April 13th, 2023
Berthon Spain are delighted to welcome Jaume Benejam to the team. Jaume joins us as Head of Technical, taking over the role from Nick McMullen. Born and raised in Menorca, Jaume grew up never far from the sea. His childhood summers revolved around family fishing trips along Menorca’s beautiful coastline. A love for the sea soon combined with an interest in car mechanics in his teenage years. He loved to spend his spare time working on his scooter!
It came as a logical decision then, to follow a career in marine engineering. The superyacht world was as yet unknown to him, and his early training was directed towards the merchant navy. After finishing his compulsory education, at 17 he moved from Menorca to Tarragona in mainland Spain to begin his maritime studies. During his time there he spent four years studying engineering skills, two of which included captain and navigation training. During his summer holidays he would return to Menorca and work for Volvo Penta marine centre and captain a 12m Fairline.
His first introduction to the world of superyachts came during his years of maritime studies, when working on a placement on a classic sailing yacht based in Barcelona. Watching the superyachts come in and out of port, and watching the glamorous guests and crew, he remembers how, to a young Jaume, it looked like Hollywood!
His first job placement came in true superyacht style. After giving his CV to a Spanish captain in Barcelona, but being unsuccessful in his application, he received a phone call many weeks later. He was offered a job on a Friday evening, but had to be at the boat by Monday morning. The boat was in Turkey, and Jaume in Tarragona! He did not even have his passport with him, so after a quick phone call to his mum, she flew out to Barcelona with her son’s passport and gave him a quick farewell before he flew out to Turkey to start his first job as second engineer/deckhand on a 45m motor yacht.
And the rest is history! His career progressed from second engineer/deckhand to becoming Chief Engineer, working on a variety of superyachts ranging from 30m to his last boat, a 54m Feadship. This included working as build engineer on a 30m Filippeti, overseeing the project from start to finish, assisting in a project to bring a 43m Leopard back to class, developing from scratch and implementing a maintenance schedule on a 47m Heesen and coordinating a Lloyds registry intermediate survey on the 54m Feadship. He has cruised extensively in the Mediterranean and is fluent in Spanish, Catalan, English, French and Italian!
We are delighted to have him as part of our team, and look forward to completing many projects together!
Contact Andrew Fairbrass on andrew.fairbrass@berthonspain.com.
