FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: David Robinson, Voyage Coordinator

Phone: 902 634-9984

Fax: 902 634-9985

E-mail: info@picton-castle.com

Web site: www.picton-castle.com
September 21, 2005

PICTON CASTLE Announces Sail Trainee Positions Available for Legs 3 and 4:  The captain of the Barque PICTON CASTLE today announced that trainee positions are still available on its fourth trip around the world, which began May 29, 2005. “We will welcome new trainees at Bali, Indonesia, on December 9,” said Captain Daniel Moreland, “or at Cape Town, South Africa, March 7, 2006.”

The ship is currently at Palmerston Atoll in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific Ocean.

Crewed by 12 professionals and up to 38 trainees, the 180-foot sail training vessel will visit 20 or more islands and ports throughout the tropics. Their route around the world has included Panama, the Galapagos, Pitcairn Island, and Rarotonga. From Palmerston the ship heads for Tonga, Fiji, and Vanuatu before reaching Bali, the trip's mid-point. From there the itinerary includes Madagascar, Cape Town, St. Helena, two islands in the Lesser Antilles, and Bermuda. The voyage began at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia on May 29, 2005, and will end there in mid-June, 2006.

PICTON CASTLE trainees need no prior sailing experience. As apprentice deckhands, they learn traditional deepwater seafaring skills as they stand watch in this Class "A" square-rigged Tall Ship: steering, keeping lookout, handling sail aloft, ropework, celestial navigation, chart work, rigging, sail making, and small boat handling. All hands stand watch at sea and in port.

“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 trade winds of the world in the wakes of Cook, Melville, and Richard Henry Dana with a healthy dose of the last blue-water trading ships thrown in. Highlights are island hopping across the South Pacific Ocean and ocean passages across the broad Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope.”

As she sails the trade winds, the PICTON CASTLE delivers up to 15 tons of books and school supplies to remote island schools—at Pitcairn Island, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, and later in South African townships. The books are donated by WorldWise, a nonprofit educational foundation, affiliated with the ship, that was created by a former crew member on the 1997–99 world voyage who saw the schools' needs.

The ship is also affiliated with Mystic Seaport, in Mystic, Connecticut in exploring the voyages of the whale-ship CHARLES W. MORGAN.

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