Is Captain Jason Chambers on Daisy or Ellie’s Side About the Rank Order?
aptain Jason Chambers is setting the record straight on proper rank protocol, after chief stewardess Daisy Kelliher and chef assistant Elena “Ellie” Dubaich butted heads over the correct order in which to greet charter guests during Below Deck Down Under Season 4, Episode 10. During a tense moment, Daisy directed second stewardess Jenna Woudberg to move in front of Ellie, ruffling Ellie’s feathers.
“None of it’s passive-aggressive. It’s actually right,” Jason ruled of Daisy’s behavior during the Below Deck Down Under After Show. “It’s very direct. She has every right to do that.”
The moment in question happened as the crew assembled in a line to welcome the charter five guests aboard M/Y Katina during the April 6 episode.
Chef Ben Robinson asked, “What’s the order? [Second officer] João [Franco] next to me?”
Daisy responded, “Yeah, makes sense.” But then she added, “Ellie, do you mind if Jenna stands in front of you since she’s second stew?”
When Ellie visibly hesitated, Daisy clarified, “Well, no. I’m saying, she’s standing in front of you, please. Thank you.”
Daisy elaborated on her feelings during the After Show: “Honestly, you know, she should have been at the bottom… The lineup is not important to me. I’m not actually very big personally on hierarchy. I don’t really like to call rank. I’m not massive into having a second stew. You know, I think we’re all there as a team. But really, at the end of the day, Ellie was the one who cared. But, then it made us care.”
Ellie Dubaich and Jenna Woudberg unpack their feelings on the rank controversy
Ellie decided to confront Jenna about the lineup order during the April 6 episode of Below Deck Down Under. “Did you ask to stand in line in front of me? Is that where that came from?” Ellie asked her in the galley. When Jenna was confused, Ellie added, “We’re the same rank…sous chef is the same rank as the second stew.”
But Jenna said she believed Jenna to be a “galley hand” and called her “a dishwasher” to producers. “I’m second stew, so I rank before her,” she clarified on the After Show. “But, she believes that she has a higher rank than me.”
Jenna continued, “I think it wasn’t made clear to her that she is a galley hand and not a sous chef. I think she came in thinking she had a higher rank. But no. The boat can run without you.”
Ellie confirmed this confusion during the After Show, when she continued to call herself a “sous chef,” despite a fact check on screen.
“Jenna needs to learn how a boat works. The galley is the highest-ranking team in the interior. The interior department is second in the ranking,” Ellie added on the After Show. “It’s news to you that sous chef is the same rank as you? That’s how little you know.”
Ben Robinson clarifies Ellie Dubaich’s title and rank on Below Deck Down Under Season 4
During the April 6 episode, Ellie vented about getting bumped down the line to producers. “I don’t like how Daisy’s addressing me,” she said. “She’s like commanding, like, ‘Oh, I’m telling you to move down the line.’ Like, okay, you’re not my head of department.”
So Ellie decided to take her complaint to her head of department, Chef Ben, but he wasn’t interested in getting involved. “I don’t really care,” he told her. “I don’t give a s—t what rank I am.”
However, Ben did weigh in on whether Daisy was using the proper rank protocol during the After Show. “[Daisy’s] being a little bit of a hypocrite as well, because she actually stood between me and Jason,” Ben pointed out. “Theoretically, I should stand next to Jason, and then the chief stew should stand next to me, and then I believe that the sous chef may be able to sneak between the third and the second [stews].”
When Ellie reported her back-and-forth with Jenna to Ben, Ben realized that Jenna called Ellie a “galley hand.”
“Jenna actually does have a point,” he conceded to producers during the April 6 episode. “Theoretically, a ‘galley hand’—which is what she really is, between you and me, okay? That would be a lesser rank.”
Ben admitted that he tweaked Ellie’s title when she joined the crew. “So, I’ve invented ‘chef assistant.’ Did that improve her rank? No, she’s not a ‘sous chef,’” Ben explained.
ICYMI, Captain Jason weighed in with his hot takes on the behind-the-scenes crew drama involving Ellie, Ben, and pet names.
