World Voyage 2026

The 2026 season is the opening half of an 18,844 nm world voyage. Brigantine NEPTUN leaves Bali on 1 May 2026 and arrives in Cape Town by 20 December, four legs covering 8,186 nautical miles. Leg 1 crosses the Indian Ocean from Bali to Réunion via Komodo, Cocos (Keeling), Rodrigues and Mauritius. Leg 2 runs north to Madagascar, Mayotte and Zanzibar. Leg 3 works south through the Mozambique Channel to Durban. Leg 4 rounds the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Town.

Start with the calendar window you have, then look at the character of each leg. Leg 1 (May–Aug, 4,078 nm) is the longest and most remote, three months of trade-wind ocean sailing with island landfalls. Leg 2 (Aug–Sep, 1,391 nm) is the shortest and most cultural, Madagascar, Mayotte and the Swahili coast. Leg 3 (Sep–Nov, 1,798 nm) is the African-coast leg with Mozambique and Tanzania. Leg 4 (Nov–Dec, 919 nm) is the Cape leg, the most demanding seamanship of the season. Read each leg page for full itineraries before you decide.

Yes. Each of the four legs is sold as a stand-alone berth, and most trainees join for one leg only. You can also stack two or more legs back-to-back if your time allows, the ship handovers happen in port and there's nothing stopping you from staying aboard. The 2026 leg pricing table shows day counts, dates, totals and current spot status so you can plan a single window or a longer commitment.

All 2026 legs are priced at €79 per day on a shared-cost basis, that's how the nonprofit covers food, fuel, harbour fees and maintenance, not a profit margin. Total cost depends on length: a 38-day Cape leg comes out around €3,000, while the 92-day Indian Ocean opener is closer to €7,300. Membership in Foreningen Neptun (75 USD per year) is a separate one-off requirement. Exact totals per leg are in the pricing table on this page.

No. NEPTUN is a sail training ship, and most trainees who join the 2026 legs have never sailed offshore. You start the Greenhand syllabus from day one, basic line handling, harness and safety gear, the watch system, steering a course, reading a chart, and progress on the job, on watch, with patient teaching from professional crew. What matters is reasonable health, willingness to work as part of a watch, and acceptance that you'll be learning fast in your first week.

After rounding the Cape of Good Hope, NEPTUN rests at anchor in Cape Town for thirteen days over Christmas and New Year (20 December 2026 → 2 January 2027). No berths are sold during this window, the ship lies quiet while crew visits family, walks Table Mountain, and prepares for the South Atlantic crossing that opens the 2027 season. The 2027 season then starts from Saldanha Bay, just north of Cape Town, on 2 January.

Weather routing decides departure and arrival dates, not the calendar. The captain may sit in port an extra day or two to let a front pass, or shorten a stay to catch a better window, the priority is always a safe passage over a tidy schedule. Build a small buffer into your travel plans on either end of a leg, especially the Cape leg where the Agulhas current and Southern Ocean fronts make the timing less predictable than the trade-wind passages.

Yes, but they're remote. Within the 2026 season, the most accessible meeting points are Bali (international flights), Réunion (direct flights from Paris), Zanzibar (regional flights via Dar es Salaam) and Cape Town (international flights into a major hub). Madagascar, the Mozambique Channel ports and the Indian Ocean atolls are far harder to reach. If a partner or friend wants to come and see the ship, plan around Bali, Réunion, Zanzibar or Cape Town.