Captain Glenn Shephard

Sydney Zaruba is a bit unhinged when it comes to love. That’s become a well-established fact in the universe of Below Deck Sailing Yacht. But it turns out that when you add alcohol, she gets even worse. This is something poor Alli Dore learned quickly at the end of last week’s episode. You know, the one where a drunk Sydney went on the attack and drove Alli to flee to her cabin with her constant passive-aggressive jabs. Last week, Colin Macrae chalked it up Sydney just being a scary drunk. But this week, he expounds on his theory that it all goes back to the love triangle that never ends. Sydney’s just jealous and picking a fight over Gary King.

Thankfully, we quickly skip ahead to the next morning. Which turns out to be a turnaround day on the boat, since the next charter doesn’t start until the following afternoon. Jean-Luc Cerza Lanaux and Dani Soares emerge from their guest cabin in postcoital bliss. Or at least general giddiness. (They even used the master suite because it tuns out JL’s 6’9″ frame won’t even fit in the other guest beds, either.) And Alli‘s waking up to the realization that yes, she has a growing “attachment” to Gary. But she refuses to do anything about it on account of Sydney‘s, ahem, rather intense feelings for the shaggy-haired first mate.

Portions sizes. That’s the latest topic of contention between Daisy Kelliher and Natasha De Bourg on Below Deck Sailing Yacht. At the end of last week’s episode, the chief stew and the chef went head to head over rather large serving sizes. See, the guests all said the food was great. There was just one problem: they literally couldn’t finish their meal. Of course, when Daisy pointed this out as the boat’s intermediary between the guests and the galley, Natasha threw a fit and stormed off.

But in reality, the fight wasn’t about how much food is on each plate during service. Even though Daisy was technically correct on that point. It’s about Natasha‘s startling inability to take any kind of feedback. Constructive or otherwise. In Natasha’s world, she’s perfect. And she isn’t interested in hearing anything otherwise, thank you very much. Not even when she has yet to successfully cook an egg for breakfast this entire season.

Welcome back to Below Deck Sailing Yacht, where Barrie Drewitt-Barlow and his family have permanently taken over Parsifal. At least that’s what it feels like, considering this is the third week in a row we’ve been subjected to them on our screens. This family is never leaving the boat. They’ve complained about hollandaise sauce. The kids have competed for Louis Vuitton shoes. Last week’s episode ended with the male crew members in drag. All caught up? Good. Because we have one more episode of the twisted Brady Bunch to get through…

Bright and early the morning after the drag dinner, it’s day three of the charter. Or four. Or six. Or sixteen. Honestly, don’t ask me, I’ve completely lost track. All I know is this is the charter that never ends and this family needs to get off the boat. It’s also Barrie’s ex-husband’s birthday, so a full afternoon of water sports are in order. But not until after a breakfast of beans on toast for everyone! That’s something Natasha De Bourg can do better than poaching an egg. What she still can’t do, it seems, is deliver what she promises to the guests. This time being a cotton candy machine for the birthday dinner. The chef takes all of ten minutes trying to make candy floss, as she calls it, before calling it quits and walking away. No cotton candy for you, Tony!

Note to anyone reading this recap: if you ever go on a luxury sailing vacation, do not act like Barrie Drewitt-Barlow. Better yet, don’t do it on any vacation ever. The Below Deck universe is certainly no stranger to difficult guests. They all tend to be—at turns—finicky, entitled, pretentious and snobbish. That’s part of why they’re charting a private mega-yacht on a reality TV show. But on a scale of entertaining to impossible, Barrie is on a level all his own. Is he the most critical, demanding guest in Below Deck Sailing Yacht history?

Also, remember how last week I said the tangled web between Barrie, his daughter Saffron and her ex-boyfriend/his current boyfriend Scott couldn’t possibly get any more, ahem, complicated? I lied. I did some casual online sleuthing. And a quick perusal of the internet revealed that Barrie and Scott welcomed a baby girl via surrogate just one month after this vacation to Croatia. Her name is Valentina Willow Drewitt-Barlow. According to the article I found, she was born in September 2020. Which makes Saffron’s ex-boyfriend not only her dad’s partner, but also the father of her new half-sister.