As I sit at my desk in Picton Castle’s shore office overlooking the street and harbour in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada, I can hear the wind swinging the sign on the side of the building and whistling through the nearby trees. It’s been raining on and off throughout the day and the sun hasn’t made …
A valuable and essential tool in advancing the learning of seamanship, and an integral part of Lunenburg’s Bosun School, is small boat work. Understanding and competently working small boats is essential in becoming a proper seaman and, eventually, a Bosun. And a Captain for that matter. All the decisions made by the small boat skipper …
Today we’re wishing that smell-o-vision was a thing. As I walked through the gate towards the warehouse, I could smell the most lovely, smoky aroma that could only be one thing – Swedish pine tar. Pine tar is used liberally in Picton Castle’s rigging maintenance, it coats various parts of the standing rigging and helps …
After a week or so of site preparation, Bosun School students started downrigging Picton Castle last week. All sails were sent down, then much of the running rigging. Sails came down quite quickly, it didn’t take much more than a day to get them all down to deck, bundled up properly, and stowed in our …
One of my favourite parts of my job is working with Captain Moreland to plan Picton Castle’s voyage itineraries. It’s a fairly long process to get it just right, which means we’ll draft something, review it, amend it, review it again, then amend and review a few more times before we are happy with it …
Captain’s Log Over the past few weeks, my social media feeds have been filled with photos of adorable kids heading to school for the first time, or heading back to school, to a fresh start for a new year. September brings a sense of starting anew, and that’s no different here in Lunenburg. Picton Castle …
After a busy and exciting summer visiting ports in four of the five Great Lakes, Picton Castle is on the final leg of this voyage, bound down the St Lawrence seaway for Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. In fact, we visited nine lakes this summer (Lakes Michigan, Huron, St Clair, Erie, Ontario, St Francis, St Pierre, St …
Every voyage Picton Castle makes is different – partly because of the itinerary or the weather conditions, but most significantly because of the people who are aboard. Each voyage has its own unique character because of the crew. We’re gearing up for our next big voyage, which will start in the spring of 2020. It’s …
Captain’s Log – The Welland Canal One of our Facebook followers asked a few weeks ago when we were talking about the ports we’ll visit this summer in the Great Lakes, what we do about getting around Niagara Falls. Going up or downriver there is certainly not an option. As one of the Wonders of …
It’s been a bit quiet here on the Captain’s Log for the past couple of weeks while we’ve all been busy getting Picton Castle ready to sail again. She arrived in Lunenburg on June 1, completing her seventh world circumnavigation voyage, and sailed again on June 15 to start her summer voyage to the Great …
