Sammy Catelylin: Ahoy. Ahoy to all you smooth sailors out
there. And welcome aboard the decktales
podcast. I'm your host and
captain Sammy Catling and this is the show
where you usually get to hear crew members
from all walks of life share their best and
worst stories from their time spent at sea.
Not today, though. Today I wanted to
do something a little different, as I figured
I would give you a bit more context as to how
the show came to be, my reasons for doing
it, and my hopes for the future with it.
Normally I share these insights with the
people I interview, which I always cut from
the edit because no one wants to hear a
broken record. But I share these things with
them because I like to give my guests that
personal reassurance that my reasons and
motivations for doing this show are, uh, with
the best of intentions. But as the 30th
episode is just a couple days away, I thought
it made a lot more sense if I just tell
everyone at the same time rather than just
constantly repeating myself. First of
all, who am I? And why do I have the
audacity to think I can just interview crew
from everywhere? Why are they in some
cases telling me their private personal
stories, their embarrassing moments, and the
stuff they wish that they could just forget?
Well, I don't know exactly, and I don't know
if it's enough of a reason, but a few years
back, I wrote a book called Seems Like Smooth
Sailing, a retrospective memoir, all about my
first ever ship contract back in 2006,
where I did a 10 month straight contract
working as an entertainer. The elevator pitch
for the book is that it's kind of like the TV
show the In Betweeners, but at sea. And as
I joined the ships at the tender age of 19,
I was at the time the youngest crew member,
on board, which meant I was mothered by
almost every woman on that ship. And having
just left the family nest, I was so gullible
that I was teased, taunted and tested by
practically everyone else. The book is
available in paperback and is also now on
Audible, which I personally narrated and
edited. Uh, thank you. So, if you fancy a
laugh, you can read or hear all about my own
personal start to ship life. How I first got
the job, what I went through, how I lost my
virginity, a whole chapter on the stupid
questions guests ask, uh, the crew, and much,
much more. When I finished writing
the book, I ran a small crowdfunding campaign
which attracted the attention of a few
different types of publishers. So I picked
the one I liked the most and was able to get
the ball rolling from there. The day the book
launched could not have been more
serendipitous as the day of publication
happened to be that moment in time when the
world was brought to a standstill and we were
all ordered to stay indoors as it marked the
beginning of lockdown for us here in the UK.
March 24, 2020.
The most ironic thing about having a book
about cruise ships come out at the start of
the COVID pandemic was that it was the first
time since Pre World War II that the industry
had ever been brought to a halt.
Since that time, these pleasure ships have
been operating without a day off and with
more and more people jumping on the bandwagon
and expecting new things to do on board every
year. Over time, they've been getting bigger
and bigger and bigger. It took a global
lockdown to finally stop them in their
tracks. And it was the first time in modern
history that no one could book to go on a
cruise. And because of COVID it was the last
place many people wanted to be.
As events unfolded and the um, unprecedented
times enveloped us all, my focus kept going
back to the ships and what might be happening
on board. I hadn't set foot on a cruise ship
in 10 years, but it's literally all I could
think about. I started to read uh, articles
online about almost everything connected to
the world of shipl life, seemingly forgotten
by the rest of the world. And as I
went day by day, I fell through the looking
glass and opened Pandoras box.
I started reading the stuff about the
industry I never knew whilst working within
it and all the kinds of things that they dont
really want people to know. It was
after a couple of months that I thought to
myself it would make for a great follow up
book to seems like smooth sailing and so I
spent a long time researching and writing it
up. The book picks up from where I left
readers at the end of the first book and
details the accounts of my career in its
entirety. I've intermittently woven the
information I learned about everything else
throughout, Explaining the history of ships,
traditions at sea and their origins,
pollution stats and the many different types
of it generated by the industry, tech
innovations over the years, how the cruise
lines stayed afloat during lockdown, how they
treated the guests and crew during the
pandemic and much, much more.
I finished writing that book a while ago now
and I've had no joy in finding a literary
agent who can help me take my book to the
next level. People have asked me why don't I
just self Publish. And uh, my answer to that
is, well, there's just so much research in
this book that if I was the only one to stand
behind it, then many would probably view it
as being far less credible. For those of
you who don't know what a literary agent is,
essentially they are the middlemen between
the author and the publisher. And uh, whilst
it's not fair to paint them all with the same
brush, I think it's fair to say that most of
them would prefer to work on books that don't
require any research to be fact checked and
with people who have already got some kind of
following on social media to maximise their
return of investment.
Literary agents are often inundated with
submissions from budding writers who are
hoping for a chance of success. And as most
of these agents are overwhelmed as it is from
this aspect of their job, more often than not
it's the low hanging fruit that gets selected
and pushed to bigger publishers. I was
uh, asked many times by agents, how many
followers did I have rather than how long did
I spend writing and researching the book, how
much vitamin D did I deprive myself of, and
how many friends did I make excuses not to
see because I was too busy working? Get your
tiny violins out now, people.
After a bunch of rejections, I thought to
myself, okay, so I've told my story
and the second book tells a bit more of it,
plus the ship's story. But what about helping
others to share theirs? The idea to host a
show where I offered crew members past or
present the chance to do this isn't a new
idea by any means, but I strongly felt that
after all that I'd read, um, and researched,
the best way to go about it was not just to
hear all of the good, but be open to hearing
the bad as well. One thing a lot of
people do not know is that anyone who signs
up to work for a cruise line almost always
has a defamation clause embedded within their
contract. This means that if they have
something terrible happen to them whilst they
are at work, they can't report it to anyone,
otherwise they could be sued. For this
reason, it's probably why you haven't heard
any of the horror stories about things that
go on ships. And it's also the reason that
it's a challenge to get guests on the show
who are willing to risk telling their
stories. I have a few upcoming episodes with
people who didn't want to be on camera, so
they used the fake name and displayed
themselves with an avatar as a workaround.
Recently I spoke with a young lady who has
worked on both ships and yachts who told me
some stories that I just couldn't believe.
She assured me that basically anything I'd
read or heard about P Diddy is basically
true. I offered her an extreme level of
anonymity so she'd be safe from any
repercussions, but sadly she declined.
I hope that in the coming months or years
more people start tuning into decktales and
get in touch to share their own stories,
whether they're on camera or not. The most
important thing is spreading awareness as to
some of the horrors that take place at sea.
This way, those looking for employment within
the industry can better prepare and protect
themselves. Moving forwards. Last
year a journalist reached out to me via a
mutual acquaintance and wanted to know what
the second book I was trying to write
included. After I told her, she said
she was doing some research for a director,
uh, who is making a documentary on a very
similar subject. She liked what I had to
say, put me in touch with him and we met for
coffee in September 2024. I took
him through the back pages of my manuscript
which detailed the sources for the topics I
covered, and he seemed curious to want to
know more. Also, he was hopeful that I
would send him a copy, but uh, he didn't wine
and dine me properly, so I asked him to let
me think about it. He did pique my interest
though. When he asked me what I thought about
the idea of potentially going undercover.
I told him this was something I had d
entertained as a throwaway thought before,
but realistically, it's almost an impossible
task. I'd be expected to wear hidden mics
and cameras, I'd be working under contracts,
so I'm the one taking all the risk. I'd need
whoever was my cabin mate to be undercover as
well, and I could essentially go a whole
working contract without capturing anything
worthy of a juicy expose documentary,
so the whole thing would probably be a waste
of time. I have not heard from that director
since. Aw.
I started interviewing people back in
November 2023 and launched the
Decktales podcast on the 1st of May
2024. It's been a labour of love working at
something that brings me great fulfilment,
but it is something that I do almost full
time without pay around my paid work.
Whenever I tell people about the show, most
of them ask if it's anything like the show
below deck. This is because it's for many,
the only point of reference they have as an
insight into that world, but of course it's
nothing really like below deck as a lot of
that is dramatised for TV and Decktales
is real life also. The big
difference is that the show takes place on
billionaires private luxury yachts and
decktales gives people a peek behind the
scenes of mass tourism within the cruise
industry. Mostly when I was
on ships no one really had a smartphone and
wi fi was expensive and limited on board.
Nowadays companies are signing up to use Elon
Musk's Starlink satellites so it's a lot
easier to access your phones. The last couple
decades of tech evolution have been a
constant game of keepy uppies, but now
with Zoom, web conferencing, audio editing
software, Reaper, Microsoft Clipchamp,
social media and a tiny bit of help from AI,
I've been able to get Decktales up and
running pretty much on my own. I'm still
very young into my podcasting journey and um,
my hope is that I can continue down this path
for many years to come. I feel as though I've
only just scratched the surface of some of
the untold stories out there and if you've
been following the show you'll be aware of
some of the more troubling experiences people
have shared. It is with the greatest hope
that not only can Decktales be a place where
crew can hear these things and know they're
not alone, but perhaps one day
help put some pressure on companies to
improve the rights and working conditions for
their crew members. And I'd like to be able
to get the show to a point where I'm able to
attract some ocean friendly brands to sponsor
the show and be able to offset some of the
profits to go towards, uh, a charity that's
directly affected by ships and that is coral
reef restoration. It's an
incredibly important effort to give towards
because they are essentially the beginnings
of all life at sea. And although Decktales is
a platform to help crew who are powerless to
voice their experiences, oceanic wildlife
and marine ecosystems are too.
I'm still actively trying to find a publisher
for my second book, so if you know anyone
then please do forward on their details.
And finally dear listener, if you would but
do me a teeny tiny favour, please do
give the show a five star rating and review
on either Apple, Spotify or wherever you get
your podcasts as this helps its ranking to
appear more visible to new listeners. Like
the videos, share the clips on social media,
comment, subscribe and all that good stuff.
Thanks for listening and uh Bon voyage.