Seas Your Future contributes to cultural sustainability with sail training on our tall ships, keeping alive maritime heritage and traditions. Professional crew pass on their ‘salty’ skills and support the development of maritime knowledge and understanding. By example of life on board, they showcase a range of professional pathways in the maritime and associated industries. In this context, we also work towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal SDG4: Quality Education, by utilising a range of learning styles that include hands-on experience with the traditions of sailing, navigating and maintaining the ship.

Maritime heritage and traditions find applications and are show-cased on board our tall ships in a range of ways, including:

• The qualifications and skills of mariners and of officers on the ship would be, in large parts, recognisable to the seafarers of old. While communication, forecasting, navigational aids, technology and safety equipment on board have modernised the profession, many principles remain unchanged. Traditional equipment, such as a sextant and magnetic compass, are on board and can be used as back-up should modern technology fail.
• Our ships are traditionally rigged and operated. For example, sail handling is undertaken by the orchestrated physical work of the whole ship’s crew, the ship is hand-steered to a wind angle or by magnetic compass and we use paper charts for passage planning and navigation.
• The Bosun’s department uses a wide range of traditional skills and techniques handed down generations of sailors to maintain and repair the hull, rig and sails with the means and materials available on board.
• Sail training passes on the skills, ethos and language of life at sea, including the principles of looking after the ship, our shipmates and finally oneself.
• Traditions, such as shanty singing and working to song, provide insights into maritime culture and history.

Look out for our Bosun’s story and monthly Newsletters for more information about maritime traditions and skills aboard our tall ships. You can subscribe to our Newsletter here!

Our monthly Newsletter regularly includes traditional sea shanties, songs that set the rhythm for sailors to work together for particular tasks, such as hauling on rope or pumping water out of the bilges. In forthcoming editions, we’ll also share some of the traditional knowledge and skills of our crew, for example knots and their application or sail plans and how they developed.