Longtime fans of Bravo’s hit yachting reality show Below Deck fell in love with Eddie Lucas all the way back in Season 1. Originally serving as a deckhand, Lucas was later promoted to bosun for the subsequent two seasons, only to disappear from our screens completely. He made his triumphant return to Below Deck in Season 8, even though he admitted to Bravo’s The Daily Dish, after Season 3, “I really never thought I was gonna be coming back.” As Lucas revealed, he got sick of yachtie life.
The reality star explained, “I was kind of tired of dealing with the guests and dealing with the constant upkeep of the boat and the cleaning and everything like that. But also most importantly, I wanted to find a job where I was home. I was near my dad and my stepmom, and I could kind of start creating a life at home rather than constantly moving around from port to port, away from home for months on end” (via The Daily Dish). As it turns out, Lucas’ day job is close to his onscreen one and yet totally different.
Below Deck’s Eddie Has A Very Different Job When He’s Not On The Show
Longtime fans of Bravo’s hit yachting reality show Below Deck fell in love with Eddie Lucas all the way back in Season 1. Originally serving as a deckhand, Lucas was later promoted to bosun for the subsequent two seasons, only to disappear from our screens completely. He made his triumphant return to Below Deck in Season 8, even though he admitted to Bravo’s The Daily Dish, after Season 3, “I really never thought I was gonna be coming back.” As Lucas revealed, he got sick of yachtie life.
The reality star explained, “I was kind of tired of dealing with the guests and dealing with the constant upkeep of the boat and the cleaning and everything like that. But also most importantly, I wanted to find a job where I was home. I was near my dad and my stepmom, and I could kind of start creating a life at home rather than constantly moving around from port to port, away from home for months on end” (via The Daily Dish). As it turns out, Lucas’ day job is close to his onscreen one and yet totally different.
The reality star has a demanding job on a tugboat
As Lucas explained to Bravo’s The Daily Dish, he found local work at home in Baltimore on tugboats, which satisfied his desire to work on the water, but also to have more of a life and a sense of freedom. In fact, the Below Deck fan favorite cut his teeth on tugboats for nearly five years between seasons, ultimately upgrading his qualification to a 1600-ton license and getting promoted to a coveted position as first mate, which he’s held ever since. As per his LinkedIn page, Lucas has been employed by Moran Towing Corporation since 2017. Working aboard a four-person tugboat is a massive challenge. Lucas advised The Daily Dish, “It’s 24 hours a day, seven days a week for two weeks that we’re on, and it’s constant work.”
He added, “I’m up all night long almost every single night doing pretty inherently risky activities, docking massive ships into Baltimore Harbor.” Lucas described it as “exciting” and challenging in equal measure, noting, “I love my work,” despite the fact it’s worlds away from the glamorous yachtie life. However, “it’s not as demanding in the sense of dealing with guests and constant upkeep of the boat.” As Lucas admitted to Cosmopolitan, his tugboat colleagues love watching him on Below Deck purely so they can make fun of him for it, even encouraging him to do better cameos. Following Season 8, Lucas returned to the tugboat life, telling Vulture it’s been “business as usual” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Truth About Eddie Lucas’ Return To Below Deck
If you’re a Below Deck fan, you may be surprised to learn that Eddie Lucas is making a comeback. Yep, the OG Below Deck cast member who appeared in Seasons 1-3 is back for Season 8. Speaking about his return to Vulture, the reality TV star said, “I felt like now would be a good time to come back and have a little bit of a redemption.” He continued, “The way everything ended up the last season I was on left a really bad taste in my mouth. I wasn’t proud of how I acted and how everything kind of played out,” adding, “since then I’ve hopefully learned a lot, and I’ve hopefully grown.”
In case you missed it, Lucas spent his last season of Below Deck cheating on his girlfriend with castmate Rocky Dakota, which caused Captain Lee to confront him. “Eddie and I had a very heart-to-heart discussion, and it was kind of sad,” Captain Lee told The Daily Dish after the footage aired. “When I expressed my disappointment, he took that pretty hard, and it was a conversation that I didn’t wanna have, but I had to.” Lucas then appeared to leave the show for good.
Season 8 of Below Deck was affected by COVID-19
Or so we thought. “This season, Captain Lee didn’t have Kate [Chastain] with him anymore and I think he needed a little ace in the hole. Somebody he could rely on,” Lucas explained to Digital Spy. “He definitely reached out to me to come back and work with him again.” And the rest is history — it’s the clean slate we can only assume he wanted and needed.
However, it’s safe to say that Lucas’ return to reality TV yachting hasn’t exactly been as smooth sailing as he thought it would be. Like many production companies, the team was in the middle of filming when the pandemic hit. Speaking to Metro.co.uk about the impact the virus had on the most recent season, Lucas revealed, “It’s definitely going to affect the season in a quite massive way.” As of this writing, the Season 8 is airing episodes shot in February 2020, so we guess we’ll just have to tune in each week to find out exactly how the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc the an already drama-filled show.
