I’ve watched enough seasons of this show to know when a cast is going to give us something good, and Season 12 delivered early. We got a chef who quit mid-charter, another chef who came back from being fired the season before, and by episode 11, a deckhand’s secret that had everyone talking.

If you’re trying to keep track of the Below Deck Season 12 cast — who’s new, who’s back, and what actually happened this season — I’ll walk you through all of it here.

Quick setup for anyone just tuning in: Season 12 premiered June 2, 2025, with Captain Kerry Titheradge back in charge of the Motoryacht St. David.

The crew spent the season hopping between Anguilla, St. Barths, and St. Maarten, dealing with the usual mix of demanding guests and crew drama that makes this show what it is.

Who’s the Captain This Season?

Kerry Titheradge is running the show again, and honestly, he’s the anchor (no pun intended) that holds the whole Below Deck Season 12 cast together. He’s Australian, grew up moving around a bit — born in Brisbane, schooled in a handful of different towns — and he’s been in yachting since 2004.

Before that, he spent a decade captaining other vessels, so this isn’t someone who stumbled into the job. He first showed up on Below Deck Adventure, then took over the mothership in Season 11. This is his second go at leading the St. David crew, and it shows in how he handled the chaos this season.

The Returning Faces

Not everyone was new this year. A few familiar people came back, and each of them had a slightly different story to tell.

Fraser Olender is still Chief Stew, still running the interior with the same detail-obsessed energy he’s known for. He’s from Hampstead, London, and if you’ve watched him before, you know he doesn’t let much slide.

This season he had a mostly new team of stews under him, which meant a lot of training and a lot of patience on his part.

Kyle Stillie came back on deck too, and I’ll be honest – his storyline ended up being one of the bigger ones of the season.

He’s always been a bit of a loose cannon on this show, outspoken in a way that either makes for great TV or a headache for the captain, depending on the week. More on what happened with him in a minute.

Anthony Iracane has probably the most interesting arc of anyone in the returning cast. He was fired last season over performance problems.

Fired. And yet here he is back in the galley for Season 12. That’s not something this franchise does often, and it’s a big part of why this particular season stood out to me.

The New Crew

Season 12 brought in a mostly fresh lineup, and they came from all corners of the boat.

On deck, Caio Poltronieri joined as Bosun with around five years in yachting – newer than most of his crewmates, which put him in a tricky spot leading people with more experience than him.

Alongside him, new deckhands Jess Theron and Damo Yorg had to find their footing fast in a crew that already had some strong personalities established.

Down in the interior, Fraser basically got a whole new team: Barbara Kulaif, Rainbeau de Roos, and Solène Favreau all joined as stews. Solène actually came in with a bit of a following already – some viewers recognized her from Love Island France. Working under someone as particular as Fraser is never an easy first assignment, and these three had to adjust quickly.

And then there’s Lawrence Snowden, the new chef. On paper, he looked like a great hire — six years in yachting, around 15 years of cooking experience overall.

But paper doesn’t prepare you for a superyacht galley under a camera crew, and that combination turned out to be more than he could handle.

So, Why Did the Chef Actually Leave Below Deck Season 12?

This is the question I think most people land on this page looking for. Lawrence Snowden struggled almost as soon as charters started.

It wasn’t just the cooking pressure – being on camera for the first time on top of that pressure was clearly too much, and he ended up quitting during the very first charter of the season.

That left Captain Kerry in a bind. No chef, guests expecting dinner, and a crew already stretched thin trying to cover the gap. His fix? Call Anthony Iracane back.

Yes, the same Anthony who’d been let go the season before. It’s an unusual move, and it’s exactly the kind of twist that turns a “new hire struggles” storyline into something way more interesting — a redemption arc nobody saw coming.

What Actually Happened with Kyle in Episode 11?

Episode 11, “The Rumor Mill,” is the one people keep searching for. It’s centered around Kyle’s birthday, but things go sideways when his ego gets bruised and he lashes out at Solène Favreau.

In the middle of that blow-up, he ends up revealing something about himself that catches the rest of the crew completely off guard. Captain Kerry and the team spend the rest of the episode figuring out how to handle it. It’s one of those moments that reminds you why this franchise still works after 12 seasons — just when you think you’ve seen every kind of drama, they find a new one.

A Little Zodiac Fun

Bravo included zodiac signs in the official cast bios this season, and I know some of you love digging into this stuff to explain why certain crew members click and others don’t.

Captain Kerry, for what it’s worth, is a Sagittarius — which tracks, honestly, given how much he’s traveled and how relaxed he tends to stay even when things fall apart around him. Bravo tends to drip-feed these details rather than dumping them all at once, so keep an eye on official bios if this is your thing.

Keeping Up with the Cast Online

If you want to follow along beyond the show itself, social media is really your best bet. Captain Kerry posts on Instagram at @capt_kerry, sharing bits of his yachting career and life outside the boat.

Most of the rest of the Below Deck Season 12 cast are active online too, and honestly, that’s usually where news breaks first — faster than any article, including this one, can keep up with.

How This Season Stacks Up Against the Others

One thing I noticed watching this season is that St. David has now been the boat for three seasons running.

That’s more continuity than this show usually gives us — the yacht used to change almost every season, so there’s something nice about viewers getting genuinely familiar with the layout by now.

As for the cast, Season 12 kept four people from the previous season — Kerry, Fraser, Kyle, and eventually Anthony — while bringing in a mostly new supporting crew.

That’s a different balance than some past seasons, which leaned harder toward either total overhaul or almost-all-returning casts. And the mid-season chef swap? I can’t think of another season that’s done quite that.

Where’s the Cast Now?

Now that the season’s wrapped, the usual questions start coming in — new yachting gigs, reunion appearances, who’s dating who. Below Deck cast members typically end up in one of those buckets once a season ends, and I’d expect Season 12’s crew to follow the same pattern.

Your best bet for real-time updates is following them directly on social media or keeping an eye on Bravo’s channels, since that’s where this kind of news tends to land first. I’ll keep updating this section as more comes out.

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