Captain Ben’s story of becoming one of the Captain's of Tall Ship Pelican of London is a really interesting one...
Ben never planned to become a Captain, he simply started as a trainee. Soon after he had been a trainee he was invited to return as a volunteer then quickly Ben moved from volunteer to Bosun.
Captain Ben loved being a Bosun and was able to start making money from something he was very passionate about. Ben especially loved the hands-on element of being a Bosun. As a Bosun, he had the opportunity to gain his officer qualifications, with an organisation paying for him to do it. Ben stated that he feels so lucky to be where he is “because it was really handed to me as a package!”
Captain Ben then began to climb up the officer ranks. The Captain really enjoyed being a 1st Mate due to it enabling the use of both brain power and hands-on activities. Ben changed from ship to ship, he even Skippered smaller vessels, which led him to Captain on the Pelican, in 2019. Now as Captain his activities are more based on logistics and planning.
Ben’s favourite parts of the job are:
As mentioned before, Ben never planned to be a Captain but everything fell correctly into place. The Captain believes he is incredibly fortunate and was just in “the right place at the right time”, which has led him to, as he describes it, “the BEST job on the planet!”
