When last we met, the Picton Castle was just sailing down the River Orwell from Ipswich, England past the mouth of the Thames and Dover and headed down channel. Weather looks OK for now. Weather hereabouts can be just as bad as all those Hornblower novels, gale after westerly gale this time of year. Mostly […]
The Picton Castle raced into Harwich/Felixstowe harbour, coming in making ten knots with a following gale and a strong fair tide. This harbour, just to the north of the approaches to the mighty Thames River and complex of waterways, is at the mouth of a couple of rivers that join at this point. The whole
Sorlandet and Christian Radich joined us going down river from Bremerhaven towards the North Sea. At the approaches to the Weser River, after cheers back and forth, they pulled off to starboard, sailing towards the north and home to Norway. In the Picton Castle we would make our way down the coasts of Germany and
The European Tall Ships ports were good for the ship and crew. Pretty interesting weather, ship handling and various other challenges as well. It was good for the European ships to see the Picton Castle and good for our gang to see them – whole thing ended up being a sort of love fest. The
It’s coming up on late August here in the southern North Sea and we are beginning to feel it. Frequency of lows rambling across hereabouts is picking up ever so slightly but enough, enough. These European Tall Ships festivals have been pretty good for the gang but it is hard to see how having gone
We raised the anchor at Terschilling and headed off past these low lands of Holland. Of course that’s what Netherlands means, “low lands.” They are sure enough low, can barely see them they are so low. We had a good push to get to Den Helder in time to join the fleet there assembling, but
The afternoon found the Picton Castle under full sail, sailing south in fresh winds in the North Sea. We were about 40 miles off the island of Karmoy, Norway steering SSW. The sky was clear, seas a dark blue-green and not so big. The wind was cool and from the north. It was good to
Steaming through fjords of Norway We could figure out why there are so many pretty veteran steamships along the coast of Norway. You can get anywhere by boat and you can’t get anywhere without one. Picton Castle sailed from Kopervik at the crack of dawn and we had been advised to take the inside route
When we sailed from Kristiansand we had fresh headwind which eventually died out to calm. Morning found us motoring along in light winds as we entered the fjord that would lead us into Stavanger. Soon enough breezes became fair and the Picton Castle was under full sail slipping along in a beautiful Norwegian fjord. Nice
Along the Coast of Norway- Stavanger and Kopervik Read More »
After two nights of light but fair winds sailing from the coast of Sweden, the Picton Castle sailed into Kristiansand Harbour in southern Norway. This is the homeport of the beautiful sail training ship, the full-rigger Sorlandet (meaning “The Southern Land”), which is a little bigger than Picton Castle. We tied up at the small
