Ship profile for the sailing ship: "Picton Castle"

Photos of the sailing ship:

Please click into a photo to see it in higher resolution.

Picton Castle, Werner Jurkowski, Race Boston-Halifax , 07/2000

Source, location, date:
Werner Jurkowski,
Race Boston-Halifax,
07/2000

Picton Castle, Werner Jurkowski, Race Boston-Halifax , 07/2000

Source, location, date:
Werner Jurkowski,
Race Boston-Halifax,
07/2000

Picton Castle, Volker Gries, Lütte Sail Bremerhaven 2008 , 08/2008

Source, location, date:
Volker Gries,
Lütte Sail Bremerhaven 2008,
08/2008

Technical data of the sailing ship:

Name:Picton Castle
Ex-names:Bergfrost, Dolmar
Registered port:Avarua, Rarotonga
Nation:COK
Type of rigging:BARK
Year built:1928
Yard:Cochrane's Shipbuilding, Selby, GBR
Overall length:53.65 m
Length (hull):45.10 m
Breadth:7.30 m
Draught:4.45 m
Sail area:1200 m2
Ship's hull:Stahl / Steel
Power:690 PS
Engine:Burmeister & Wain alpha Diesel

Portrait of the sailing ship:

Last update: 31 Jan 2014

  • built at Cochrane's Shipbuilding in Selby, UK, as a motorized Swansea fishing trawler in 1928, one of five trawlers built at that time for the same company, all named after castles.
  • operated in the North Sea out of Wales for many years.
  • conscripted into the Royal Navy as the minesweeper HMS Picton Castle in World War II, 1944 due to a problem while sweeping mines in Norwegian waters she had to put into the nearest port Bergen, the Germans had just decided to abandon Norway and "Picton Castle" was the first ship in the habour flying the Union Jack, so she became famous as "the Liberator of Norway" for Norwegian people.
  • after the war she eventually began hauling freight working in the North and Baltic Seas, change of the name to "Dolmar"
  • found by Captain Daniel Moreland and his team in a Norwegian fjord in 1992/93, taken across the Atlantic to New York where she was berthed at the South Street Seaport Museum to be converted into a square-rigger.
  • taken to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, CAN, to begin a two-million-dollar refit in 1996, converted into a bark with a clipper bow, outfitted to the highest standard with safety gear.
  • registered in the Cook Islands, South Pacific, owned and operated by the Windward Isles Sailing Ship Company, Ltd.
  • dedicated to making square-rig sailing ship voyages around the world as a sailtraining ship, since 1997 until 2012 5 circumnavigations.
  • during UNESCO's "Year of the Ocean" in 1998, she served as flagship for the OCEAN98 organization.
  • The Picton Castle, that gives the ship her name, is located in Pembrokeshire in Wales and was built in the 11th century.

Last tracked position of the ship:

Map provided by FleetMon.com

Last tracked position of the ship Picton Castle

Contact:

Website (English, 31 Jan 2014):
http://www.picton-castle.com/
Barque Picton Castle: the voyages and sailing program, current location and log, trainee program, photos and other media, basic info about the ship, bosun school, contact

Literature for further reading:

We recommend the following references for your further research of the ship. The references marked with have been included in the generation of the ship profile on this page.

American Sail Training Association (ASTA)
"Sail Tall Ships! A Directory of Sail Training and Adventure at Sea"
2000 ISBN: 0-9636483-5-7
(12th Edition)
Page: 204 Source with picture Source with history Source with technical data Quelle with contact

Thaddeus Koza
"Tall Ships - the Fleet of the 21th Century"
Tide-Mark Press, East Hartford 2000 ISBN: 1-55949-551-0
(http://www.tallshipsinternational.com/)
Page: 134 Source with picture Source with history Source with technical data

Otmar Schäuffelen
"Die letzten grossen Segelschiffe"
Delius Klasing Verlag 2002 ISBN: 3-7688-0483-6
(10. aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage)
Page: 60 Source with picture Source with history Source with technical data

American Sail Training Association (ASTA)
"Sail Tall Ships! A Directory of Sail Training and Adventure at Sea"
2007 ISBN: 978-0-9799878-0-9
(17th Edition)
Page: 231 Source with picture Source with history Source with technical data Quelle with contact