Pyraegea is built on trust, care, and shared responsibility. Every boat is different, every crew is different, and there is no official selection committee checking who joins. That freedom is beautiful, and it also means everyone needs to do their homework.
Please do your own research before committing to a boat.
Anyone with a boat can join, and there is no ballotage commission or central approval process. Sometimes it is a captain or crew joining for the first time, and that means there may be no track record yet.
Both captains and crew should actively reach out to people who participated before: other skippers, former crew members, and trusted community contacts such as the conset or safety team. This is not someone else’s task. It is your own responsibility.
Skippers carry a lot: safety during the event, legal accountability, rental logistics, and payment pressure. That can be intense.
It helps the whole boat when others step in and share the load. Crew members can coordinate recruitment, track payments, manage communication, and support planning. In short: you do not need to be the captain to be a key organizer.
In general, we are not big fans of hired skippers.
We have seen both good and bad experiences. Sometimes hired skippers do not really understand Pyraegea culture, may keep strict professional boundaries, or can unintentionally create a colder vibe.
If you hire a skipper, make sure you know this person well and that they are genuinely aligned with burner values and the spirit of the event.
There is no single rule, and that is okay.
Skippers carry legal and practical responsibility 24/7. They usually cannot experience the event with the same carefree freedom as other participants. They are also essential for the festival itself, because the number of available skippers limits how many people can participate.
For that reason, it is fully acceptable if a skipper is partly or fully excluded from shared costs. Each boat and skipper should decide together what feels fair. Some skippers do not contribute financially, some contribute fully, and anything in between. All of these can be valid when agreed clearly and respectfully.