Strong living community

Palma de Mallorca, Spain

Learn in the refit hub where boats sit alongside for months, so training, winter work and an address overlap.

●●●●○ Thriving living community · Season: Oct–Apr, the refit months · Entry → Officer

Palma runs the refit yards, so boats sit alongside for months and the crew who work them stay ashore — the one hub where training, winter work and an address overlap.

Living sceneVerified schoolsGold credential

What you can realistically reach: STCW Basic Safety Training is the legal minimum to work aboard, not a qualification to run anything. It gets you to an interview; it does not get you a job, and no school can honestly promise one. What comes after is sea time and a departmental ticket — an honest school says so before you pay.

Where it is taught — hand-verified

Schools in Palma de Mallorca

Checked by hand against each school's own course pages. No school paid to be listed.

bluewater, Palma
STCW Basic Safety Training
Calle San Juan 4. The full MCA range in the Balearics, with a head of safety training named on its own site.
https://www.bluewateryachting.com/crew-training

What the days are like

The room

Group — Classroom and pool groups of roughly 10–20, in smaller teams for the fire ground and the liferaft.
A normal day — Four to five days: firefighting in a smoke house, sea survival in a pool with liferafts, elementary first aid, and personal safety and social responsibility.
Who comes — Mostly people going for their first boat — deck, interior and galley — across a wide age range, with no sea experience assumed.

Want the rest — a normal day, first hour to last? Ask the school; a serious one answers in two minutes.

What you walk away with

The credential

STCW Basic Safety Training — four modules, MCA-approved · Certifying body: MCA (Maritime & Coastguard Agency), under the IMO STCW Convention

A recognised qualification an outside body stands behind is not the same as a certificate a school prints itself. We name which it is — you should ask the school the same.

Same discipline, other sources

Also for Yacht Crew & STCW

Antibes, France

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Cowes, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom

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Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States

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Dover, Kent, United Kingdom

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Sydney, Australia

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Why you can trust this map

What we check before we send you anywhere

This Atlas exists because there is a real difference between a school that teaches you and a good-looking website — and too much of the internet is the second kind. Here is what a place has to clear before it goes on here, and what we'll tell you straight when it doesn't.

The craft is actually alive there. A working scene, with people who do this every day — not a demo put on for visitors.
There's a real teacher behind it. Named, still practising, and certified where the craft has certificates.
The credential is what it claims to be. A state diploma and a certificate a school prints itself are not the same thing. We check which, and we say which.
Nothing here has been stood in yet. An open sheet — one with a school named — means desk research, not a visit. No place here has been stood in and dated. When one is, the check will carry a name and a date. We'd rather say that than pretend.
Nobody pays to be here. No commission, no selling the trip. The order on this map is the strength of the community, never the size of the wallet.

Before you trust any school — mine or anyone else's — ask these five things

Who actually teaches it? Can you find them by name, with a track record you can check yourself?
Is the craft alive in that place, or is the school the only thing there? A real scene has more than one good option.
What exactly do you walk away with — a recognised qualification, or a certificate they printed themselves? Ask which.
Can you speak to someone who did the course? A real person, not a testimonial on their own page.
What happens on a bad day — weather, an injury, a teacher who doesn't show? A serious place has an honest answer.

If a place dodges these, that's your answer. It costs you nothing to ask, and it tells you everything.

This is the short version. The full method is here — the six questions, in order, for any craft anywhere.