star clippers in thailand Beth gets up on the paddle board after the first try! * After successfully paddleboarding, a pleasant triumph when you’re no longer a spring chicken, we relaxed on the sand sipping water from coconuts. Then we hit the beach, where the ship’s watersports team had set up kayaks, sailboats and paddleboards. We first snorkeled around reefs some distance from the beach, hopping in the sea right from a tender, ogling giant clams, brain coral and rainbow-striped fish. After breakfast was a port talk up on deck by the captain or the funny and unflappable Brazilian Cruise Director Monica who loved repeating each morning on the approach to a new port: “Let’s go to paradise.” The first visit was to KOH SURIN to the north of Phuket. star clippers in thailand Some of Asia’s best beaches are in the Andaman Sea.Įach day took on a similar rhythm. But it didn’t matter what the kohs (also spelled ko) were called, what you remember about this itinerary are the beaches, the bright teal-blue water and those craggy towers and mounds of ancient limestone - partially submerged hills and mountains formed over millions of years.
Most of our ports for the week were part of national parks and clusters of islands with names that weren’t easy to remember. Round-trip from Phuket, we traveled 533 nautical miles around the Andaman Sea, as far north as the lower tip of Myanmar and south again to Langkawi in northern Malaysia. star clippers in thailand The Star Clipper cruise sails round-trip from Phuket (yellow star) to islands in the Andaman Sea. The fleet plies the waters of the Caribbean, Mediterranean and Asia, aiming for yacht harbors and remote bays and islands. A fourth new tall ship, the Flying Clipper, is being built and will debut later this year.
The four-masted Star Clipper and twin Star Flyer were launched in 19, respectively, while in 2000, came the 227-passenger five-masted Royal Clipper. The result is a trio of tall ships with few rivals and lots of repeat passengers.
Krafft and his team were guided by the original drawings and specifications of Scottish-born Donald McKay, a leading naval architect of 19th-century clipper-ship technology. He spared no detail or expense to design and build his fleet of three square-rigged clippers in the likeness of their speedy predecessors. This appreciation for the experience is exactly what Swedish businessman Mikael Krafft had in mind when he started Star Clippers. star clippers in thailand Sunsets through the rigging are breathtaking. Passengers fixed their gaze on the sails and the twilight sky as the canvas flapped in the wind and the ship creaked through the waves like ships did centuries before. As the sails inched skyward, the solemn theme song from the film “1492: Conquest of Paradise” was broadcast to set the mood. We were there to watch the Indian sailors nimbly handle coils of thick rope, wrapping and unwrapping it from pegs and cleats and pulling it along winches, to unfurl whichever of the 16 sails the captain wished to release to help us on our way. On the Star Clipper cruise I recently took with two friends Beth and Sheila, each evening, usually before dinner, passengers gathered on deck, many of us with a glass of wine or tropical concoction in hand. About 25% to 50% of the time the engines are shut off and the ship moves under sail power alone - otherwise a combination of the two are used to propel the ship at speeds of about 9 to 14 knots - and it’s a sight to behold. In fact some passengers didn’t care where the ship was going, they were there for the nostalgic sailing ship experience. Star Clippers‘ four-masted Star Clipper itself was a destination. star clippers in thailand Wet landings are business as usual on the Thailand itineraries. This was precisely why most of us had signed up for the 7-night Andaman Sea cruise in the first place, to go somewhere warm, sunny and remote, and to get there on a cool tall ship. These wet landings would be the norm for the week, part of the adventure of visiting beaches without infrastructure. A short ride later, the boat was nudged into the sandy shoreline and we climbed out of the forward hatch, up and over the bow, and down a short ladder into the surf. With our beach bags and snorkeling gear slung over our shoulders, we filed down the metal staircase extended along side the 170-passenger Star Clipper and into a tender that would transport us to a Thai beach for the day.
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