series and, of course, different crews are better than others at handling the attitude and entitlement of the invariably extremely wealthy people who can book a luxury yacht for several days in a foreign country and expect to have every need met. For Charter Number One, it’s two couples, co-First Charter Guests Terez and Lee and Clint and Karry, the latter of whom wants to hold a wedding ceremony with their closest friends after postponing due to the pandemic. They are understandably disappointed to learn that their first day of charter will be without a chef, forcing the crew to wrangle a surf and turf dinner that none know how to make, even with the help of a sous chef from a neighboring yacht; but the dressing down that they give to Sandy after their dinner is terrible seems excessive given that they know the circumstances under which the crew of the Lady Michelle labors.

With no signs of whether or not Mathew will return — and in fact, Sandy’s expectation that he won’t — the first charter looks to be a rough start to the season. But the one thing that the crew of this ship does better than virtually any other (no matter who’s a part of it) is pull it together and keep trying, for their tip if not for the drama that it delivers to the show. And with a wedding ceremony set for the final day of the guests’ charter, drama feels like an absolute and irresistible guarantee.

Todd Gilchrist is a Los Angeles-based film critic and entertainment journalist with more than 20 years’ experience for dozens of print and online outlets, including Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly and Fangoria. An obsessive soundtrack collector, sneaker aficionado and member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Todd currently lives in Silverlake, California with his amazing wife Julie, two cats Beatrix and Biscuit, and several thousand books, vinyl records and Blu-rays.

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Below Deck Mediterranean - Season 6 - Episode 1

A yacht in kneed.

28 Jun 2021

Captain Sandy returns to Croatia at the helm of the mega-yacht Lady Michelle in hopes of guiding a new team through calmer waters along the stunning Dalmatian Coast. Previously a Chef to celebrities and the uber-wealthy, Mathew takes over the galley, where his ambitions quickly conflict with his on-board reality. An exceedingly accomplished yachtie, Katie joins as Captain Sandy’s first new Chief Stew in years. Meanwhile, the deck team discovers one of their deckhands is greener than they could imagine. By the time the first charter guests arrive, the team is left in an impossible situation that threatens to derail the season before it can even begin. Show more

Cast: Captain Sandy Yawn, Malia White, Katie Flood, Chef Mathew Shea, Lexi Wilson, David Pascoe, etc.

S6E1 ∙ Reality ∙ English

It's not easy being green, s6e2 ∙ reality ∙ english, it’s like rain on your wedding day, s6e3 ∙ reality ∙ english, love at first night, s6e4 ∙ reality ∙ english, ship happens, s6e5 ∙ reality ∙ english, the morning after, s6e6 ∙ reality ∙ english, can't fight this feeling, s6e7 ∙ reality ∙ english, at your lack of service, s6e8 ∙ reality ∙ english, brews, stews & management blues, s6e9 ∙ reality ∙ english, burning down the house, s6e10 ∙ reality ∙ english.

Below Deck Mediterranean

A Yacht in Kneed

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Ep 1. A Yacht in Kneed

• June 21, 2021
• 5.8   (70)

As the first episode of Below Deck Mediterranean season 6, "A Yacht in Kneed" sets the stage for another thrilling installment as the crew sets sail on a brand new luxury yacht, Lady Michelle. With an entirely new crew, the episode focuses on getting everyone acquainted with one another while also getting the yacht ready for its first group of charter guests.

Captain Sandy Yawn is at the helm of Lady Michelle, leading the crew of nine through the Mediterranean waters as they prepare for their first charter. Sandy is joined by bosun Malia White, who is returning for her third season on the show, and chef Mathew Shea, who is tasked with whipping up gourmet meals for the guests.

As the team prepares for the first day of charter, tensions begin to run high as the crew struggles to find their rhythm with one another. First-time stewardess Lexi Wilson butts heads with chief stew Katie Flood, which threatens to cause a rift among the crew before they've even set sail.

Despite the early drama, the crew must band together to make sure everything is set for the first set of guests, a group of social media influencers who come ready to party. With extravagant requests and high expectations, the crew must pull out all the stops to ensure the guests have a truly unforgettable experience on board Lady Michelle.

As the episode progresses, viewers are treated to the stunning scenery and luxurious amenities that come with sailing through the Mediterranean. As the crew works tirelessly to make sure every detail is perfect, tensions continue to simmer between certain crew members, hinting at potential conflicts that could arise over the course of the season.

In addition to the drama and stunning setting, "A Yacht in Kneed" also touches on the very real impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the yachting industry. With safety protocols in place and extra precautions being taken, the crew must adjust to a new way of working and living in close quarters with one another.

Ultimately, "A Yacht in Kneed" sets up what promises to be another exciting season of Below Deck Mediterranean, complete with high stakes, stunning scenery, and plenty of drama. Whether you're a die-hard fan of the show or just love all things nautical, this episode is sure to have something for everyone.

• Genres Documentary & Biography Reality
• Cast Mzi 'Zee' Dempers Katie Flood David Pascoe
• Channel Bravo
• First Aired June 21, 2021
• Content Rating TV-14
• Runtime 44 min
• Language English
• IMDB Rating 5.8   (70)

Below Deck Mediterranean (TV Series)

A yacht in kneed (2021), full cast & crew.

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Below Deck Mediterranean (Season 6 Episode 1) Peacock, “A Yacht in Kneed”, trailer, release date

Below deck mediterranean (season 6 episode 1) peacock, "a yacht in kneed", trailer, release date | peacock..

Captain Sandy returns to Croatia at the helm of the mega-yacht Lady Michelle. By the time the first charter guests arrive, the team is left in an impossible situation that threatens to derail the season before it can even begin. Startattle.com – Below Deck Mediterranean | Peacock.

Network : Peacock Episode title : “A Yacht in Kneed” Release date : June 28, 2021 Cast : – Sandy Yawn as Sandy Yawn – Hannah Ferrier as Hannah Ferrier – Malia White as Malia White – Hindrigo “Kiko” Lorran as Hindrigo “Kiko” Lorran – Christine “Bugsy” Drake as Christine “Bugsy” Drake – Jessica More as Jessica More – Robert Westergaard as Robert Westergaard – Alex Radcliffe as Alex Radcliffe – Tom Checketts as Tom Checketts – Lara Flumiani as Lara Flumiani – Aesha Scott as Aesha Scott – Pete Hunziker as Pete Hunziker – Ben Robinson as Ben Robinson – João Franco as João Franco – Colin Macy-O’Toole as Colin Macy-O’Toole – Anastasia Surmava as Anastasia Surmava – Travis Michalzik as Travis Michalzik – Jack Stirrup as Jack Stirrup – June Foster as June Foster – Mila Kolomeitseva as Mila Kolomeitseva – Brooke Laughton as Brooke Laughton – Kasey Cohen as Kasey Cohen – Conrad Empson as Conrad Empson – Jamie Jason as Jamie Jason – Adam Glick as Adam Glick – Lauren Cohen as Lauren Cohen – Wesley Walton as Wesley Walton – Max Hagley as Max Hagley – Bobby Giancola as Bobby Giancola – Tiffany Copeland as Tiffany Copeland – Julia d’Albert Pusey as Julia d’Albert Pusey – Jen Riservato as Jen Riservato – Danny Zureikat as Danny Zureikat – Bryan Kattenburg as Bryan Kattenburg – Mark Howard as Mark Howard

Below Deck Mediterranean (Season 6 Episode 1) Peacock, “A Yacht in Kneed”, trailer, release date.

Below Deck Mediterranean Season 6 Peacock

The series follows nine crew members living and working aboard a 150′ mega-yacht as it undertakes a new charter season in the Mediterranean. Providing unparalleled service to wealthy and uncompromising guests is made even more difficult as the team faces everything from love triangles to seeing fellow crew members shockingly cross the line with guests.

Below Deck Mediterranean (Season 6 Episode 1) Peacock, “A Yacht in Kneed”, trailer, release date | Peacock.

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Knees and Breasthooks

Function and form

From Issue   October 2016

B oats have several places where two surfaces come together at an angle, and special pieces—breasthooks and knees—are used join them together and add strength. Breasthooks are V-shaped blocks at the acute angle at the bow and, on double-enders, at the stern as well. Knees are supports closer to a right angle, and on open boats they’re most often quarter knees joining gunwales to a transom or seat knees supporting the topsides at the thwarts.

Short, blunt-toed knees, like this one in a Davis boat, are quite common. Devoting a little more time and thought to knees will give them a lighter, more elegant appearance.

Knees and breasthooks made of solid blocks of straight-grained wood can be serviceable, but if the toes (the knee’s extremities) are fattened up too much to make up for the weakness of the cross-grain there, they don’t do much for a boat’s appearance. Pieces made from grown crooks are stronger because the grain runs with the loads, and much handsomer because they didn’t need to be bulky. Indeed, when carefully shaped they elevate the boat’s structure from “good enough” to art.

This apple-crook breasthook is in a New York Whitehall built in 1983. Well cured before it was installed, it hasn’t checked or separated from the surrounding structure.

The grain in the Whitehall’s bookmatched fruitwood quarter knees not only follows the angle between the transom and the sheerstrake, it curves into the transom at the ends of the toes.

In former days when open boats commonly went alongside larger boats, seat knees were essential to the boat’s structure and were sometimes massive, keeping the sides from being stove in. Tenders and ship’s boats typically had two seat knees at each end of a thwart. With today’s light, glued-lapstrake construction they can be equally important in reinforcing the structure.

This fruitwood crook in the New York Whitehall braces a thwart that serves as mast partner. The toe is slender enough for rivets to be used to make the attachment.

The traditional thwart knee was a marvel of simple joinery. The part that supports the sheer plank was often carefully locked into the gunwale structure. Some were set on top of the thwart, either parallel to its edge or at an angle to it. Their toes might have decorative points cut at their ends. Others were fastened to the vertical edge of a thwart and carefully shaped in a show of lightness and elegance.L-shaped grown crooks were prized pieces of wood, but as they became scarce, many boatbuilders who built substantial numbers of boats went to metal knees. Today it is hard for most boatbuilders to find grown stock needed for traditional knees. Aside from requiring the trees to harvest, the crooks have to be cured without developing splits and sawn into flat pieces prior to shaping.

The cross grain shows up clearly in this knee but it was made out of stock wide enough to give it a nice shape.  The knees in the author’s Antonio Dias-designed Harrier are screwed to the seats from underneath.

In knees sawn from straight-grained stock, the toes are often blunt and thick, their length limited by the width of the stock used and their height, making up for weak cross-grain, requiring screw-fastening from underneath the thwart. It doesn’t have to be that way. With laminations and reliable glued joints, it isn’t hard to recapture the look and strength of natural knees. Steam-bent knees can provide a sweeping curve and slender toes, but they require blocking to provide the support of a solid knee. Stock can be created by laminating narrow strips of wood; knees can be built with half-lapped or splined pieces much the way that today’s builders emulate the natural crooks once used on dory frames.

Steam-bent knees backed by a block of matching wood are every bit as functional and attractive as those made from a grown crook.

This mitered knee for a lapstrake boat has a broad spline running across the angled jolt. For details on making this type of knee, see this month’s   From the Editor  column.

Ben Fuller , curator of the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport, Maine, has been messing about in small boats for a very long time. He is owned by a dozen or more boats ranging from an International Canoe to a faering.

A Gallery of Breasthooks and Knees

This wherry built by Cooper and Sons in Shrewsbury, England, in the late 1800s has a breasthook made of a single piece of straight-grained wood. The inner edge is scribed with a decorative groove.

The quarter knees in the Shrewsbury wherry have exceptionally long toes.

The wherry’s passenger seat has slender knees with long, elegant toes.

Thwart knees are occasionally built into the edge of the thwart they support. This knee in the wherry is  cut from a crook and becomes a frame head.

This laminated mahogany knee in a Chamberlain gunning dory is wide enough to provide strength without a filler block backing it.

This breasthook in a Hvalsoe 13 is curved along its forward edge and set apart from the stem. This makes fitting easier, avoids an area that tends to weather poorly, and offers a convenient place to anchor a painter. The two halves of the breasthook are held together by epoxy alone, and while the joint has held up well for over 20 years, keeping the varnish in good shape will assure the bond doesn’t fail.

The grain of the crook used for this 1982 Whitehall’s breasthook is clearly visible.

These double knees are from a tender built in the mid-coast area of Maine in the 1930s. The boat is as nice as anything turned out by the more highly regarded boatbuilders of Massachusetts or Rhode Island.

Pointed toes add a distinctive touch to LITTLE ELVA, a 16′ captain’s gig built in 1881 by a carpenter aboard the Downeaster sailing ship CORA. The gig was built along the lines of a workboat, but intended for pleasure outings and given some fancy woodwork.

LITTLE ELVA’s dainty quarter knees were let into the inwales and a cleat across the transom.

The LITTLE ELVA breasthook was also let into the inwales.

The quarter knees and breasthook in this Lawley-built tender are bronze and well suited for a boat built in great numbers.

When Lawley switched to metal breasthooks and quarterknees, the tenders still had nicely shaped wooden thwart knees. Eventually these too were done in bronze.

This thwart knee on one of the small rowboats built in Vinalhaven, Maine, is a good example the of fine work that was just another day in the shop for the boatbuilder.

The ordinary Vinalhaven rowboats were built with an eye toward lightness and interesting curves.

Elegance was once the norm even on working peapods. The builders didn’t think about it, they just did it.

You can share your tricks of the trade with other Small Boats Monthly readers by sending us an email .

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Comments (8)

A great study and total eye candy. I’ll never be able to unsee good knees and breasthooks in a boat again!

Very nice article and pictures. Even in a very small wooden boat there is much beauty.

O’ the patina! Beautiful.

Thanks Ben. Certainly shows the many ways a beautiful knee or breasthook can be constructed!

Wonderful article. Thanks for the pictures and commentary!

Hadn’t noticed that one despite having seen the boat dozens of times. Good catch. I’ll add it to my file. Just goes to show that the eye can continue to be trained. Time spent in a boat collection is time well spent.

Your article on knees and breasthooks was a very useful guide for those in the Seil I’m building in the back yard. These quarter knees are not yet complete. The miter joint is doweled with stainless all-thread.

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A Man’s Best Friend

The mid-1990s were a mixed time for me. I had a fine house, a great job, a beautiful wife, and two lovely children—but I was boatless. My wife and I…

Boats have several places where two surfaces come together at an angle, and special pieces—breasthooks and knees—are used join them together and add strength. Breasthooks are V-shaped blocks at the…

Product Reviews

The Scrubba wash bag first came to my attention through an online cruising forum that has occasional posts about laundry gadgets, and it struck me as an innovative solution to…

Gaco Oarlocks

I had been curious about Gaco oarlocks for a long time, and finally decided to buy a pair to see how well they work. Instead of rotating in the socket…

Reader Built Boats

Bevin’s Skiffs

On a hot summer day in 1995, JoAnn Tschaen, a social worker, visited a family with seven children, down on their luck and living in a run-down tenement in the…

More Technique

DIY Gantry Cranes

Rolling a hull of this size is usually an operation that requires a small army of helpers. Working with the gantry cranes doesn’t require so many people; it goes fastest…

Downshifting Oars

I figured the best solution would be to find a way to quickly “change gears” at the oar collars rather than having to change the oars. Having recently switched from…

Coloring Cordage

A few months ago, I saw a beautifully appointed Caledonia yawl, rigged with what I thought was Unmanila. I asked the builder, Mark Bratton, about it and he said the…

Tape-Backed Sandpaper

Wooden boats come with their fair share of hand-sanding, whether it’s smoothing wood surfaces or between coats of varnish or paint, so it pays to extend the useful life of…

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