FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: David Robinson, 902 634-9984

Barque PICTON CASTLE will begin her fourth trip bound around the world on Sunday, May 29, 2005. The ship will sail about 2 PM, from her wharf in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. According to Captain Daniel Moreland, the ship will sail “barring ice bergs, floods, fires, or other catastrophes.”

Originally scheduled for May 14, the ship’s departure was delayed by constant storms that have battered Nova Scotia and created severe winter storm conditions in the North Atlantic.

The trip will last 12-1/2 months, ending at Lunenburg in mid-June, 2006.

The 180-foot barque plans to visit 20 or more islands and ports throughout the tropics in the trade winds, carrying 12 professional crew members and 38 sail trainees. The route around the world will include Panama, the Galapagos, Pitcairn Island, Rarotonga and Palmerston Atoll in the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, Bali, Madagascar, Cape Town (South Africa), St. Helena, two islands in the Lesser Antilles, and Bermuda.

PICTON CASTLE trainees need no prior experience. As apprentice deckhands, they learn traditional seafaring skills of 100 years ago, such as standing watch, steering, keeping lookout, handling sail aloft, celestial navigation, chart work, rigging, sail making, and small boat handling.

“This is an epic, once-in-a-lifetime voyage for our crew in a deep-sea square-rigger,” said Captain Moreland. “We are sailing the tradewinds of the world in the wakes of Cook, Melville, and Richard Henry Dana with a healthy dose of the last blue-water whaling and trading ships thrown in. Highlights include island hopping across the South Pacific Ocean and ocean passages across the broad Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope."

For further information about the PICTON CASTLE voyage, contact David Robinson, the voyage coordinator, at info@picton-castle.com, or call 902 634-9984