‘Below Deck’: Simone Mashile and Kate Chastain Argue Over Whether She Had Enough Training

Simone Mashile and Kate Chastain from Below Deck took their discussion about stew qualifications to Twitter when the two exchanged barbs about training.

Both Mashile and stew Courtney Skippon revealed they were green in certain areas of their job. As the chief stew, Chastain had to quickly assess which stew belonged in the second or third position. After an evaluation, she placed Mashile in the second stew job. However, when Mashile struggled with service, plus had a hard time learning how to open a bottle of wine, Chastain switched their roles. While she didn’t strip Mashile of her stripes, she moved Mashile into doing third stew duties and Skippon assumed the second stew position.

Mashile was disappointed that Chastain quickly moved the stews. She felt as though Chastain didn’t spend much time training her to be a strong second stew and instead gave up on her too quickly. However, Chastain doesn’t see it that way and the two made their positions clear on Twitter.

Mashile wanted more training to be a second stew

Even though Mashile struggled, she still thinks she wasn’t given enough time to grow into the position. Chastain moved Mashile back to laundry and put Skippon on service after Mashile seemed to be timid around the guests. A fan made a joke on Twitter about how much time Mashile spent in the laundry room. “Pretty much,” Mashile responded. “You learn alot about service & get A LOT of service experience from Laundry & Housekeeping based on the previous experience I’ve had.*pls note the sarcasm* Seems to be continuing here…”

But then someone pointed out she needed to either sink or swim and Mashile didn’t make the cut. Mashile responded. “Oh I hear it’s Sink or Swim but who ever swam the first couple of times they learnt to swim. Or ran the when they were first trying to walk. It’s called learning.”

Later in the season, Mashile added, “If I wasn’t doing that where did the words ” Simone is training herself in service ” come from? Seeing that I’m just sitting around not trying to do ANYTHING on my own?!”

Chastain said there wasn’t time to fully train Mashile

Mashile contends that Chastain didn’t spend the time necessary to properly train her. But Chastain says Mashile’s time on Valor wasn’t the time and the place for the training she required. A fan started a thread about the topic and Mashile said she simply wasn’t trained. “[O]ne would assume I’d be trained along the way.Wher’s the logic in taking Someone who has experience in fields A, C & D putting them in field “B” (when there’s no prior exp there) expecting them to train themselves while you train your patience becoz training is a gift?!”

But Chastain disagrees. “Simone I did attempt to train you,” she wrote. “Many times. And I was happy to. Please understand that if a deckhand didn’t know how to drive the tender we wouldn’t send the charter guests out in the tender with him/her. You know how little time we had b/t charters also.”

However, when a fan thought Chastain should have taken time out to train Mashile, Chastain explained there literally wasn’t extra time. “Laura I’m going to have to respectfully say that you truly have no idea what you’re talking about. We barely have enough time between charters to do the work necessary for the next group as it is.”