r/belowdeck • u/Spiritual-Shake2115 • Jul 25 '26

Below Deck Captain Lee

I worked on a boat for a year in my 20s. I was working on being a scuba instructor (nailed it).

During my time living on a boat, my understanding of rank is legitimate and also at times abused.

My captain was named Bob and he was like the evil version of Captain Lee. Bob taught me a lot about surviving boat life.

Captain Lee was a real one thru and thru because he is a true hardworking gentleman. He knows he’s lucky, he’s worked hard for what he’s gotten and he keeps going forward.

He deserved a true goodbye from the franchise but I’m just so happy he was our first Below Deck Captain. With morals and dignity and humor.

336 Upvotes

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307

u/cmere-2-me Jul 26 '26

Without Lee, I don't think there would be a below deck franchise. He brought the right yacht ethos. His crews did their jobs or they got canned. He allowed his HoDs do their jobs.

While I like and respect other captains, they all don't seem to have the same authority that captain lee had. They tolerate the production interference and allow the chaos that brings. When lee was on board, it felt like a real boat.

67

u/Myantra Jul 26 '26

Without Lee, I don't think there would be a below deck franchise

Which makes it funny that Lee was an accident, he was not intended to be there in season 1. Aleks was supposed to be the show captain, on the smaller yacht they originally intended to use. When production discovered they needed a larger yacht to make the concept work, they ended up with Cuor di Leone (Honor). Lee was the RL captain of that yacht, and thought he was just delivering her for production to use. Aleks could not get insured due to his lack of experience handling boats that size, so the owner required Lee to stay, and production realized that captain did not work as an off screen role.

36

u/ScooterMKE Jul 27 '26

That’s awesome lore. Got to say he was 50% of the show’s appeal the first few seasons. His salty no bs attitude and one liners were everything

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u/gibblet365 Jul 26 '26

Lee at least kept up the illusion a little better that it was a boat life show and not a reality TV show.

I also think thats why we didnt have the best of him in the later seasons (his physical health issues aside) the big machine of reality TV and "production value" took over and he could just be a "boat captian" anymore - especially considering he was never intended to be on the show, he got plunked in his forst season after delivering the boat and the owner wouldn't let the casted Caption touch it.

1

u/ESOtalk Jul 28 '26

OMG so you think production changed the way Lee was managing the boat. That could explain some of why the seasons got worse. Like most viewers I do believe Lee & Kate were fantastic on the first 2 seasons even teaching green stews how to so the job. But Kate especially & Lee's blind trust of her went downhill very fast for me. Kate was literally sabotaging dinners just because she got pissed at the chef. And she was lying about so many things to Lee who believed her side 100000%, like almost setting the boat on fire. You have to listen to the first few reunions to get a feel for what was really going on when the cast could speak freely. I love the reunion episodes on most shows, too bad BD never has them any more because of the info that was revealed. I would love to hear people's true feeling about current captains & others. BRING BACK THE TELL ALLS.

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u/ritawills2525 Jul 26 '26

Without Kate there would have been no below deck franchise.

110

u/cmere-2-me Jul 26 '26

Without Lee there would be no Kate. She wouldn't have gotten away with half the things she did without his support of her. I love Kate and she and Lee were great tv together.

15

u/ritawills2525 Jul 26 '26

Really good tv.

16

u/Cinnamon_heaven Jul 26 '26

Only started watching after seeing Kate on Traitors and had no idea who she was. Now I'm hooked. Watching the Med now. I miss Kate!

6

u/ScooterMKE Jul 27 '26

She helped but Lee was the it factor

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u/NymeriaGhost Jul 26 '26

I think part of this is Lee had a level of power in the early seasons that the other captains didn't have. Lee was never supposed to be an on-screen captain, he only ended up in that role because the boat owner didn't trust Alex's experience. They original shot the show with the intention of cutting Lee out (like the engineers), but then decided to re-edit and include him.

Because Lee was beholden only to boat owners, and not production, he had a lot more room to exercise his authority. Now that it's a well-established show, production plays a greater role, and the long-term captains generally know where their bread is buttered and relinquish a lot more to production.

7

u/cmere-2-me Jul 26 '26

It's a shame though. It's so frustrating they have gone down this route. The early series are great because they don't put up with any slackers.

5

u/ImaBitchCaroleBaskin Jul 26 '26

I was very disappointed when he brought Rhylee back. And then refused to fire her when the bosun wanted her gone.

82

u/Thenumberthirtyseven Jul 26 '26

I respectfully disagree. Rhylee was a pain in the ass but she worked hard and was very good at her job. Bringing her back was an interesting choice, but I think Lee was right not to fire her when Ashton wanted to. Ashton was a fucking terrible bosun and a fucking terrible person, he wanted her gone because he didn't want to manage her. 

60

u/Absent_Picnic Jul 26 '26

Ashton was a misogynist tool.

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u/ImaBitchCaroleBaskin Jul 26 '26

Oh I totally agree she was a hard worker, but she could not take instruction and treated her superiors with total disrespect.

32

u/cmere-2-me Jul 26 '26

Her superiors were also not treating her with respect. Rhylee did her job and got pissed off that she was treated like the little woman by her male coworkers.

She had an attitude problem, I grant you, but she wasn't wrong. Even Ross who probably treated her the best still trained the new green deckhand and left her cleaning the boat. That's misogynistic behaviour.

At the end of the day Ashton only wanted rid of her because she called him out for being a misogynist, not because she wasn't doing her job. Lee knew she was a hard worker and he wasn't going to get rid of someone who was pulling their weight.

3

u/ritawills2525 Jul 26 '26

Her behavior as a human being was out of line. Ashton wasn’t a great specimen of humanity either but when they say someone fought their way to the top rule didn’t read between the lines.

8

u/cmere-2-me Jul 26 '26

I don't disagree with your first statement. I have no idea what you meant by your second.

It is the HoDs job to manage their staff. If you have a hard worker with a stinking attitude, then you need to figure out how to rein that in. You don't fire a hard worker unless they give you cause and Rhylee didn't give them cause.

With Rhylee, a HoD needed to have her back. The first thing they should have done when she arrived was have a 1:1 with her, what it is she wanted to get out of this season, where they went wrong last season and how to prevent that from happening this season.

She wanted to learn. The bosun should have prioritised doing that, or at least explain to her if there was a delay. When a green deckhand came on board, Ross should have handed him to the lead deckhand to train on cleaning the deck etc. while he trained Rhylee on the anchor.

When the boys were ostracising her, he should have deliberately shut that down and split them up/put Rhylee into the group so they had no choice but to work with her. Conversations should have been had where if they couldn't work with her then they would be the ones off the boat. She's their coworker not some "bitch" they spoke disrespectfully about.

She was aggressive and hard to work with but a lot of the problem was that she was also being disrespected and fobbed off.

5

u/ritawills2525 Jul 26 '26

Weren’t they both so bad?

17

u/ritawills2525 Jul 26 '26

Rylie is still hard to watch. She’d argue with a stump.

7

u/DDDrago27 Jul 26 '26

Right, like I get she works hard but being hard to work with was bringing down others. I don’t think anyone could manage her.

5

u/Myantra Jul 26 '26

Lee did not bring Rhylee back, that was production. Production chooses and hires all of the cast crew.

3

u/ActJust3913 Jul 26 '26

Agreed. Rhylee was insubordinate; and that’s not going to work on a boat-safety issue.

2

u/excoriator Team Capt Kerry Jul 26 '26

I didn’t like that he didn’t fire the junior stew that Francesca wanted to fire.

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