New York Magazine – July 22, 2019

60 new york | july 22–august 4, 2019

The CULTURE PAGES

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PHOTOGRAPHS: PREVIOUS SPREAD, VIRGINIA SHERWOOD/BRAVO/NBCU PHOTO BANK VIA GETTY IMAGES; THIS SPREAD: COURTESY OF BRAVO

When ashton pienaar fell overboard during the

filming of Below Deck’s sixth season, it almost ruined the party. A Sarasota

real-estate agent named Brandy had chartered the 185-foot superyacht

and its crew, which are the focal point of the Bravo reality show, so she

and her “wild girlfriends” could celebrate their birthdays with “tequila in

their hands at all times.” But enjoying those drinks had to be put on hold

after a line tangled around Pienaar’s leg and yanked him off the boat.

The rope, towing a support boat called

a tender, dragged Pienaar, a former

bodybuilder and exotic dancer turned

deckhand, by the ankle as he struggled to

keep his head above water. Deckhand

Rhylee Gerber called “Man overboard!”

into her radio, Captain Lee Rosbach

killed the propellers, and a cameraman

stopped filming to loosen the line and

help rescue him.

Three million people tuned in to the

resulting episode, the 11th of the season,

to see reality clash with “reality” and

briefly be given real human stakes.

Below Deck stars a crew of young, good-

looking men and women who work for

Rosbach, their exacting boss, fighting and

hooking up with each other while serving

the needs of entitled, often drunk guests

who’d paid tens of thousands of dollars to

be indulged with foam parties, 12-course

tasting menus, and ungodly amounts of

green juice on a floating Mar-a-Lago. (In

one episode, the family that inspired The

Blind Side, the Tuohys, were aboard and

requested a tailgate party.)

What differentiates Below Deck from a

flotilla of other reality shows is the degree

to which viewers are brought into an envi-

ronment with its own vernacular and spe-

cialized skills, in which the stars have to

actually work—and not in the manner of

those on, say, Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules,

where it doesn’t really matter if a patron

gets his margarita on time.

That blend of setting and tension has

quietly turned the show into a ratings

dreadnought (by basic-cable standards).

Season six was its most watched, averag-

ing almost 2.6 million viewers per epi-

sode; among audiences under 50, it was

the No. 5 reality show on all of cable. The

show’s first spinoff, Below Deck Mediter-

ranean, has done nearly as well: Its third

season averaged 2.4 million viewers in

2018, and its fourth (currently airing) is

on track for the largest Below Deck audi-

ence ever. A second spinoff, set on a fancy

sailboat, was announced earlier this year.

The idea for Below Deck came from co–

executive producer Rebecca Henning,

who, back in the ’90s, had worked on a

yacht owned by a wealthy New York fam-

ily. Years later, when she and her husband

were working in TV, she pitched the show

to Courtland Cox, the producer behind

Rock of Love With Bret Michaels and Fla-

vor of Love Girls: Charm School. Cox

brought it to his boss Mark Cronin at the

production company 51 Minds; they

made a sizzle reel at the Fort Lauderdale

yacht show with the help of Below Deck’s

future chief stewardess Adrienne Gang.

Downton Abbey was popular at the

time, and Cronin and Cox leaned in to the

upstairs-downstairs culture of yachting.

Crews give up their lives on land in

exchange for adjacency to extreme

wealth. It was a perfect fit for Bravo, a

reality-TV haven that has long offered

viewers the opportunity to be income-

inequality voyeurs through programs like

Real Housewives and Million Dollar List-

ing. Bravo exec and Watch What Happens

Live host Andy Cohen was an early cham-

pion, and the network ordered the series

in the spring of 2011.

“When Bravo suddenly said, ‘We love

the show, let’s make the show,’ I had this

moment of panic, of like, Oh dear God, I

have no idea how we’re going to make this

incredibly complex show,” Cox admits.

The first hurdle, which almost sank the

show, was the reluctance of yacht brokers

to allow a production company to hire a

group of aspiring reality-show stars to

crew their very valuable boats and film

the very possibly disastrous results. The

owner of the boat used on season one—

the 164-foot Cuor di Leone, renamed the

far-easier-to-pronounce Honor for the

screen—was the only one who agreed.

The day Cox walked on deck for a scout-

ing tour, Rosbach was the captain who

showed him around. “When a new crew

member walks on Captain Lee’s yacht on

Below Deck and he gives them that sort of

cockeyed, suspicious look, I know exactly

what that is, because I had the exact same

experience,” Cox says. “I was like, Oh, this

guy’s not messing around.”

And Rosbach admits to being skeptical.

He could tell Cox had no idea what he was

doing. Rosbach recalls thinking, “It’s

going to be a painful learning experience

if it continues.”

As Cox toured the boat, taking in the

engine room, the spotless teak decks, and

the Jet Skis, he realized his biggest chal-

lenge would be casting. Reality producers

often fish for contestants by looking for

people who behave outrageously at night-

clubs or music festivals, but because the

crew actually had to operate a boat, Below

Deck’s producers couldn’t just hire any

unhinged extrovert eager for fame. “You

can’t fake being a yachtie, because it’s a

tough job,” says Cronin. The cast would

also need proper safety certifications and

training. So with Gang’s help, Cox and his

team found people by going to crew

houses, where workers stay between jobs,

and spreading the word in Fort Lauder-

dale while shooting the sizzle reel.

Producers had initially wanted the

show’s captain to be young and hand-

some. They thought they’d found their

man in Aleks Taldykin, a yachting pro

who auditioned because the economy was

still in a postrecession slump and he

needed a job. But according to Simon

There’s a great deal

of sex in confined

spaces. Cabin cams

regularly capture

the cast changing

and hooking up.