The Truth About Captain Lee And Kate Chastain's Relationship

The friendship between Captain Lee Rosbach and Kate Chastain has powered fans through many a charter on Bravo's popular reality series, Below Deck. No matter how dramatic things got during the sometimes grueling work of hosting wealth guests aboard superyachts, these two stayed strong. When the long-time chief stew bid adieu to yachting life, our collective hearts broke. Without Chastain, would the stud of the sea be sapped of all fun? Would he be a shade of his former happy-go-lucky self? When she announced her departure in February 2020, fans flocked to express their disappointment on social media. One tweeted about how much they "will miss this duo" and Captain Lee sweetly responded, "Not as much as I will."

We're going to have to wait a little bit longer to see how Captain Lee fares onboard without his right-hand woman, since Below Deck returns with a new season Nov. 8, 2020 but, for now, we can take solace in the fact Captain Lee and Kate's friendship is very much still intact. 

During a September 2020 chat with Decider, Kate Chastain admitted that watching the Season 8 trailer for the first time was "like seeing my ex." As the Below Deck alum explained, "Even when you break up with somebody, even if you don't want to be with them anymore — you still don't want them to like their new girlfriend better. You want them to always be like, the one that got away!" She's wishing everybody the best, however, and is excited to see how everything pans out. In particular, "I can't wait to see how Captain Lee handled it in my absence. I need to know who brought him his Cheerios and how his pants were ironed."

The feeling is clearly mutual. Captain Lee has been frank about crew members he'd never invite onboard again — and Chastain isn't one of them. During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live, Captain Lee admitted, "Kate is always going to have a very, very sweet spot in my heart, because we worked together for a long period of time. And she was my right hand." The Below Deck stalwart also reminisced, "There was nothing I couldn't delegate to Kate that I could just pass it off and walk away from it, and know it was gonna get done."