Meet the Eternal Spark Crew: Chief Officer Adam Brown

I sat down with Adam Brown, the chief officer on motor yacht Eternal Spark, to discuss his new role and the plans and expectations for the next summer season, but also his relationship with his colleagues, particularly Captain Mark Everard.

Could you please introduce yourself, describe your previous work experiences in the yachting industry (what or who got you into yachting), and how they have prepared you for your role as the chief officer on m/y Eternal Spark?

Hello, I am Adam Brown, I am the chief officer of Eternal Spark. My background is that I joined the fire service when I was 19. I was in the fire service for 10 years, serving in Hampshire (south of the UK). Towards the end of my career, I was teaching firefighting to seafarers, as part of the STCW qualification, and through that, I met a lot of people involved in shipping, the Merchant Navy, and other similar areas. And from them, I met some yachties.

At that time, I was not particularly sure what yachting was, but I had some conversations with them and realized that sounded like something I would find particularly interesting. I always had a relationship with the sea, I lived on the south coast, I sailed, I got into water sports, and volunteered on a lifeboat for 16 years.

That whole thing changed my mind in 2016, and that is the same year I joined yachting. My first position was a deckhand on a 40-meter boat and I quickly progressed to mate after about a year onboard. That boat was sold, and we got another boat with the same owner.

Since then I’ve been to New Zealand, Dubai, and most of the Mediterranean. I travelled about – yachting afforded me that. I am now on board Eternal Spark as a Chief Officer with Captain Mark, and it is a very exciting project. I am looking forward to it and I cannot wait to see the launch – she is a beautiful boat.

Can you share a bit about your longstanding relationship with Captain Mark Everard and how it has evolved over time?

Mark gave me my first job in yachting back in 2016. And I worked for 3 years for that same owner: we did 2 years on board – I was a deckhand for 1 year, and moved up to mate. Once that boat was sold, the owner bought a 35 meter, and a 22-23 meter chaseboat / dayboat, which I was the captain of. So in the summer, we were cruising around the Baleares.

During the day, we would cruise on the smaller boat, but the guests would stay on the bigger at night. They used the smaller boat for day trips and the bigger one for partying in the evenings. So, it was a good summer. After that, I went to New Zealand and captained a 120foot sailboat for a year –we did New Zealand, Fiji, and all the islands in the South Pacific.

Once I finished up the year in New Zealand, I actually went and joined Captain Mark on a new build and we worked together again once she launched. But this was all during covid, which seemed to slow everything down – it was a very strange year in yachting.

After that, we joined another vessel, another building project called Runaway, which was a 40-meter Italian-built vessel. We were on that thing during the build and did two seasons onboard based in the Mediterranean.

After that, which was last year, we worked separately. He was on a new build once again, but the owner kept their previous chief officer, so I went off to work on a very busy charter boat in the Mediterranean, with a chief engineer I`ve worked with previously. And that extended to the end of this year, and then I got a phone call from Mark, saying he found an excellent opportunity, in a good stage of production, nothing too early but early enough to make some changes, to make it “our own”.

I flew out, and I met the manager, Matija from SuperYachts Croatia, we got on quite well, and he offered me the position and since then, I’ve been here in Turkey, overseeing the completion of the project with Captain Mark.

The people at Bilgin Shipyard are great. They are supporting us all the way, taking most of our suggestions, and we have been working really well together to hopefully produce the best 50-meter boat in the world.

Having been involved with previous new builds and refits in various countries ( NZ, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Greece) how are you finding the shipyard in Turkey?

As the crew is present this early in the building stage, they can still impact areas that will be used, as for the guests, and the crew. This primarily consists of the storage areas, the layout of equipment and making the vessel optimal for giving guests the best possible experience.

What specific features or aspects of motor yacht Eternal Spark do you find most appealing, both from a professional and personal standpoint?

Definitely the volume of the exterior spaces onboard the Eternal Spark. I feel that all of her exterior amenities will make this yacht quite a special attraction on the charter market.

I agree completely. One of the most important aspects of the guest experience on a charter holiday are water toys. As I understand, one of your duties regarding the fitting of Eternal Spark is the procurement of water toys. Walk us through the process of selecting water toys for Eternal Spark.

As far as water sports on Eternal Spark, I think one of our greatest assets will be our chase boat – a 10-meter dayboat, which is going to be particularly useful and good to utilize. This boat will allow us to go into bays and coves with guests, and the boat is large enough to take with us snorkeling equipment, fins, and similar stuff. So they can really get into those smaller coves.

We are also going to have our 2 Sea Doo jet skis, situated on the bow, but which will be out during the day. We are also going to have our Williams tender, which is capable of towing our inflatable toys – bananas, donuts, as well as wakeboards.

Also, we are going to have 2 SeaBobs, so we can do surface or underwater expeditions, an array of Stand Up Paddleboards, as well as our E-foils.

There are going to be 2 E-foils, a Lift Cruiser and a Lift Explorer; one is more of a starter E-foil, and one is a more advanced one, so our guests can experience a feeling as close to flying as you can be. We are also going to have the usual snorkeling equipment, fins, masks, goggles – all the basic bits and pieces.

Can you elaborate on your philosophy, when it comes to guests and water toys?

Personally, I think the amount of toys we already have onboard is more than other vessels of similiar size have.

It is also about how you introduce toys to guests.

If you make it a bit more structured, then every day there is something new and something exciting. Rather than, they play on everything for 10 minutes on the first day, and then the interest is gone. It’s very much about how you tailor delivery, as much as what you have available.

Most guests like itineraries, so why not have the same with water toys?

They enjoy it when the stewardesses suggest cocktails at the bow in the afternoon or when the deck team says “We are going to do an evening cruise with the tender at sunset, with cocktails, and then we are coming back for dinner”.

It’s good to have a plan to optimize the guest’s time onboard and their overall experience. Also, some areas and weather conditions are better for certain activities and we can call on our local knowledge to ensure we give the best possible experience.

If guests just wake up, and everything is at the back of the boat and they can do what they want, they are quite lost and I think they don’t enjoy it as much as they could or should.

A very innovative approach and I could not agree more. In a similar direction, given your experience, what assumptions or predictions do you have about how motor yacht Eternal Spark will fare in the Mediterranean charter market? Are there any challenges or opportunities you anticipate?

I think Eternal Spark as a charter vessel is going to be very well suited to the Mediterranean. I think she is a wonderful size for the Med, considering marinas and such. This will give us the ability to access all locations without difficulty.

She is also large enough we can spend 4-5-6 days at anchor without any issues, but guests will also have plenty of opportunities to do as much cruising and exploring as they Wish. This means city-hopping or bay-hopping, depending on their preferences. Eternal Spark offers both approaches; with our chase boat, the opportunities are even more diverse.

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After finishing our conversation, Adam and I talked extensively about how the crew could impact future content updates for Eternal Spark. Adam pointed out that he always wanted to show the other side of yachting a little bit – things like provisioning the boat which takes a long time and is demanding by itself, but also other behind-the-scenes stuff like the wash downs, the teak scrubbing etc.

So, If you are interested in learning more about the other side of yachting with Adam`s insights, keep an eye out for regular content updates, powered by the crew of Eternal Spark.