World Voyage
Indian Ocean to the Cape, from Bali to Cape Town, May through December 2026.
The 2026 season is the opening chapter of a 482-day world voyage. Brigantine NEPTUN leaves Bali on 1 May 2026 and arrives in Cape Town by Christmas, two long ocean legs, 6,428 nautical miles of trade-wind sailing, island landfalls, and the great rounding of the Cape of Good Hope.
Leg 1 crosses the Indian Ocean from Bali to Mauritius via Komodo, Cocos (Keeling) and Rodrigues, three months of trade-wind ocean sailing. Leg 4 is the culmination, a long offshore passage from Mauritius to the tip of Africa and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope, one of the most storied pieces of sailing on earth.
Aboard NEPTUN you are crew, not passenger. You stand watch, set sails, hand-steer through trade-wind squalls, and learn the old seamanship, navigation, rigging, weather-reading, from a team of professional captains on a passage that is genuinely hard to find anywhere else in modern sailing.
From the log
A dispatch from the Indian Ocean. Midway through the voyage, weeks from the nearest port, the ship has found her rhythm. This is what the 2026 legs feel like from the inside.
Between the seasons
After rounding the Cape of Good Hope, NEPTUN rests for thirteen days over Christmas and New Year (2026-12-20 → 2027-01-02), a natural pause between the 2026 and 2027 halves of the voyage. There is no sailing during this window and no berths are sold: the ship lies quiet at anchor while the crew visits family, walks Table Mountain, and prepares for the big South Atlantic crossing that opens Leg 5.
The NEPTUN world voyage offers a rare chance to combine global exploration with true hands-on tall ship sailing. Joining this crew means more than travel, it's about learning the art of seamanship while crossing some of the planet's greatest oceans.
This adventure is perfect for anyone seeking personal growth and an authentic connection to the sea , building confidence, resilience, and community while exploring some of the world's most striking and seldom-visited regions.
Anyone can obtain a membership in our nonprofit organization for just €37 / year.
Get a membership nowBook a single leg or stack several, everything below is included.
Leg 4
Port Louis, Mauritius → Cape Town, South Africa
50 days voyage
1 Nov – 20 Dec 2026
€ 4,100 € 3,499
Available
Total includes
Pick a leg
Every leg has its own story, landfalls, and crew rhythm. Tap through to see the full itinerary.
AvailableNov 2026 — Dec 2026 · Port Louis, Mauritius → Cape Town, South Africa
Fifty days and twenty-four hundred miles of open Indian Ocean from Mauritius to the tip of Africa, with possible calls along the South African coast, the Agulhas current, the Cape of Good Hope, and a quiet finish in Cape Town before Christmas.
Read more about this leg → about Leg 4: from Mauritius around the Cape of Good Hope to Cape TownThe 2026 season is the opening chapter of the NEPTUN world voyage. Brigantine NEPTUN left Bali on 1 May 2026 and reaches Cape Town by 20 December. The opening Indian Ocean crossing (Bali via Komodo, Cocos (Keeling) and Rodrigues to Mauritius) is completed. Leg 4 then makes the long offshore passage from Mauritius to the tip of Africa, with possible calls along the South African coast, standing clear of the Agulhas before rounding the Cape of Good Hope into Cape Town.
One leg of the 2026 season is still open: Leg 4 (Nov–Dec, 2,480 nm), the Cape leg, an offshore passage from Mauritius to the tip of Africa with possible calls along the South African coast, the most demanding seamanship of the season, the Agulhas current and the Cape of Good Hope. Read the leg page for the full itinerary before you decide.
Yes. Each leg is sold as a stand-alone berth, and most trainees join for one leg only. Leg 4 runs November to December and is the remaining window of the 2026 season. The 2026 leg pricing table shows day counts, dates, totals and current spot status.
2026 legs are priced on a shared-cost basis, roughly €70 to €80 per day, that's how the nonprofit covers food, fuel, harbour fees and maintenance, not a profit margin. Total cost depends on length: the 50-day ocean leg from Mauritius to Cape Town is €3,499, while the 92-day Indian Ocean opener is closer to €7,300. Membership in Foreningen Neptun (€37 per year) is a separate one-off requirement. Exact totals per leg are in the pricing table on this page.
No. NEPTUN is a sail training ship, and most trainees who join the 2026 legs have never sailed offshore. You start the Greenhand syllabus from day one, basic line handling, harness and safety gear, the watch system, steering a course, reading a chart, and progress on the job, on watch, with patient teaching from professional crew. What matters is reasonable health, willingness to work as part of a watch, and acceptance that you'll be learning fast in your first week.
After rounding the Cape of Good Hope, NEPTUN rests at anchor in Cape Town for thirteen days over Christmas and New Year (20 December 2026 → 2 January 2027). No berths are sold during this window, the ship lies quiet while crew visits family, walks Table Mountain, and prepares for the South Atlantic crossing that opens the 2027 season. The 2027 season then starts from Saldanha Bay, just north of Cape Town, on 2 January.
Weather routing decides departure and arrival dates, not the calendar. The captain may sit in port an extra day or two to let a front pass, or shorten a stay to catch a better window, the priority is always a safe passage over a tidy schedule. Build a small buffer into your travel plans on either end of a leg, especially the Cape leg where the Agulhas current and Southern Ocean fronts make the timing less predictable than the trade-wind passages.
Yes, but they're remote. Within the 2026 season, the most accessible meeting points are Bali (international flights), Mauritius (direct flights from Paris) and Cape Town (international flights into a major hub). The Indian Ocean atolls and island stops on Leg 1 are far harder to reach. If a partner or friend wants to come and see the ship, plan around Bali, Mauritius or Cape Town.