Why 'Below Deck Sailing Yacht's Gary Thought He'd Be Replaced for Season 4

The first officer was convinced he wouldn't set sail with Parsifal III for the new season.

It almost wasn't anchors away for Gary King.

The fan favorite first officer, who previously starred on seasons two and three of Below Deck Sailing Yacht, was convinced that he'd be replaced for season four. Why?

Well, as viewers saw in the April 10 premiere on Bravo, Gary came down with a case of COVID-19 just before Parsifal III was set to take off for its first charter in Italy. In result, chief engineer Colin MacRae had to step in and oversee the new batch of deckhands.

"After a couple of days, I was like, 'Am I ever going to get on this boat? Or are they going to get someone in to replace me?'" he exclusively told Parade. "Being stuck in a hotel room where you've got no one but just yourself and your thoughts, you start thinking about a lot of things."

Gary quipped that the isolation period made him feel like "a hypochondriac, thinking the worst is going to happen to me."

He added, "It wasn't easy to say the least."

While Gary didn't appear in person in the premiere episode, he (and the season four trailer) assured us that he eventually tested negative and was allowed to return to the yacht.

"Coming as an outsider to the boat that I work on was very difficult," he teased of his eventual return. "And this is where I've worked for two and a half, almost three years. And normally I welcome all the crew on board, but they were welcoming me—and I arrived after a night off. So, I arrived there with everyone having a hangover. So, no one was very welcoming."

Nonetheless, Gary was grateful to Colin, who had to juggle managing the deckhands and Parsifal III's troubling engineering problems in the premiere.

"Colin had his hands full," he noted of his co-star. "The last thing that he wanted was to take over my department. But I heard he did an absolute phenomenal job in doing that. And I take my hat off to him being able to sort the boat out when it can't even leave the dock and dealing with the deck crew."

See how the rest of the season plays out, as new episodes of Below Deck Sailing Yacht air Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Bravo.

Next: 'Below Deck Sailing Yacht' Exclusive: How Daisy's Colin Kiss 'Complicated' Things With Gary