Picton Castle is now accepting applications for Mates/Watch Officers for the upcoming voyage. The voyage begins early 2018 and runs until May 2019. This is a sail training voyage for adults and will consist of significant blue-water passages. Qualification requirements vary by position, but all professional crew must have STCW Basic Safety Training and extensive […]
When vessels come alongside to dock, they need to get lines ashore in order to tie the vessel to the wharf. Big ships need big lines. It’s not possible to throw these lines because they’re so heavy, so a lighter weight line is tied to the mooring line. These lighter weight lines, called heaving lines,
Each Picton Castle voyage has its own character, its own inside jokes, its own on-board culture. One of the exciting parts of planning a voyage is putting together the crew and trying to imagine how everyone will interact together. While there are different individuals on each voyage, there are some common themes. People who sail
Students at Picton Castle‘s Bosun School have been learning to splice wire this week. Captain Moreland started by demonstrating the method, then the students paired up to work on splicing their own wires together. After each pair had completed their splice, Captain Moreland did a second demonstration of the technique, now that the students had
Former Picton Castle crew member, Erin Greig, was featured in The Royal Gazette in Bermuda yesterday. Erin is the first woman in Bermuda to gain the Junior Navigator’s Certificate from Warsash Marine Academy in England and become an Officer of the Watch. Her sea time on a number of sail training ships, including Picton Castle,
Erin Greig First Bermudian Woman to be Navigator Read More »
Back in the summer of 2016, Picton Castle sailed on a transatlantic voyage where we filmed a television series on the way from La Rochelle, France to Quebec City, Canada. The show was called La Grande Traversée and followed the lives of 10 “colonists” who lived life on board as it would have been for
People ask all sorts of questions when they’re considering signing on board Picton Castle as a trainee. One we’ve been hearing a lot lately is about laundry. How do trainees wash their clothes on the voyage? There is no washing machine on board, so any laundry you do on the ship needs to be done
October is usually beautiful in Nova Scotia, with all the leaves changing colours. This year, October has also been warm, sunny and wonderful for being outdoors. Bosun School is taking advantage of the weather to spend some time aloft on Picton Castle. Students learned yesterday how to lead “up and overs”, the process of taking
From the mid 19th century until the mid 20th century, sailing ships were the incubator and hatchery for almost all deep-sea steam-ship mariners be they naval or merchant marine. This is what came to be known as “trained in sail” or later, “sail training”. This training service came about due to the extraordinarily rich seamanship
Picton Castle’s World Voyage itinerary is full of exotic place names, including some you may never have heard of before. We specialize in visiting exotic tropical ports, taking our ship and crew to some unique, remote places. But that doesn’t mean it’s difficult to make travel arrangements to join the ship for a leg of
