Picton Castle sailed out the long fjord-like river from Sydney on Monday morning with our Sydney harbour (and all of Cape Breton) pilot, Captain MacKelvie, aboard. All in a flat calm. We would have sailed the night before but we could not get the required pilot to take us out. Pictou, the next port on […]

Picton Castle sailed out of Halifax harbour with the other ships at the start of the Tall Ships Race, but bound for Port Hawkesbury instead, about 150 nautical miles away. The grand fleet of sailing ships that had been together in Boston and Halifax was breaking up at this point, with some of the ships

The crew of the Picton Castle had a great time in Boston. It’s a big city full of things to see and do, many of the crew have talked about returning there sometime to visit again and see more of the city. The ships are tied up at various facilities, with us at Charlestown Navy

After Picton Castle’s departure from Gloucester was delayed by weather on Tuesday, we got underway early on Wednesday morning to sail into Boston on time for our docking schedule. We had a few new faces on board for this passage as we had a crew exchange with the Dutch Navy ketch Urania. We welcomed Marc,

Once we told Ally O’Connor we were coming to Gloucester on our way to Boston, she wrangled more vessels to join us in Gloucester, including the Dutch Navy sail training vessel Urania , the Dutch barque Europa and Tecla , a vessel our crew first saw at the Tall Ship Races in Europe last summer. … For many of our new crew, this was the first time they were involved in public deck tours and it was a good warm-up for the big city tall ship events to come in Boston and Halifax.

Our passage from Lunenburg to Gloucester has been foggy, thick, thick fog all the time. But the winds were fair and we sailed along our way. Finally, yesterday, it began to clear as the ship sailed into Ipswich Bay on the coast of Cape Ann. We arrived in time that we could have gone into

Sailin’ in a tick dungeon o’fog…cut it with a knife you could…Just now the Barque Picton Castle is off Brazil Rocks near the southern tip of Nova Scotia steering to pass just north of Georges Banks. Back in the day of fishing schooners and fog much of the navigation was enriched guess work. That so

A new Picton Castle voyage is about to begin. New trainees arrived in Lunenburg over the last few days to throw their bags over the rail and join us on this summer seafaring adventure. Immediately they began their orientations to the ship, her routines, rigging and safety orientations and drills, lots to learn. As I