This is an update to Crewing on Hull Yeah for 2026 . This post will provide more general overview of us, our 2nd half of 2026 cruising plans, the boat and if we’re a good match for crewing with us.
Who Are We
We’re Steve and Olga, a 50’s married couple from Seattle, WA. Steve is originally from New York, and Olga from Russia. We each have grown kids who are on their own, allowing us to enjoy “our time”. We’re both pretty active, enjoying constant activity, with occasional downtime. So, what better way to have an adventure than to sail the Mediterranean?
After 35 years working in broadcast engineering, tech, startups, and building some houses, Steve was ready for a change. Olga is a nurse and was also ready for something different. We took the 2025 season as a retirement year to sail the Mediterranean on our new-to-us 2023 Excess 14. It was quite the journey, and we had a blast. We had some “old” friends join us and met some new friends join our crew along the way. If you’re reading this post, it could be you.
2026 Plans
For 2026, Olga wasn’t ready to be on vacation full-time, so she’s back in Seattle working as a nurse, with occasional trips to join Steve. Steve will be sailing another year across the Mediterranean with occasional trips back home.
This year we started in Cyprus with plans to sail the Adriatic:
Steve is looking for crew to explore the Mediterranean with some long passages, some short hops and always as much sailing as possible.
Our Sailing Experience
Steve has been racing in Seattle for over 12 years on J/105s, a King 40 and other boats along the way. He’s worked with amazing crews to gain the experience of the unpredictable. For the last 10+ years, Olga and Steve have chartered boats across the Caribbean, Malta, Greece, the French Polynesian Islands, and, of course, the Pacific Northwest of Seattle. Steve also crewed on a 1700 Russian replica (Pilgrim) from Seattle to Ketchikan Alaska. Olga became a fearless and talented crew, taking on the bow and anchoring.
In 2025, we purchased a 2023 Excess 14 and sailed ~1,800nm from Cyprus, through the Greek Aegean & Ionian islands, Türkiye and back to Cyprus for the winter. We’ve worked through new boat issues, the “Meltemi Tantrums” and enjoyed amazing locations.
To end the Season, Steve joined another Excess 14 and crossed the Atlantic from Las Palmas to St. Lucia before heading back to Seattle for the winter.
Some links covering our voyages since the beginning of 2025:
The Boat
Our ride is a 3 cabin Excess 14 “performance cruising” catamaran. Some details of the boat are here: Hull Yeah: Excess 14 Layout She’s quite fast, and points quite well. With her Pulse Rig and downwind sail plan, we can sail in light to heavy winds, giving us all the choices for when and where to go.
We have all the systems to be self-sufficient from solar, water maker, genset, air conditioning to a washer/dryer, giving us the freedom to sail and anchor without needing to “recharge”.
Accommodations
We have two free cabins that can host a couple or singles. We generally prefer singles to keep the crew small, and everyone in the same social engagement of others.
You’ll have your own queen size bed in a private berth, with a private bath and shower. We have all the normal things like blankets, sheets, pillows, towels, etc. You should bring your own personal items, like soap, shampoo, etc.
Joining our Crew
Depending on the segment, and if we’re in delivery mode, or relax mode, we’re not necessarily looking for highly experienced crew, rather interesting people we’d like to spend time with. We do like to sail, and we will do sail changes as needed to keep sailing, so you must be physically active, have great balance, and enough strength to work with the crew to handle large sails.
We prefer anchoring in a free quiet bay with a breeze, then an expensive protected marina that can get hot. This means you should be ready and comfortable to swim ashore with floating stern lines. We do stop in quays, and we do occasionally stop in marinas when the circumstances make sense.
Age Group and Length of Stay
Generally, we’re looking for folks that are in their 40’s-60’s, financially self-sufficient, may be retired and have longer periods of time to sail with us. We do occasionally take on crew for 2–3-week segments but will always prefer those that can stay a month or longer. For our schedule, please see more info @ Crew Spots Available
Your Experience
For the cruising sections of our season, sailing experience isn’t required, although it is helpful. As long as you’re interested in learning, a good communicator, and ready for adventure.
You should have experience living in small spaces with others and be self-confident and conflict adverse. Things can happen quickly, and you need to be able to jump in to assist whatever’s happening.
For passages and delivery segments, more experience is preferred, or you may have built your experience sailing with us for a bit.
Some bullets:
- Hull Yeah is a non-smoking, non-vaping boat
- We drink socially, when not needing to be on point for sailing.
- We get up early, and go to sleep early, although we are trying the siesta plan to enjoy the shore in the cooler evenings.
- We like to be active, which includes everything from diving, snorkeling, paddleboarding, walking, biking, hiking, canyoning and white-water rafting.
You should:
- like to sail
- want to help with destination planning and research
- like to cook, and be ok with non-vegetarian meals for others aboard
- be comfortable swimming, as we stern tie in some locations
- be good with unstructured plans, between structured plans (open time between getting to planned races)
- be able to join us where we are, and depart where we wind up (there are many ferries across the Mediterranean, so this isn’t really a problem)
- proactively help with cleaning the galley and the boat
- be a balance of active and casual, ready to jump in when needed, or just as comfortable reading a book
- be a non-smoker with zero drug use
Food, Dining & Allergies
We live and eat “healthy”, enjoying the great foods of Europe. We have no allergies, and keep a meat-atarian style diet. As we keep small crews, cook as a group, vegetarians might find it awkward. If you enjoy cooking, and are happy to cook meat meals for others, and vegetarian for yourself, we certainly welcome amazing cooks.
We tend to cook aboard after finding great markets and go out to enjoy the local cuisine when it’s too good to pass up. Steve is an OK cook and tends to wake up early and makes great French Press coffee for the crew.
Great Cooks Get Priority
Have we said we like to have great cooks aboard? If you enjoy cooking, that’s a first great start. As a catamaran, with an upper galley, cooking is not the typical below deck/rolling challenge of a monohull.
We have a full amenity of cooking gear, including a gas stove top and oven, an electric hob hotplate, and a Ninja Combi 12-in-1 Multi-Cooker, Oven & Air Fryer that solves most of our needs, and 3 fridge/freezers. Olga also has a GoSun Fusion Hybrid Solar Oven if you’re up for some pure regenerative cooking.
Anchorages & Marinas
For 2025, we spent most of our time at Anchor, which was great for the cooler breeze and avoiding expensive marina fees. But we met the most amazing people through Marinas, and the best marinas weren’t very expensive (ok, forget about Turkiye). We found many marinas for €20-€60/night. We’ll make conscious choices about which Marinas we’ll dock at. With a mix of amazing anchorages and Marinas that enable crew to walk ashore at anytime, it’s a better balance to give everyone the flexibility to enjoy their own time.
Expenses
We are looking for people to enjoy the journey with us. We cover the boat expenses, repairs and upkeep, and don’t ask for daily contributions. In return, we ask to not subsidize your time with us. We split shared consumables evenly amongst the crew with SplitWise. This includes provisions (food and galley supplies) dining and also includes docking and mooring fees as well as fuel. We sail as often as possible and are efficient when we do run on engine. We also prefer free quiet, interesting anchorages but do an occasional reasonably priced marina/quay to give folks easy on/off time and time to clean the boat with endless dock water.
You’re responsible for your travel to arrive/depart, and we can’t guarantee the pickup or dropoff location until several days prior. We will do our best, and there’s usually a bus or ferry to cover the last segment.
Are You Ready
If you feel you’re a good match, please fill out the info below. If we have open spots for your availability, and agree you’ll be a good match, we’ll reach out to schedule a video call to get to know each other. We go through the requests in batches, so please don’t be discouraged if we don’t respond right away. We might be looking for crew for next week, or a month ahead.
If you’re interested, we’d start with a video call to get to know each other and see if it’s a mutual match.
Check our schedule here: Crew Spots Available