She’s circled the globe four times, delivering much-needed supplies to remote island schools, conducting impromptu medical clinics, trading with the islanders and introducing nearly 1,000 people to the challenges and rewards of sailing a square rigger.

She’s the Barque Picton Castle and next spring she’s setting out on an all-new epic adventure, one that will see her crossing the North Atlantic bound for the ports where her storied life began; places like Swansea and Milford Haven, from which she worked as a North Seas fishing trawler, or Bergen, where she was hailed the “Liberator of Norway” for her arrival as Nazi forces withdrew.

This latest voyage – set to get underway from the ship’s home port of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada in May 2008 – will see the Picton Castle traveling close to 30,000 sea miles as she explores the ports of the Atlantic World. From her first call at the volcanic islands of The Azores to ports in the UK, North and Central Europe, the islands of the Western Atlantic, the Mediterranean, Canaries, North and West Africa, a stunning studdingsail passage back across the Atlantic – and equator – to Fernando de Noronha, Brazil, then island hopping in the West Indies and ultimately home to Lunenburg, this is sure to be a voyage every bit as epic as the ship’s well-known world voyages.

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