Aussie Hannah Ferrier reveals how close she came to “thumping” Lara on Below Deck Mediterranean
Aussie Hannah Ferrier, who stars in popular reality TV show Below Deck Mediterranean, reveals the reason she didn’t “thump” her insubordinate colleague.
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It can be a love or hate relationship for reality TV stars, when cameras trail their every move and intrude into the highs and lows of their lives.
But early on in the latest season of Below Deck Mediterranean, which follows the crew and clients on luxury yachts as they sail around impossibly beautiful European locations, Aussie Hannah Ferrier was for once glad that they were there.
Ferrier, who has been chief steward in each of the five seasons, was at her wit’s end with her openly insubordinate second-in-command, Lara Flumiani.
The pair had been trading barbs since the moment The Wellington left port and when matters came to a head in episode two, the Aussie admits the volatile situation came perilously close to fisticuffs.
“There are not many times where I am like ‘I am really glad the cameras are here’ but that scene where we were in the crew mess and she went to push me, I think I just went into a bit of shock,” Ferrier admits now, with a laugh.
“But I was like ‘Hannah, Spanish jail is just not worth it’. I have literally never been so close to wanting to thump someone in my life – and I have dealt with some twats before.”
Ferrier has had her share of run-ins with her superiors and her subordinates over the course of the cult show, but she says that Flumiani — who left the ship in last week’s episode after putting the captain off-side too — put her in a position she’d never been in before.
“I really didn’t know what to do with her,” she says. “I have dealt with slow stewardesses, or stewardesses who didn’t like authority, or ones who want to be chief stew. I have dealt with a lot in my 11 years but that was just so weird for me because it was like ‘we are four hours into the charter season – why are you fighting me at every single turn?’”
With Ferrier in charge of the hospitality, former rival from a previous season Malia White taking care of ship matters as bosun and Captain Sandy Yawn overseeing the entire yacht, it’s an entirely female-led team aboard The Wellington as it sails around the spectacular Spanish island of Mallorca in season five.
Ferrier says that comes with its own set of issues, which become more pronounced as the season progresses, but she never really noticed it at the time.
“For me, I don’t really care about what anatomy you have, I just care that you’re not an a---hole to work with,” she says. “It doesn’t really bother me if I am dealing with a male or a female, I just like it to be nice and easy.”
This season will be Ferrier’s swan song on Below Deck, and she says it’s time to go.
She recently announced she’s pregnant with her first child – she and her Scottish partner Josh have relocated to her home town of Sydney – but even before that, she knew she’d had enough.
As glamourous as life might look, the physically punishing reality below decks of up to 18 hours a day running up and down stairs before crashing in a cramped bunk is quite different.
The 33-year-old Ferrier says she’s had a blast in her 11 years in the yachting world, which has taken her to Greece, Croatia, Italy, France and now Spain, and with chief stewardesses earning 5000 Euros ($8300) a month, it’s also been lucrative enough to set her up to enter the pricey Sydney real estate market.
But the beating her body took this season, and the lack of career advancement available to her, made her realise it’s also a young person’s game.
“I think I have really done everything I wanted to do with that,” she says. “It’s sometimes difficult for viewers to understand because it looks so amazing on television. But if you eat a wagyu steak and a fondue every single day – it’s an amazing meal, but you are going to get bored of it eventually. That’s what happened with me with the constant travel and culture changes and all of that. It was really amazing and I would recommend it to anyone in their 20s but you do get to a stage where you are like ‘ugh, another country’.
“The things I missed most when I was away last year was just getting a coffee and walking my dogs. It’s something that’s so simple. So yes, I feel like I have definitely grown out of it.”
Ferrier says she’s always been excited by the prospect of motherhood and her timing couldn’t be better, having discovered she was pregnant just as the country went into lockdown.
Post-baby, Ferrier says she’s looking to stay in the local entertainment industry and the freedom to speak her mind that offers, and is also looking to explore “the hosting, tour guide side of things” as well.
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“I felt like I got so lucky because when you have the morning sickness and everything and everyone else is going out and having fun and you’re thinking ‘I can’t go out drinking and having fun – so nobody can around the whole world, you can all just say home’. So quarantine worked out well. And my partner was home so I just turned him into a man slave and it worked out perfectly.”
“I am hoping I can build a brand over here in Australia because this is where my heart is, this is where I want to raise a family so I would really like to work over here.”
* Below Deck Mediterranean, 1.30pm, Tuesday on Foxtel’s Arena. Encore screening 8.30pm, and streaming on demand.
Originally published as Aussie Hannah Ferrier reveals how close she came to “thumping” Lara on Below Deck Mediterranean