Blog Layout

Guest Blog - Superyacht Fitness

Crew wellbeing is something that’s really important to the team at Red Square Medical as you’ll know if you read our recent blog https://www.redsquaremedical.com/fitness-at-sea, so we were delighted to have the opportunity to chat to the expert team behind Superyacht Fitness about their focusing on exactly that…

Superyacht Fitness was launched in April at the Palma International Boat Show and initial feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. 

As the brainchild of Glen Taylor and Tim Colston, Superyacht Fitness is a new concept driven by a desire to make a difference and make fitness and wellbeing fun for crews and guests. Their key to this is to identify an individual's motivation and make exercise part of their daily routine.


Tim was born and raised in Cardiff but lived in the Cotswolds for 30 years. As a passionate sportsman (playing and watching), finding a job that takes him inside the training camps and to the heart of sport is a dream ticket. 


Glen hails from Winchester and spent the last 20 years in Commercial and Leadership roles. After cutting his teeth at IBM his career took him into the HNW space, initially with private jet operators in California. This led to the opportunity of founding the Maritime Division of RDT Ltd in 2006 and he established them as a market leader in the luxury yacht world. Twelve years later the business was sold to Phillips where he stayed until 2021. He also has a yachting consultancy business (PROP.L) which supports a number of companies with their growth ambitions and has certainly helped to frame the business model for Superyacht Fitness. He loves sport, particularly cricket, tennis and golf, plus the Peloton bike. 


Tim meanwhile spent 15 years as the MD of a global fitness equipment company, responsible for the UK operations and supplying leading health club chains with fitness equipment. After handing over the reins to someone else, he started his own business supplying fitness equipment to football clubs. This later evolved into setting up gym’s in players' homes. For the last 8 years he has supplied the most famous football players and worked with high net worth families, where the business flourished. Since then he has supplied fitness equipment to Hollywood A-listers, Royalty, some fantastic families, and of course the regular people who just want a solution to their health and  fitness needs. 


Glen added that there’s probably no one better equipped than Tim to talk gyms and design, and this combination of Tim’s experience in gym’s and his own experience in yachting and some of their incredible partners, makes a valuable team. 


The main attraction to creating Superyacht Fitness for Glen is threefold - his love of the sporting world, his love of the yachting world and an overwhelming desire to make a difference to those who work onboard yachts. He wants to develop a community that’s ready to support from both a proactive and reactive perspective. Every crew member is an individual with their own needs and should be treated as such. 


Even before meeting Glen, Tim had been chatting to the PA of one of his private clients. In particular he was fascinated by her story about working onboard an 80m yacht. She explained about the working environment and how tough it is for crews, despite the perceived glamour. At the time he hadn’t thought about the Superyacht world at all, but he was smitten!

As luck would have it, the stars aligned and just a few weeks later, introduced by a mutual friend, he met Glen for the first time. With Glen’s 18 years of experience in the Superyacht sector and his passion for sport, the two hit it off straight away. From their very first meeting Glen talked about his dream for a business that would help Superyacht crews in a totally holistic way. 

Healthy body and healthy mind is the mantra, and Glen’s enthusiasm to support Superyacht crew welfare is the cornerstone of the business. 


The year before the launch was spent developing and building a business model that fulfills this passion. Thanks to Glen’s extensive network, Tim has been introduced to some of the industry’s key players. This has provided an in-depth understanding of what’s needed and how they can best serve the industry. Consequently, the combination of Glen’s sector experience, combined with Tim’s fitness background provides the perfect balance to offer something of great value to the industry. 


So what is Superyacht Fitness? Glen and Tim have created more than just a service. Superyacht Fitness is a journey and a community. It’s personal and it uses the best that technology can provide to serve yachting industry businesses, yacht Captains, Owners and their representatives. 


It starts by establishing what the owner and crew want to achieve. Then turns it into a continuing journey where the community helps to reinforce the whole ethos of Superyacht Fitness on a daily basis.

They provide the tangible onboard services of gym design (with specialist designers), outfitting and finding equipment that really does work in the space available - something which can be a big challenge on boats. Expert instructors are available, and can offer anything from personal training, yoga and meditation, all underpinned by the latest technology. 


But they also look at creating better capability for the crew by utilising or changing multi-versatile spaces onboard. For instance, there are many other ways to maximise a cinema room and activities such as Golf or F1 simulators that the crew can use as well as the guests could be considered.


Superyacht Fitness takes it a step further too. The community that’s being built is a place to turn to for all needs relating to crew welfare in addition to fitness, including: mental health, leadership, conflict onboard, meditation.


Both Glen and Tim still run their own businesses independently of Superyacht Fitness, so their daily routines are quite varied. But they both recognise that Superyacht Fitness is gaining momentum and will soon become their primary focus. A typical day might be spent meeting with clients, developing new business opportunities and exploring potential partnerships. 


They both love what they do and a big part of that is meeting new people and making a positive difference. As a non-medical person, Glen is excited about the future and moving on from that sector, while Tim is enjoying learning about a new sector and passing on his 35 years of knowledge and expertise to the Superyacht world. 


Tim is keen to promote the fact that there is a whole lot more to fitness than treadmills and gym equipment, we just need to get the message out there. Superyacht Fitness works with everything and anything in relation to kit and equipment - the focus is not about equipment. It’s about matching the clients needs, even if that involves no fitness equipment and simply suggesting a pair of trainers to go walking in!


So, from the simplest needs to the world’s largest yachts, Superyacht Fitness ensures a personalised and professional approach to supporting each and every person on the vessel, whatever their role.


The key thing is to keep moving as being sedentary is never a good thing and brings all sorts of problems. Onboard, cramped conditions for crew can make exercise hard and they can have periods where they work long hours and need time and space to down tools and decompress. This means different things to different people so it’s their job to cater for all personalities onboard. 


We recommend a device such as MyZone to monitor your activity and with the help of the Superyacht Fitness team's personal approach, we work with the individual to encourage movement and exercise through gamification and interaction with team members.

Keeping up to date with technology, new developments and innovation is fundamental to the ambitions of Superyacht Fitness, which is fortunate in an industry that never sits still!

Both Glen and Tim enjoy learning and keep current by attending trade shows and seminars globally, visiting clients and learning from them. Their mutual love of fitness and the industry makes it fun to continue this development. It’s certainly an industry where you can pick up something new every day and it has a rich and varied talent pool who, in the main, like to share knowledge and their network of strategic partners keep them on the pulse all the time.

Both Tim and Glen have a work hard, play hard attitude and exercise is their escape when they need to clear their heads. They recognise that sometimes, though they love what they do, time out is really valuable and they need to remind themselves of the importance of it. It’s part of what they want to introduce and reinforce with the crews and at the core of the business is a desire to make sure that Superyacht Fitness is fun for them as well as fun for their clients. 


If you’d like to find out more about Superyacht Fitness and what the team could do to help you and your crew, please feel free to visit their website and enquire. 

https://www.superyachtfitness.com/

This should be shared far and wide....

Guest blog: Jordan Lin

by Rachel Smith • 08 May, 2024
At Red Square Medical, we’re keen to support those who have a passion for maritime medicine. While we can’t provide placements for everyone, occasionally a request pops up at just the right time and we can provide some experience and insight into our unique and specialised world. Last year we were contacted by Jordan Lin, a medical student with a love of the ocean. This is his story… When I was a boy, my dad and I used to go fishing with a local fisherman off the Norfolk coast. I absolutely loved being on the sea and so for quite a long time, I wanted to be a fisherman. When I got a bit older I kind of forgot about this and think I may have been slightly put off by watching the TV series ‘World’s Deadliest Catch’! But I have always loved being on the water and spent a lot of time sailing dinghies; I was also a swimming teacher for children back in high school and college. Later, I decided to study medicine and I’m now a final year medical student at the University of Bristol where I completed an intercalated degree; a Masters in Health Sciences Research. I’m now looking forward to starting work as a qualified Doctor in August. Though having spent 6 years training, my next 2 years will be spent working for the required two foundation training years that must be completed before being able to work independently as a Doctor in the UK. At university, I joined the VITA network which is a group dedicated to developing a health and public health approach at the heart of any response to human trafficking and exploitation. I became the blog coordinator for the organisation and you can read the blogs, including those that I have written, here: https://vita-network.com/blog/ In my spare time, I have been involved with the Bristol University Hot Air Ballooning Society and trained through the society to get my Balloon pilots licence. So, I often spend weekends during the summer flying in a leisurely fashion over Bristol and the surrounding area!

That Lightbulb Moment!

by Rachel Smith • 24 Apr, 2024
At Red Square Medical, we’re fascinated by the learning process - it’s key to our business after all. But we often wonder what happens when our students leave the classroom. Do they remember what they’ve learnt? What if they’re faced with a real emergency, will they know what to do? Is there a lightbulb moment when it all clicks into place? Skill fade is a very real issue, as we wrote about in this blog , and we know that setting up drills and practice scenarios when you’re back in your environment, with your kit and crew, can make a massive difference. It’s great to get some feedback from our students too. Last year, we received photos from the Southern Ocean from a solo round the world sailor who was able to successfully steri-strip a cut eyebrow closed. Or the Captain who recognised a heart attack in a crew member because they looked just like the guy he saw in the video on one of our courses.

Worse Things Happen at Sea… a salty tale of dysentery, haemorrhoids, accidents, depression and death!

by Rachel Smith • 03 Apr, 2024
You might wonder about the title of this month’s guest blog, as Worse Things Happen at Sea is also the name of our monthly newsletter. But this month, we’re delighted to introduce Andrew Edwards as our Guest Blogger, and we felt his amazing story about life at sea really deserved a dramatic headline… Dysentery... In the summer of 1966, I was a cadet on a cargo ship that loaded in the UK for 9 ports in West, South and East Africa. Our first port of call was Luanda, the capital of Angola – which was then a colony of Portugal. Next, 300 miles down the coast we called in to Lobito – also in Angola. In Lobito two of the ship's company contracted dysentery; myself and a big Irishman called Reg. The shoreside Doctor we saw simply diagnosed the condition (amoebic dysentery) and said, ‘sorry but I have no antibiotics for this!’. Thankfully the ship’s purser stood our corner and demanded that the Doctor find some. The following day the antibiotics were flown in from the Belgian Congo. The Doctor gave us no advice as to how to deal with the condition, not a word about how contagious it was, not a word as to the importance of thoroughly washing our hands and maintaining scrupulous personal hygiene. Thankfully both Reg and I were quartered just a short sprint from the heads, and we were left to get on with it by our shipmates. It took about a week to get over the dysentery, by which time I had lost several stone in weight and was as weak as a kitten. By the time we arrived in Walvis Bay, South West Africa (now known as Namibia), a further 1000 miles south, I was just about fit enough to play football for the ship against a local team. Their football ground had a main road going right through the middle of it which made for some challenging moments, but they still beat us comfortably and they were playing in bare feet!

How does the Easter Bunny avoid Diabetes?

by Rachel Smith • 20 Mar, 2024
As it’s Easter, we thought that it would be a very appropriate time, what with all that chocolate around, to take a closer look at the subject of Diabetes and why it’s such a huge problem in the UK and across the world. The Easter Bunny always looks so cute and cuddly, but is he a diabetes case waiting to happen? Or does his diet of grass and all that hopping around for the rest of the year make an important difference? According to the WHO, diabetes is a chronic, metabolic disease which is characterised by elevated levels of blood glucose (or blood sugar). Over time, this leads to serious damage to the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves. The most common is type 2 diabetes, and it usually develops with a late onset in adults. It occurs when the body becomes resistant to insulin or doesn't make enough insulin. Worryingly, in the past 3 decades the prevalence of type 2 diabetes has risen dramatically in countries of all income levels and is closely linked to obesity, poor diet, and an unhealthy lifestyle. Symptoms for type 2 diabetes are generally similar to those of type 1 diabetes (need to urinate often, thirst, constant hunger, weight loss, vision changes and fatigue), but are often less marked. As a result, the disease may be diagnosed several years after onset, after complications have already arisen. For this reason, it is important to be aware of risk factors. Effective approaches are available to prevent type 2 diabetes and to prevent the complications and premature death that can result from all types of diabetes. These include policies and practices across whole populations and within specific settings (school, home, workplace) that contribute to good health for everyone, regardless of whether they have diabetes, such as exercising regularly, eating healthily, avoiding smoking, and controlling blood pressure and lipids. Type 1 diabetes, once known as juvenile diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes, is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin by itself. Normal onset is in younger people, but can also be in adults. Symptoms of type 1 diabetes include the need to urinate often, thirst, constant hunger, weight loss, vision changes and fatigue. These symptoms may occur suddenly. Type 1 diabetes cannot currently be prevented. It’s thought to be caused by an autoimmune reaction which destroys the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. It can also be caused by genetics, viruses, trauma, tumours, removal of the pancreas or other damage to the pancreas. About 422 million people worldwide have diabetes, the majority living in low-and middle-income countries, and 1.5 million deaths are directly attributed to diabetes each year. But the number of cases and the prevalence of diabetes have been steadily increasing over the past few decades. The starting point for living well with type one or type 2 diabetes is an early diagnosis – the longer a person lives with undiagnosed and untreated diabetes, the worse their health outcomes are likely to be. Easy access to basic diagnostics, such as blood glucose testing, should therefore be available in primary health care settings. Patients will need periodic specialist assessment or treatment for complications. A series of cost-effective interventions can improve patient outcomes, regardless of what type of diabetes they may have. These interventions include blood glucose control through a combination of diet, physical activity and, if necessary, medication; control of blood pressure and lipids to reduce cardiovascular risk and other complications; and regular screening for damage to the eyes, kidneys and feet to facilitate early treatment.

Reflective Practice and why it’s so important

by Rachel Smith • 21 Feb, 2024
Well, we’ve made it to February! How are your goals for the year going so far? As you’ll know, we do love a bit of goal setting at Red Square Medical HQ. But, we also understand the importance of Reflective Practice too. Especially in relation to setting goals. Want to know more? Please read on…

Guest Blog - Sam Kelly MSA

by Rachel Smith • 07 Feb, 2024
Today we start the first in a series of blogs in conjunction with our friends at the Maritime Skills Academy, and kicking it all off is a Guest Blog from MSAs Head of Training, Sam Kelly. Sam is 37 and lives in southeast Kent, in the quaint seaside town of Deal with with his wife, two children and a ‘Golden Doodle’ called Pringle. He has lived in the area ever since his father, a serving Royal Marine at the Deal Depot, and mother decided this was the place to raise their family. And it is, quite frankly, an excellent place to live. Here is his story… I’m the Head of Training for the Maritime Skills Academy, based in our head office in Dover. I oversee a team of Maritime Safety Instructors who deliver all STCW training for seafarers. Outside the Dover base, we have MSA Gibraltar. This location is operated in partnership with the University of Gibraltar and delivers Basic Safety Training and most recently Operational Firefighting, We are actually in the process of building a state-of-the-art Fire Training Module on ‘the Rock’.

Dry January!

by Rachel Smith • 17 Jan, 2024
So Christmas seems like years ago, and we’re all well into the New Year now. Did you make any resolutions? Some love to, some don’t. At Red Square Medical HQ, we love a goal or two and think the turn of the years can be a good prompt to make some positive changes. But, it’s well known that New Year resolutions don’t last. Forbes magazine tells us that 21% don’t make their resolution stick for even a month. While 34% state that it lasted for between one and three months. Is that a failure though? Or could it be all it takes to make some small changes that have a lasting impact? We thought it would be good to take a closer look at one of the most popular resolutions… Dry January! Now, let’s get one thing straight, the Red Square Medical team are not averse to a tipple or two! But as medics, we’re very aware of the short and long term benefits of giving our livers a little breather every so often. Of course, everyone responds differently to stopping drinking for a month, so the timeline below is just a guide. But it might help you to decide whether it’s a good idea to give the booze a break for a while, or work towards reducing your intake - we know it’s easy for it to creep up over time!

12 months since I left the NHS

by Rachel Smith • 03 Jan, 2024
What I miss most about the Ambulance Service… It’s been 12 months since I left the Ambulance service after 8 years of working frontline, and to be honest it’s flown by. A few weeks ago the team at Red Square Medical HQ were chatting about how life has changed in that time and what, if anything, I was missing from my former life! The list might just surprise you… Most of all, I miss my old colleagues and I definitely miss the patient contact. And driving on blue lights… that was one of the best parts of the job! Working in the ambulance service with regular partners who you get on well with really does create friendships for life. Or even doing a tricky job with someone you don’t know well provides a common bond forever. Every day you’re facing stressful situations and sometimes split second, life changing decisions. You rely on each other totally and make sure you keep each other safe in some difficult and challenging situations. I worked with 3 very different partners most of the time for my last few years and I miss them all. Happily though, I have some great new colleagues at Red Square Medical and Outreach Rescue, the other company that I work for.

Guest Blog - Rachel Smith

by Rachel Smith • 03 Jan, 2024
I was born in a tiny village in Northamptonshire but had a fairly nomadic childhood, eventually settling in the industrial town of St Helens in the north west. As a child I was horse mad, so boats never got a look in. Apparently ‘horse’ was the first word I said and despite the fact that we could never afford a horse, my dream was always to ride and work with horses. It’s perhaps an early indication of my goal-oriented side that I got a Saturday job as soon as I could. At the age of 13, I’d cycle a 12 mile round trip, twice a day, just to go and ‘muck out’ at a local farm where they bred Welsh ponies and Arab horses! There wasn’t even any riding. Later, I found myself working for the family of a young girl who would go on to represent Great Britain in dressage at the Olympics. The work was physically hard and the standards high. No corners were cut and I learnt the skills I needed the old fashioned way. I got to travel all over the UK in the branded horsebox which was pretty exciting for a teenager. But I think I will always be grateful for the solid work ethic and sense of responsibility that this job instilled in me. I always planned to leave school at 16 and go to ride racehorses. But I got quite reasonable exam results and a new degree course was announced in Equine Science and Business which changed the plan. So, after taking the required year out, when I worked in an eventing yard in Yorkshire, I started the 3 year course. For the two work placements, I opted to go abroad, to Italy and the USA, which supercharged my desire to travel. I continued working in the equestrian world for a couple more years, but the poor pay and prospects, plus a dose of pneumonia pushed me onto a different path. I got a job in telemarketing for a bank, and after putting forward the idea of finance for horses, I found myself transferred to Marketing for 6 months. 16 years later, I was still there!

Are they wearing a beer jacket??

by Rachel Smith • 20 Dec, 2023
Christmas is coming and the season of parties is upon us. Of course this means that most of us will overindulge in large amounts of luscious food and, of course, a tipple or two. At Red Square Medical HQ, we have a method of categorising drunk people. During our combined careers, we’ve dealt with more drunks than we can remember; it’s easily running into several hundred. What we’ve learnt, amongst other things, is that most people who are drunk fall into one of these categories. Now please don’t judge as it is purely observation and also makes for an interesting chat when delivering the STCW Medical training, because we all know at least one person from each category and sometimes… a person can be in multiple categories depending on many other factors, or, we might even have been there ourselves! Once we have established these categories there is a serious note to this blog so please do keep reading.
More posts
Share by: