Captain Jason Chambers Fires Mike Durrant: “Will Not Tolerate Disrespect”
Captain Jason Chambers Fires Mike Durrant: "Will Not Tolerate Disrespect"
After several warnings, Captain Jason Chambers finally fired Mike Durrant from his deck/stew position on M/Y Katina during Below Deck Down Under Season 4.
Prior to Mike’s dismissal in Episode 14, chief stew Daisy Kelliher explained to Captain Jason why she had kicked him off the boat just more than 24 hours before the next group of charter guests arrived.
“Yesterday, I said, ‘Mike, please don’t wind anyone up,’ and this morning, he’s at it again,” Daisy recounted, referring to his most recent dustup with Jenna Woudberg. “So, I said, ‘You’re working ’til 9 p.m.’ As I was walking out the door, he goes, ‘I won’t be working ’til 9 p.m.’ And I said, ‘Get off the boat.’ So, this is where we’re at.”
Captain Jason responded by telling Daisy, “It sounds like you’ve handled this professionally. Respect is not there, and there’s a history of it. If he cannot see that, after several times being told, you learn from the school of hard knocks.”
After sending Second Officer João Franco to bring Mike back aboard the vessel, Jason remarked, “He’s had enough chances. Sometimes, lessons have to be learned the hard way.” In a confessional, he added, “This is unacceptable. I will not tolerate disrespect to my HODs.”
As Captain Jason eventually explained to Mike directly, “I’ve heard the full story from Daisy, and what it’s come down to was disrespectful to your team leader. Look, you’ve been given the warnings. There is a toxicity on board, and you’re the source. Daisy and João have done everything possible to help you flourish here. You think this is a bit of a joke. I won’t tolerate it. I need you to leave the boat today. I’m sending you home.”
How Mike Durrant reacted to getting fired on Below Deck Down Under
After learning his fate, Mike immediately apologized to Daisy “for how this whole season’s been, to be honest, from the start to finish.” He also chalked up his behavior to being a sort of “release” for him.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been sacked for being the class clown, for being the joke,” Mike elaborated in a confessional. “The thing is, I can never change who I am.”
In the May 4 episode, Mike also asserted to Alesia Harris, with whom he’d also had plenty of drama, “Personally, I don’t think I did anything wrong.” With the benefit of hindsight, however, he changed his tune a bit on the Below Deck Down Under After Show.
“When I left the boat, I had a massive sense of relief, and that’s when I knew my time was at an end,” Mike shared. “Do I disagree with Daisy’s decision? Absolutely not. She made the right call, and I was completely accepting of it.”
Mike went on to say that he ultimately realized that his hybrid deck/stew position wasn’t the right fit for him.
“Every time I went on that deck, I absolutely loved it,” he explained. “[On] the steward side of things, I just felt I was very, very bored, and I lost all sense of passion. I lost all sense of wanting to be in this role. But if I would’ve dealt with it better and just spoken to Daisy, I think things probably would’ve been a lot different, and I probably wouldn’t have been sacked.”
Captain Jason Chambers unpacks his decision to fire Mike Durrant
In a separate interview setup on the After Show, Captain Jason reiterated his support of Daisy’s request to remove Mike from her interior crew.
“At the end of the day, she’s got experience,” he said. “If she thinks that she can improve her team and doesn’t want to tolerate that person on her team anymore, I’m gonna back her up. You know, there’s no questions about it.”
Daisy, for her part, commented on the fact that she felt “backed into a corner,” having already given Mike “so many final warnings.” Even though she referred to his claims of boredom and preference for the deck crew as “excuses,” she insisted that she took no pleasure in letting Mike go.
During the episode, Captain Jason had even told Daisy that he was “proud” of her for “not taking that s–t,” declaring, “We’re all behind you.”
See more of the cast’s reactions to losing another crew member by watching the video at the top of this post. In the meantime, don’t miss why Captain Jason had already come close to firing Mike earlier on Below Deck Down Under Season 4.
