Learn the craft

Knowledge Base

Traditional seamanship, rigging, and the craft of tall ships.

Sailing a brigantine takes a working vocabulary of about six hundred named lines, sails, spars, and bits of ironwork, and then the judgement to use them in the right order in weather you didn't choose. NEPTUN's traditional seamanship knowledge base is where we lay each one out plainly: what it does, what it's called, why it's rigged the way it is, and where it fits in the rhythm of a passage. The articles are written for people who haven't been on a tall ship yet but plan to be, and for crew already on board who want the explanation behind what they're doing on deck. We avoid jargon when plain English will do, and we name the jargon clearly when plain English won't. NEPTUN is a 29-metre brigantine sailing a 482-day, nine-leg world voyage from 2026 into 2027, and most of what's here was written because someone asked us the same question twice. The collection covers the ship herself, life on board, voyaging and routes, the skills you'll learn, the people who shaped this kind of sailing, and the practical questions about cost and joining a crew.

Explore by topic

Twenty-eight articles, grouped into six clusters. Each cluster has a flagship piece you can start with, then spreads out into the more specific questions underneath.

Ship & rigging

What a brigantine actually is, how she differs from a schooner, what every spar and line on deck is called, and how square sails hold the wind. Start here if the words on a tall ship sound like a different language, because they more or less are.

Flagship article: What is a brigantine, and what makes the rig distinct .

Life on board

How a day at sea is actually structured, how watch systems carve up twenty-four hours, what to pack, what to do about seasickness, and how fit you need to be before you arrive at the gangway. The unglamorous, useful detail.

Flagship article: A day at sea on a tall ship, hour by hour .

Voyaging & routes

The trade-wind belts that shaped every sailing route on the planet, the milk-run circumnavigation, crossing the Atlantic, sailing the Caribbean, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and roughly how long a full circuit takes a working tall ship.

Flagship article: Trade winds and the sailing routes they make possible .

Skills & ceremony

Traditional seamanship as a teachable craft: knots, sail handling, lookout, helming, and a primer on celestial navigation. Plus the line-crossing ceremony, the one tradition almost every ocean voyager still observes when they cross the Equator.

Flagship article: How to learn traditional seamanship from scratch .

Famous tall ships & captains

The heritage track: Alan Villiers and the 1934 Joseph Conrad voyage, Irving Johnson's seven Yankee world voyages, Captain Kimberly aboard Romance, Dan Moreland on Picton Castle, and the Danish training ships Georg Stage and Skoleskibet Danmark. The people the modern sail-training movement copied.

Flagship article: The famous tall ships still sailing today .

Joining & cost

What sail training actually costs, how to join a tall-ship crew without a yacht-club background, and whether a gap year at sea is the right shape of year for you. The plain-spoken answers to the questions people are too polite to ask.

Flagship article: What sail training costs, and what you get for it .

All articles

Every published article, newest first. Filter by category or tag from any article footer.

FAQ

Common questions about the knowledge base

Where should I start in the knowledge base?

If you've never set foot on a tall ship, start with what a brigantine is and the parts of a tall ship, then read the day-at-sea piece and the watch-systems guide. That's roughly two hours of reading and you'll understand most of what's said on deck.

Do I need any sailing experience to read these articles?

No. The knowledge base is written for crew who arrive with zero square-rig background. Where we use a technical term we name it the first time, link the deeper article, and keep going. The aim is plain explanation, not gatekeeping.

How is the knowledge base different from the captain's log?

The knowledge base is reference material that doesn't go stale, what a topgallant is, how trade winds work, what a watch system looks like. The captain's log is dated dispatches from underway: weather, port reports, what happened on a specific passage. Both link to each other where it helps.

Are the articles updated?

Yes. We revise pieces when something changes on board, when a route changes, or when a reader points out a better way to explain something. Each article shows its publish date, and we add a short revision note at the foot when it's been materially updated.

Can I download the knowledge base as a PDF or print it?

Not currently. Each article prints cleanly from the browser if you need a paper copy on a passage, but we don't bundle a PDF. The articles are interlinked, a flat PDF loses most of that.

How do these articles relate to the NEPTUN voyages?

Most articles were written because crew asked the same question twice. The packing list, the seasickness guide, the cost piece, the celestial-navigation primer, all of it is meant to answer what trainees ask before and during a leg of the 2026-2027 world voyage.

Who writes the knowledge base?

Articles are drafted with the captain and watch-leaders, then checked against what is actually taught on board. Heritage pieces, on figures like Alan Villiers or Irving Johnson, are written from primary sources where we can find them and clearly attributed where we cannot.

Ready to use these in real life?

Reading about square sails is one thing, hauling on the clewlines as the sun goes down off the Azores is another. NEPTUN's 2026-2027 world voyage runs in seven legs from Bali to Kiel. Pick a leg that fits your calendar, or apply directly for a berth and we'll talk it through.

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