The rebuild of KARL, our wooden project boat from Palmerston Island in the Cook Islands, South Pacific, had twin objectives: to get the gang involved with some of the skills of traditional wooden boat building and repair – including making and using our own steam box – and also to give us another boat to …
North bound in the Caribbean Sea, all sails set and the sun is shining. Bound from Grenada for Anguilla, we’re sailing inside the curve of the Windward and then the Leeward Islands; keeping far enough offshore to avoid the wind shadows of the high islands, but close enough in to pick up the fair current …
Sailing MONOMOY yesterday from Union Island over to Petite Martinique in company with PICTON CASTLE – we even had time for a swim at the most perfect little island on the way…
Bequia is pretty much classic Caribbean…with its funky painted houses down to fine white sand beaches and crystal clear water, which pretty much begs you to jump in. There’s reggae music, fried chicken, fresh coconuts to drink and heaps of sailing: from little kids learning to sail in optimist dinghys to FRIENDSHIP ROSE, the most …
PICTON CASTLE crew spent the first few days of March in Dominica – an amazing visit to a wonderful island! The island is steep with no good anchorage so we put out the port anchor and tied our stern tied to a tree – that way the anchor is trying to drag up hill and …
After a wonderful couple of weeks at sea, the crew are enjoying some island time… St Pierre in Martinique has all the charm of a sophisticated small town in France, but the sunshine and palm-fringed beaches of the Caribbean. Mount Pelle, is the islands volcano, and it’s still active – the last eruption was in …
Another sweet day of easy, trade wind sailing: blue seas, big blue skies and a fair breeze filling the white sails. The captain held an all-hands discussion this afternoon about the Caribbean Islands we may visit in the next month or so. He did a great job of whetting our appetite: amazing history and culture, …
It looks to be our last full day at sea of this most excellent transatlantic tradewind passage; we’re expecting to make our landfall in Martinique tomorrow. It’s a little sad to be coming to the end of these long moonlit nights and sun soaked days at sea but a port stop in a sweet French …
Just another trade-wind Monday. There are now at least four sailmakers working on the quarterdeck at any one time, and four or five carpenters working midships getting Karl planked up, or planning down the mast on the port side of the well deck. The starboard well-deck is a cat’s cradle of footropes and cranelines getting …
Rigged studding sails on the fore-mast today. Studding sails or st’n’s’ls are extra sails set in light airs to add sail area and thus a little extra speed running down wind. These lovely sails date from clippers ship days and before. The breeze was finally light enough to need them today, so anyone who wanted …
