Fai~
Wind and Plenty of Jt by Rigel Crockett
PHOTO BY RIGEL CROCKETT
In the cold ofa late Canadian November in 1997, the barque Picton Castle embarked on her first circumnavigation of the globe. She has since completed two others and has just embarked on her fourth under the command ofher able captain, Daniel D. Moreland. For those involved in the sail training community, she is the unfulfilledfantasy ofall but the few who get to sail aboard her for the voyage ofa lifetime. People who have heard ofCaptain Moreland's reputation as a driver and who have seen the sturdy ship in port know the voyage is demanding on every level. In his new book, Fair Wind and Plenty of It, Rigel Crockett candidly shares with us his passage on Picton Castle's first world voyage. Sea History is pleased to present to you extracts from Crockett's opening chapters to share with you how his voyage began. Lunenburg, Nova Scotia: August 1996-May 1997 aysayers called her the Fiction Castle. Many in the industry seriously doubted that her black hull, dented and blotched burgundy by rust, would ever part the water of Lunen-
N
burg harbor. Much more, they doubted that this sixty-nine year old North Sea trawler could be converted in just eighteen months into a seaworthy three-masted barque, ready to circumnavigate with thirty fare-paying crew. Adding fuel to their doubts were the
(left) Captain Dan Mo reland; (below) Picton Castle drying her cotton sails, berthed in Lunenburg.
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two years the Picton Castle lay dormant in New York, docked first in Manhattan and later at the Hudson River Maritime Museum in Kingston. But we believers knew that this was neither fai lure nor laziness. Moreland was simply biding his time, waiting until he had sufficient funds to do the conversion in one go rather than sabotage his project, as so many others had sabotaged theirs, by working in fits as money trickled in, thus wasting time, frustrating participants and destroying the confidence of backers by moving too slowly. Then, in early July 1996, one of the ship's first investors decided he wanted to see the ship converted and tied to a pier at an event he was hosting seven weeks later in Bristol, Rhode Island. To that end he would channel $750,000 into the project. This money would get the Picton Castle's conversion well underway. Perhaps Moreland's doubters didn't know the great effort and commitment he SEA HISTORY 111 , SUMMER 2005