Star Clippers: the back story

About Star Clippers: the back story

By the ULTIMATE the world’s cruise lines Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Mikael Krafft founded Star Clippers in 1989 to bring back the clipper ships of the 19th century, built to yacht standards. Its three tall ships still sail wherever the wind allows.

The clipper reborn

In the 19th century the clippers were the swiftest ships at sea, racing tea, spices, silks and wool home from Asia and Australia, until steam and the Suez Canal, opened in 1869, ended their age. The most famous survivor, the Cutty Sark, is berthed at Greenwich. Mikael Krafft, a Swedish sailor who as a boy climbed the rigging of the four-masted Pommern in Mariehamn, decided in 1987, at anchor off St Martin, to bring the clipper back.

Two barquentines

Star Clippers was founded in 1989. At Ghent in Belgium, the yard built two identical four-masted barquentines: Star Flyer, delivered in May 1991, and Star Clipper, in April 1992. Each is 115.5 m long including the bowsprit, carries 3,365 m² of sail and takes 166 guests with 74 crew, with two plunge pools, a Tropical Bar on deck, a piano lounge and an open-seating dining room.

All three ships sail wherever possible.

Royal Clipper

In 2000 Krafft added Royal Clipper, built at the Merwede yard in Rotterdam and modelled on the Preussen, the great five-masted ship of the Flying P Line, lost off Dover in 1910. Royal Clipper holds the Guinness World Record as the biggest five-masted full-rigged ship in the world: 134 m long, with 42 sails covering 5,000 m², a tallest mast of 54 m and 20 of her 106 crew working the sails. One of her three pools has a glass bottom that lights a three-deck atrium and the dining room below; the Captain Nemo Underwater Spa has portholes beneath the waterline.

Life under sail

Every morning the captain or cruise director gives an informal talk on deck about the wind, navigation, tall ships and the stars. You can help raise the sails, learn to tie knots, visit the open bridge and, weather permitting, climb the mast. Once a cruise, with every sail set, a tender takes guests out to photograph the ship. Evenings are frog racing, talent nights and dancing, and on warm nights you can sleep on deck.

Where they sail

Voyages of three to 14 nights cover the eastern and western Mediterranean, the Caribbean, Costa Rica and the Panama Canal, with transatlantic crossings at the start and end of each summer season. The ships are small enough to call at ports the big cruise ships pass by.

Our advice: choose Royal Clipper for the most space, the watersports platform and the spa, and Star Flyer or Star Clipper for the purest square-rigger feeling. Pack deck shoes and one smarter outfit for the gala night; there is no black tie. Check current inclusions and gratuities on starclippers.com when you book.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Star Clippers: the back story before you go.