Tall Ship World Voyage
Three oceans, nine legs, one ship, join as much of Brigantine NEPTUN's 2026–2027 world voyage as your life allows.
Tall ship world voyage
Bali to Kiel across three oceans in 482 days. 18,844 nautical miles. Nine legs sold separately, two to seven weeks each. Sail as much of the arc as your calendar allows, the modular trainee-berth model is what makes a piece of a world voyage attainable for people with ordinary lives.
Most people who dream of sailing around the world imagine a closed loop, a line that starts at a home port, tracks east or west, and eventually crosses itself on the way back in. That kind of strict circumnavigation takes two or three years, a boat you own or a crew spot you fight for, and the calendar of a retiree or a full-time sailor.
Brigantine NEPTUN's 2026–2027 voyage is something more realistic. Over 482 days the ship sails from Bali across three oceans to a homecoming berth in Kiel, three-quarters of the way around the planet, Indian Ocean, South Atlantic, North Atlantic. Not a closed loop, but a world-spanning blue-water arc, and in practical terms the closest thing to sailing around the world that most people will ever have a real chance to join.
The voyage opens in Bali on 1 May 2026. Leg 1 crosses the Indian Ocean via Komodo, Cocos (Keeling), Rodrigues and Mauritius to Réunion. Leg 2 swings north to Madagascar and Mayotte, then to Swahili Zanzibar. Leg 3 runs south down the Mozambique Channel through some of the richest cetacean waters on the planet. Leg 4 rounds the Cape of Good Hope and ties up in Cape Town just before Christmas. 8,186 nautical miles, four legs, eight months of sailing on the 2026 voyage page.
Leg 5 opens 2027 with a 44-day South Atlantic crossing via Saint Helena to Fortaleza. Leg 6 rides the north coast of South America to Trinidad. Leg 7 island-hops the Windward Islands to Antigua. Leg 8 is the classic spring transatlantic to the Azores. Leg 9 closes the voyage through Guernsey and Helgoland to Kiel on 25 August. Full itinerary and pricing for the closing half on the 2027 voyage page.
The Caribbean weeks in the middle are their own chapter, see sailing in the Caribbean. If the two ocean crossings are what you came for, start with sailing across the Atlantic.
The world voyage is modular by design. Each of the nine legs is sold as its own trainee berth, with its own dates, distance, and price. You join where you can get to, you sail the leg, you step off at the next landfall. Most people do one leg. Some do two or three back-to-back. A handful stitch together most of the voyage across the two seasons.
Two or three weeks is a typical leg length; a full trade-wind crossing like Leg 5 or Leg 8 runs closer to six. You can honestly say you sailed a piece of the world voyage on anything from a short sabbatical window to a full gap year. The trainees on Leg 1 hand the ship to trainees on Leg 2, who hand it on to Leg 3. That is how the whole thing actually gets around the planet.
Four very recognisable kinds of people. Gap-year dreamers (18-22) doing three legs back-to-back across a semester, see gap year at sea. Sabbatical-takers (30-45) fitting one Atlantic crossing and a Caribbean leg into a three-month window. Bucket-list retirees (55-70+) finally cashing in a notebook entry from the eighties; past trainees have been in their seventies on Atlantic crossings. Experienced small-boat sailors taking their first real ocean miles on a traditional rig.
The common thread isn't sailing skill, it's the decision to spend a real piece of time at sea on a ship that actually sails, in the company of a crew you end up trusting with your life. That decision looks the same whether you're eighteen or sixty-eight.
A gap-year trainee joined in Mauritius for Leg 1 with no offshore time. The first three days she was seasick and quietly convinced she had made a mistake. By week two she was steering at night without thinking about it. By Réunion she was teaching the next-leg arrivals how to coil a halyard. What surprised her was discovering she could be useful to a crew of strangers, and that strangers could become the closest people in her life inside three weeks.
A sabbatical engineer in his late thirties took six months from a Copenhagen tech job and stitched together the South Atlantic crossing and the Caribbean leg that followed. He came aboard exhausted, expecting to "sleep it off at sea". He didn't, sea life is too physical for that, but the slow, external rhythm of the ship rebuilt something the desk had been grinding down. He went back to work and quit within the year. He is now sailing as professional crew on another tall ship.
Three things. Time, two weeks minimum for the shortest leg, three to six months for a real run at the world-voyage idea. Money, trainee berths run at €79 per day shared-cost, with Foreningen Neptun membership €67 per year separate. See what sail training costs for the full picture. Mindset, you are not booking a holiday, you are signing on as crew. Watches at awkward hours, climbing rigging, sharing a cabin with strangers who become friends, working the ship whether the weather is kind or hard.
If the three pieces are in place, look at specific legs on the voyages overview, pick one that fits your window, and apply as trainee crew. We reply within a week.
Pick a leg
Bali to Kiel via Cape Town, Brazil, the Caribbean, Bermuda and the Azores. Pick where you sail.
May 2026 — Aug 2026 · Bali, Indonesia → Réunion, France
The opening chapter of Neptun's 482-day world voyage, a 4,078-nm trade-wind passage from the temples of Bali to the volcanic cliffs of Réunion.
Read more about this leg → about Leg 1: from Bali to Réunion across the Indian Ocean
Aug 2026 — Sept 2026 · Réunion, France → Zanzibar, Tanzania
Forty days across the western Indian Ocean, volcanic Réunion, lemur-haunted Nosy Be, the Mozambique Channel, and the spice-scented stone alleys of Zanzibar.
Read more about this leg → about Leg 2: from Réunion to Zanzibar via Madagascar
Sept 2026 — Nov 2026 · Zanzibar, Tanzania → Durban, South Africa
Sixty-three days coasting the African shore, spice islands, mangrove anchorages, Portuguese praças and the long trade-wind run down the Mozambique Channel to Durban.
Read more about this leg → about Leg 3: from Zanzibar to Durban down the Mozambique Channel
Nov 2026 — Dec 2026 · Durban, South Africa → Cape Town, South Africa
Thirty-eight days of serious seamanship, the Agulhas current, the Cape of Good Hope and the Southern Ocean at the tip of Africa, finishing quietly in Cape Town for Christmas.
Read more about this leg → about Leg 4: from Durban around the Cape of Good Hope
Jan 2027 — Mar 2027 · Saldanha Bay, South Africa → Fortaleza, Brazil
Forty-four days before the southeast trades, Napoleon's exile at St. Helena, the equator crossing, and landfall in tropical Brazil. The ocean chapter of the voyage.
Read more about this leg → about Leg 5: across the South Atlantic from Saldanha to Fortaleza
Mar 2027 — Apr 2027 · Fortaleza, Brazil → Trinidad
A thousand miles of downwind trade running, the Amazon's brown water under the hull, the Guianas smudged on the horizon, and Trinidad's steelpan waiting at the end.
Read more about this leg → about Leg 6: from Fortaleza to Trinidad along South America
Apr 2027 — May 2027 · Trinidad → Antigua
Four weeks of short trade-wind daysails through the Lesser Antilles, turquoise anchorages, rum shops on the sand, French-Creole Martinique and the tall-ship scene in Antigua.
Read more about this leg → about Leg 7: through the Windward Islands from Trinidad to Antigua
May 2027 — Jul 2027 · Antigua → Ponta Delgada, Azores
Fifty-six days on the classic spring tall-ship route home, Antigua, a long reach to Bermuda's pink sand, then three weeks of open ocean to the volcanic Azores.
Read more about this leg → about Leg 8: across the North Atlantic from Antigua to the Azores
Jul 2027 — Aug 2027 · Ponta Delgada, Azores → Kiel, Germany
The final 1,878 nm, from volcanic São Miguel to the Baltic, up the English Channel through the Dover TSS, past Helgoland's red cliffs and home to Kiel.
Read more about this leg → about Leg 9: homecoming from the Azores to Kiel
Sailing on NEPTUN is an amazing adventure.
Sailing on Neptun is an amazing adventure, teaching you new skills among a very interesting and diverse community.
This has opened a lot of doors in my career as well as sparked a lot of new interests!
Not in the strict, closed-loop sense. Brigantine NEPTUN's 2026–2027 voyage begins in Bali and ends in Kiel, roughly three-quarters of the way around the planet, across three oceans, over 482 days. If your definition of sailing around the world is a continuous blue-water arc spanning the Indian, South Atlantic and North Atlantic oceans, this is it. If your definition requires crossing your own outbound track, this voyage gets you close but does not technically close the loop.
No. Almost nobody does. The full arc is built as nine legs lasting two to seven weeks each, and every leg is sold separately. Most trainees join for one or two legs that fit their life, a gap-year student might take three legs back-to-back, a sabbatical-taker might join for one long Atlantic crossing, a bucket-lister might pick the Caribbean. You can sail as much or as little of the world voyage as you have time and budget for.
Pay-to-sail trainee berths are priced per leg, covering berth, meals and every nautical mile of sailing during the passage. Longer legs cost more in absolute terms but less per day, because the fixed cost of running the ship is spread across a longer passage. Membership in Foreningen Neptun, our nonprofit, is a separate €67 per year. Per-leg pricing lives on the 2026 and 2027 voyage pages. For broader context on what a tall-ship voyage costs, see our cost guide.
No. Brigantine NEPTUN is a sail training ship, which means trainee berths are open to people who have never sailed offshore before. You'll learn watchkeeping, line handling, helm, and sail work during your first days aboard, and the skills build fast once the ship is at sea. What we expect is reasonable health, a willingness to work as part of a crew, and the honesty to say when something is beyond you.
There is no single answer. The Caribbean island-hopping legs (Leg 6, Leg 7) have shorter sea passages and warm weather, and are forgiving first legs. The Indian Ocean legs (Leg 1, Leg 2) are steady trade-wind sailing with beautiful island landfalls. The two full Atlantic crossings (Leg 5 and Leg 8) are longer and more remote and are usually second or third legs rather than first. Email us what you have in mind and we'll help you match.
Individual legs run from about two weeks up to around seven weeks. Most trainees join for one leg of three to five weeks, long enough to settle into the watch system, learn real seamanship, and feel the passage, without committing the kind of calendar most adults can't spare. A full 3-to-6-month stretch across multiple legs is also common, especially for gap-year and sabbatical crew.
Offshore sailing carries real risk. NEPTUN is a steel brigantine built for ocean work, with professional captains, modern safety gear, satellite weather routing, and drills run before every passage. In practice, the most common injuries are bruises and sea-sickness, not catastrophes. The ship avoids storm windows when it can and batters down when it must. You'll be safer with us than you would be on your own boat, but honest disclosure: the sea is the sea, and nobody sensible calls it risk-free.
