See full version: 10 Things You Didn; t Know About Captain Lee Rosbach; s Life on the High Seas
"Stud of the Sea" Captain Lee Rosbach has stolen our hearts with his no-nonsense leadership style, fatherly advice, and wry sense of humor in every episode of Below Deck. However, you'd think we'd know more about the man in charge of keeping the ship afloat by now. The things that make Captain Lee so lovable also make him as mysterious as the deepest parts of the ocean. more
Though the captain title sounds pretty official, we've actually been referring to Captain Lee by a nickname of sorts. Captain Lee's real full name is Harold Lee Rosbach, but, as he would probably say, what's in a name as long as you can get the job done?
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There's a lot more to the fearless leader of the #BelowDeck crew than meets the eye.
So, who is Captain Lee's wife, Mary Anne? Here's what you need to know about how the adorable pair met, how they make the distance work, and how they're coping after the massive loss they experienced. more
"My girlfriends all knew him. We all went out one night and I met Lee and he doesn't even remember meeting me," Mary Anne said as she laughed. "I made such a good impression."
Captain Lee's wife was somewhat of a mystery during the first few seasons of Below Deck, but during Season 5, she finally made a visit to Valor. The reunion of the high school sweethearts was tender, and Mary Anne even wore a jacket with a photo of the two on it from years before. While eating dinner with the crew, the couple was asked about how they first met. here
Most Below Deck crew members are single because the weeks and months spent on the boat put a huge strain on relationships. But, there is one relationship that has lasted through all seven seasons of the hit Bravo show: Captain Lee's.
Of course, this wasn’t captain Lee’s first gig. “I'd been a captain for 25 years at that point,” he explains. “Like everybody else I started out with smaller boats 70- or 80-footers, then gradually you work your way up as you increase the scope of your license and eventually, I got into superyachts.” Over his career, he’s built up a hefty portfolio of yachts, including the 46 metre Burger flagship Sycara IV (now Nadan) and the 50 metre Cuor di Leone (now Barents), which was chartered for season one under the pseudonym Honor. here
As a veteran captain, Captain Lee is no stranger to onboard drama. But the guests in front of a camera and it's a whole different ball game. “When the cameras start rolling, it’s like someone flips a switch,” says Captain Lee. Crazy guest requests are not uncommon in yachting; from sundeck foam parties to phallic cakes nothing is off limits. “It always seems to revolve around food, for some reason,” says Captain Lee. He recalls a time an owner demanded a particular suckling pig be flown into Baltimore from New Zealand for New Year’s Eve with just four days’ notice. “By the time you calculate the bills of lading and air freight, and of course we had to grease customs a little, it was probably a $10,000 pig.”
Captain Lee or ‘Stud of the Sea’, as he’s known among fans, is the frontman of superyacht reality series Below Deck. Famed for his no-nonsense attitude and sharp one-liners, Captain Lee is the longest-serving captain on the show and has been a staple cast member since the first season began filming in 2011. But it was only by complete accident that he first landed the role.
While most reality TV series have scenes that are manufactured or re-shot in the name of entertainment, Below Deck is completely unscripted with cameras rolling 24/7. The yacht is rigged with cameras with up to 15 additional camera, light and sound crew on board at any one time – including the show’s producers who eavesdrop from one of the cabins on board. Bravo has to charter a second boat to accommodate them all. The team ends up filming some 45,000 hours of film which gets condensed into around 15 forty-minute episodes in post-production per season.
Below Deck follows the lives of a yacht crew over an intense eight-week charter season. Captain Lee himself once described it as “Downton Abbey on the water” for the way it lays bare the upstairs-downstairs culture of yachting. The series’ winning formula of badly behaved guests, crew love triangles and Verve Cliquot-fuelled feuds has continued to pull in millions of views, transforming it into one of Bravo’s flagship shows. Despite his newfound fame, Captain Lee is reluctant to call himself a celebrity. “I'm just a captain doing his job,” he says. “I run the boat the way I've always run a boat. I just happened to have cameras that follow me around watching me while I do it.” [links]
The captain should hire immediate staff based on previous experience when it comes to staffing a superyacht. “A good captain who changes yachts will have a chief stewardess, first mate, and chief engineer all ready from previous jobs, and an owner who finds a good chef will try to keep him onboard at any cost,” Duncan Bray, crew services manager at Northrop & Johnson told Power & Motor Yacht. here
Rosbach responded, “Bravo does the hiring, but all have the necessary certificates to be on board and are qualified for the job in which they are placed. I would not have it any other way.”
Thankfully for Rosbach, his trusted partner, chief stew Kate Chastain seems to always be by his side. And Yawn has been partnered with chief stew Hannah Ferrier on Below Deck Med.
While the captains seem to retain a few solid crew members, the rest is beyond their control. One fan recently asked Rosbach, “Captain Lee, are all the crew members really certified and trained and do u personally hire all your crew or does @Bravotv do? I really love the show been watching since the beginning.”
BELOW DECK — Pictured: Kate Chastain — (Photo by: Greg Endries/Bravo) [links]