Every crewed week's quality is decided before anyone boards, on a form. The preference sheet — sent by the broker or the yacht's crew typically four to six weeks out — asks about food, drink, allergies, children, celebrations, sleep habits and itinerary hopes, and the crew builds the entire week from what it says: the provisioning orders, the restaurant shortlist, the cake that appears on the anniversary, the decaf that's somehow always there. Guests who fill it in thoughtfully get a week that feels psychic. Guests who dash it off get a competent generic one, and spend the week re-explaining themselves.
This is an explainer of standard practice; each yacht's sheet has its own fields, and the crew's follow-up questions are part of the process.
What it asks, and what to do with each section
Food — allergies with severity first, then genuine dislikes, then favourites. The chef is translating this into orders by the case; 'no shellfish, anaphylaxis' and 'not mad about prawns' are different lines of the spreadsheet and belong in different boxes. Drink — brands you actually drink, including the children's and the non-alcoholic. This is the section where specificity pays most visibly. Children — ages, meals, bedtimes, what entertains them; crews stock accordingly and plan the day's rhythm around naps without being asked twice. Celebrations — birthdays, anniversaries, the proposal you're smuggling aboard: say it here, not at dinner, and the crew has the flowers, the cake and the discreet photographer arranged. Rhythm — early risers or late, beach days or towns, packed itinerary or long lunches; the honest answer here is the difference between a week built for you and a week built for the brochure.
The timing, and the follow-up
Four to six weeks out is the provisioning machinery's lead time — the sheet triggers the orders, the crew's questions, and in the last fortnight the confirmation call where the captain walks through the itinerary against the forecast and the celebrations. Sending the sheet late compresses all of it; sending it early with honest detail buys the crew the margin to source properly. If something changes — a guest, a pregnancy, a newly discovered allergy — update the sheet rather than planning to mention it aboard.
What not to do
Don't write 'no preferences' — it transfers the decisions to people who can't make them. Don't aspirate the answers into a fantasy of yourselves: the crew would rather feed the people who arrive than the people the sheet invented. And don't treat it as a restaurant menu with infinite reach — the galley is brilliant within the week's logistics, and the request that respects that ('the fish course twice') lands better than the one that doesn't ('molecular tasting menu'). The form is short, the half hour is honest work, and the week you get back is the one you wrote.