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“I think our crew this year was a little bit brighter than your average crew,” Captain Lee Rosbach told me over a late breakfast at Sarabeth’s on Central Park South in New York City, where we were seated at a table looking directly out the window onto the outside diners, even though it was a bit windy, and right into Central Park. I was two questions deep into my interview with the Below Deck star when two middle-aged women appeared next to him at the table.
“I just have to say, we are so excited to see you!” one exclaimed in a part-gush, part-squeal. They took turns speaking over each other to tell him, “You’re amazing!” and “I was so excited the season started!” and “I’m so sorry to bother you!” and “Love the show!” Captain Lee gave them a cheerful, “Thank you!” and just as they were about to take their squeals and go, one came back to guarantee that he knew, “You’re much handsomer in person, I just have to say.”
This was not the only interaction he experienced during our chat, as the couple at the table behind ours also stopped by on their way out, with the man offering Captain Lee a firm handshake, and his wife relaying, “He doesn’t watch reality TV but he’s a fisherman.”
It’s not surprising that people want to say hi to Captain Lee: he’s been on the Bravo series for seven seasons, and he’s the guy in charge. He knows how to run a yacht and the crew that works on it, and unlike the yachties, he’s not the one ever actin’ a fool or embarrassing himself. In fact, his only rule for them is “don’t embarrass yourself and don’t embarrass the boat.” Few have ever successfully followed this rule, and that’s precisely what makes Below Deck so enjoyable to watch.
And when it comes to the current season airing Monday nights on Bravo, even though we’re just two episodes deep, Captain Lee promises, “The whole season’s exciting.” What’s particularly refreshing about this series is that each season manages to be exciting in its own way. During Season 6 last year, much of that was due to Ashton Pienaar’s near-death experience when he fell off the yacht with a line tied around his ankle. This year, he returns as bosun and Captain Lee said, “I think he did well. One of the most important lessons that Ashton learned this year is, it’s an old saying that I rely on a lot, people don’t know what they don’t know. And when you get into a situation where you’re elevated to a position of authority, that’s a learning experience where you finally find out what you really don’t know.” Captain Lee points to the fact that Ashton forgot to make sure his team ate lunch and dinner during the first charter of the season, an experience that he believes helped him “realize just how inadequate you are in certain areas. It’s like, Jesus Christ, how do you forget to feed your crew? Until you’re there and the light goes on, you’re like, how could I possibly screw something like that up.”
I get his opinion on new Chef, Kevin Dobson, who has already displayed a strong personality in just a couple of installments of the show. “I don’t dislike him,” Captain Lee said after thinking for a beat. “Would he and I go hang out together, probably not. I find him a tad too arrogant for my taste. Without that much to be arrogant about.”
His close relationship with Chief Stewardess Kate Chastain remains intact, though he admits he was shocked to see her threatening to quit her job in this season’s trailer. “That really surprised me because I have no idea what prompted it. Kate rarely comes to me with an issue, I can probably count on one hand as many times as she’s ever come to me with an issue that she couldn’t handle, because she’s just good at her job. If there’s a problem, she deals with it, I don’t need to get involved, which is one of the reasons I like working with Kate because it makes my job so much easier. So if there’s something that’s going to cause her to behave in that fashion, it’s gotta be pretty drastic. I can’t think of anybody that’s capable of pushing Kate’s buttons to the point where that would happen.” While he wasn’t clued in to the drama at the time, and suspects that “it would have to be a collective effort of more than one person” to cause that reaction, he’ll be tuning into the show just like the rest of us to see what went down to cause that uncharacteristic behavior for the typically professional yachtie.
As for the rest of the group this year, well, maybe not so much. I ask him about the brief scene in the trailer where he’s shown shirtlessly and forcefully closing doors after reprimanding the crew for being rowdy. “I live for those moments, said no one ever,” Captain Lee says, the first of three times he’ll use that joke structure, and due to the way it pairs so well with his dry sense of humor, it somehow gets funnier each time. “I was just a wee bit unhappy,” he said of that moment. “It’s three o’clock in the morning and they’re slamming doors and hollering and partying like they’re rockstars. I got no time for it. I don’t get enough sleep as it is.”
And that’s rarely because he’s up late partying with the guests on the yacht. While many will invite him to join them for dinner, he doesn’t accept all the invitations and says it “depends on the guests.” So when one does come through requesting his presence that he has no interest in accepting, he says he “will defer to Kate because she is much more of a diplomat than I could ever be, and I’ll have her decline for me. Some people I either can’t or won’t tolerate. If I really don’t like you, I’ll make sure you have a great time on your charter but I still don’t like you. Like, let’s use Brandy for an example,” he says, bringing up the latest drunken disaster of a guest. “What a great wife she would be, said no one ever,” and that’s two, for those counting at home.
I asked what the deal was with her, as she was seen stumbling around when the group arrived at the yacht, and she couldn’t even make it through the yacht tour without passing out. “I don’t know what she was on but it was something,” Lee said. “There was no way you could spin that to say that that was a good look for her or anyone else. I thought it was rather pathetic.”
What exactly is the protocol for allowing a guest in that condition to ride on the boat? “The first thing I had to do was make sure that she was actually physically okay. After I was sure that she was physically okay then her mental state had to be addressed, which was like, I don’t know, it was like taking a burlap bag full of bobcats and they’re all trying to get out at the same time. I mean, she was just everywhere,” and he noted it took hours for her to chill out.
He might run into some rather drunk ladies at the upcoming BravoCon, this November in New York City, and I ask who he’s excited to see at the network’s gathering: perhaps Vanderpump Rules star Jax Taylor who recently blocked him on Twitter? Captain Lee replied sarcastically, “Oh I’m just dying to say hi to Jax. I may just run right up and plant a big wet sloppy one on his lips, said no one ever.” (That’s three!)
To seriously answer my question, he says, “I would love to meet Lisa [Vanderpump]. I’m looking forward to seeing my friend Patricia [Altschul]. I’m sure she’ll have Michael with her. Michael is so funny.” Captain Lee let me into his recent trip to Charleston, SC at the beginning of the summer, when he recalled, “Patricia called me up, it was like 1:30, 2 in the afternoon she said, ‘Captain Lee, I’m so sorry to bother you so late in the morning but I’ve just been so lazy today, I haven’t gotten out of my pajamas,” following that up with the offer to show Captain Lee and his wife Mary Anne around Charleston. “It was Michael’s day off but they came over in her Rolls and took us on a three-hour tour of Charleston and then we went back to her place and had cocktails.” There was a definite twinge of regret in his voice when he had to admit he did not try Michael’s Magical Medicinal Martini, but couldn’t help but share another Michael anecdote.
“He’s just so intuitive, he knows when your drink is getting low and he’s there with another one and you go, where the hell did he come from?” Even though the Rosbachs were staying at a hotel just two blocks away, before they even stood up, Michael was there waiting for the couple, letting them know he was ready to drive them back to the hotel. “I said, ‘No, we’ll walk Michael, it’s just two blocks,’” Captain Lee told him. “And he goes, [Captain Lee pauses and scrunches up his face] ‘Why would you?’ And I go, ‘I guess I wouldn’t. Please bring the Rolls around front Michael!’” He further complimented Michael, somewhat of a chief stew for Patricia, by describing him as “excellent,” “a walking encyclopedia, especially about Charleston,” and “just a treasure to hang out with.”
It’s a mixture of being appreciative, humble, and realistic that keeps Captain Lee, with all his stature and success, still impressed by many of the experiences his life has afforded him. He tells me he was “in awe of the whole situation,” when he presented at the Creative Arts Emmys last month in Los Angeles alongside Chastain. “People that are holding Emmys are coming up and congratulating us on our show and I’m going, you’re the one with the Emmy in your hand, I should be congratulating you.”
But hello, did they just captain a mega-yacht around Thailand? I think not! “It’s gorgeous,” Captain Lee confirmed, also saying “the people there are so friendly, so nice. You see some weird stuff though. Like, monkey beach. I mean, this poor little female monkey, she’s just sitting there minding her own business and this male monkey just comes out of nowhere and decides it’s time! Has his way, she tries to get away, and oh no honey, you’re not going anywhere. I’m going, god this is information overload.”
I was thinking the same but asked how his shoulder was doing after his recent surgery, suspecting it might be hard for him to relax and recover. “On more than one occasion I have pissed my doctor off and he was grateful when I saw him yesterday that I’m making good progress and I didn’t undo any of his handy work.” Instead, the doctor sent him on his way with new exercises to do before his next visit in six weeks. “Do you think this weighs more than two pounds?” he asked, picking up his Bloody Mary from the table. “If it weighs more than two pounds I have to drink it with my other hand,” he said. And then he launched into a joke he shared the previous day in the doctor’s office. “My doctor told me yesterday, you can’t lift anything with your right arm that weighs more than three pounds. I said, ‘Well how am I gonna go to the bathroom?’”
It was at that moment I realized Captain Lee totally just dropped a dick joke. “Yeah, trying to think of something to say now, aren’t you!” he laughed. “Where do you go from there?”
Below Deck airs Monday at 9pm ET/PT on Bravo.
