For Lara Rigby and the rest of the crew on Below Deck Down Under, hindsight can be 20/20, which is why she’s looking back at her time with Captain Jason Chambers a bit differently today.
In an exclusive interview with Bravo’s The Daily Dish, the new Below Deck Chief Stew reflected on her role in Season 3. Lara was determined to be a strong leader, but she did clash with Captain Jason over her apparent unwillingness to promote her stew Marina Marcondes de Barros to service, despite Captain Jason’s insistence that Lara “step out of her comfort zone,” as he told producers in Season 3, Episode 12.
Now that filming has ended, Lara gave a surprising update about where she and the captain stand today.
Where do Lara Rigby and Captain Jason stand now?
Thankfully, things between the chief stew and the yacht master are better than ever.
“We have a great, great friendship,” Lara said in her interview. “I actually spoke to him a couple of days ago; we were in Los Angeles together at one point, so yeah. It’s nice. I really respect Jason and think he’s a great captain.”
It was a refreshing update, especially considering the yachtie didn’t want to take her boss’s advice by switching out Marina in housekeeping with stew Brianna Duffield in service. As seen in Season 3, Episode 13, Lara took an attitude of “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it,” perceiving her boss’s advice as pushback.
“Jason just wants to challenge this, in the name of growth,” she said in her confessional.
Captain Jason, despite acknowledging that Lara had a good thing going with her crew, wanted to see others grow, as was the case in Season 3, Episode 12, when Lara wanted to leave Marina behind and bring Adair Werley to help provide an on-land picnic for the charter guests.
“Lara’s a great leader, but part of being a leader is to make people strive to learn and grow,” Jason said.
Looking back as new episodes air, Lara told The Daily Dish that Captain Jason supported her in ways she wasn’t aware of as the cameras rolled.
“Now, watching it back and seeing the comments that he had my back a lot more than I probably thought he was … ” she said. “It was really nice to see.”
If anything, Jason’s plans for growth panned out.
“I think that was a technique for him, to kind of push me and be stronger and kind of get on with my job and not take too much,” Lara realized.
Still, at the time, Lara maintained her decision to keep Marina in housekeeping was “professional.” She commended Marina for being a “very strong” and “fantastic” worker, and there was never any question over her capabilities.
“I could never take that away from her,” Lara told The DailY dISH. “But, for me, I’ve been in the industry long enough to know where best to place people, and at that point, that was the best set-up for the interior. And, as much as I would love to give them everything they want, at the end of the day, the guest experience is my priority.”
In the most recent episode of Below Deck Down Under — Season 3, Episode 14 — Jason certainly had Lara’s back when he tried to bring her and Chef Tzarina Mace-Ralph to a place of peace. So far, no dice.
However, Lara did tease an explosive couple of episodes full steam ahead.
