Royal Clipper: what to know about Star Clippers' five-masted tall ship

The Royal Clipper is a five-masted tall ship that takes up to 227 guests on week-long cruises. Star Clippers runs her in the Mediterranean in summer and in the Caribbean in winter, sailing round trips from Bridgetown, Barbados. She’s a real sailing ship: 42 sails, set and trimmed by a working crew, with engines for the calm days. We sail her in January 2028. I haven’t sailed her yet, and I’m not going to pretend I have, so everything here comes from Star Clippers’ published facts and the sources at the bottom of the page. Below: what the ship is, where her design came from, how a week on board works, and both of her Caribbean routes, port by port.

What is the Royal Clipper?

She’s a steel-hulled, full-rigged sailing ship built as a cruise ship. “Full-rigged” means every mast carries square sails, the rectangular ones hung from horizontal spars (called yards). That’s the rig of the big merchant sailing ships of the late 1800s, and you hardly ever see it now. Many modern sailing cruise ships use fore-and-aft sails instead, because they’re easier to handle.

Here are the numbers, from Star Clippers’ own deck plan unless noted:

Royal Clipper
In service	2000
Guests	227, in 114 cabins
Crew	106
Masts	5, each 177 ft
Sails	42 (26 square sails, 11 staysails, 4 jibs, 1 spanker)
Sail area	54,000 sq ft (Star Clippers); about 56,000 sq ft (Guinness, Wikipedia)
Length / beam / draft	439 ft / 52 ft / 18 ft
Speed	7 to 20 knots
Gross tonnage	4,425
Registry	Malta
Power on board	220 volts
Public rooms	Tropical Bar, Piano Bar, Dining Room (one open seating), Library, Gallery, Observation Lounge, Nemo’s Spa
Outdoors	3 saltwater pools, marina platform at the stern
Included water sports	Water-skiing, paddle-boarding, windsurfing, kayaking, small-boat sailing, snorkeling

(Yes, the two sail-area figures disagree. I’ve given you both rather than pick one.)

Photo: Star Clippers

Is the Royal Clipper the largest sailing ship in the world?

Star Clippers calls her “the largest full-rigged sailing ship in the world,” and Guinness World Records agrees with that wording: it lists the Royal Clipper as the world’s largest fully rigged ship, with square sails on all five masts.

Notice the careful wording. She isn’t the largest sailing ship of any kind. Guinness gives that record to Golden Horizon, a five-masted barque (square sails on some masts, fore-and-aft sails on the last) of 8,770 gross tons, completed in Croatia in 2019. Here’s the twist: Star Clippers ordered that ship themselves, as Flying Clipper, but never took delivery after a dispute with the shipyard. She later sailed for a UK company as Golden Horizon.

So when Star Clippers says “largest,” they’re right, as long as you keep the words “full-rigged.” She’s the largest full-rigged ship afloat, and one of the largest sailing ships of any rig.

Royal Clipper history: from Preussen to 2000

The ship she copies

The Royal Clipper’s design is based on Preussen, a German cargo ship launched on 7 May 1902 by the Joh. C. Tecklenborg yard in Geestemünde for the Hamburg firm F. Laeisz. Laeisz named all its ships with the letter P, so they were known as the Flying P-Liners. Preussen was the only five-masted full-rigged ship ever built until the Royal Clipper came along. She carried nitrate from Chile around Cape Horn, and she was fast: in 1903 she sailed from the Lizard, in Cornwall, to Iquique, Chile, in 57 days.

Her career was short, and the ending was rotten luck. In November 1910 the British steamer Brighton rammed her in the English Channel south of Newhaven. A gale stopped attempts to tow her into Dover, her anchor chains broke, and she was driven onto rocks near Dover and declared a total loss.

How the Royal Clipper was built

This is the part most people don’t know: the Royal Clipper’s steel hull wasn’t new when Star Clippers bought it. It had been designed by the Polish naval architect Zygmunt Choreń and started at the Gdańsk shipyard in Poland. The shipyard lengthened it by 24 meters (79 feet). Robert McFarlane, who also designed Star Clippers’ first two ships, redesigned it as a five-masted full-rigger, and the Dutch Merwede shipyard finished the interiors in 2000. The atrium and lobby have painted murals by the German artist Rainer Maria Latzke.

So: a 1900s cargo ship on the outside, a small hotel with an atrium, a library and a spa on the inside. Preussen’s crew, hauling nitrate round Cape Horn, would not recognize the spa.

Star Clippers cruises: the company and its fleet

Star Clippers runs three sailing ships. Star Flyer (1991) and Star Clipper (1992) are four-masted barquentines carrying 170 guests each. The Royal Clipper (2000) is the big sister. All three are registered in Malta.

In winter all three are in the Caribbean and Central America. For January 2028, Star Clippers’ rate file shows:

• Royal Clipper: 7-night round trips from Bridgetown, Barbados.
• Star Flyer: 7-night round trips from Philipsburg, St Maarten.
• Star Clipper: sailings from St John’s, Antigua, then the Panama Canal and Costa Rica.

On one Royal Clipper route the two ships meet at sea and sail side by side to Dominica (more on that in the Windward Islands route below). For how Star Clippers compares with other sailing-ship lines, see our guide to tall ship cruise lines.

Who’s behind it? Star Clippers was founded by the Swedish businessman Mikael Krafft, who’s still its owner and president, and it began sailing in 1991. So the Royal Clipper isn’t a sailing ship tacked onto a big cruise brand. Sailing ships are all Star Clippers does.

Royal Clipper vs Star Clipper

People mix these up all the time, and no wonder: Star Clipper is both the company’s name (plural) and one of its ships (singular). Here’s the difference between the two ships:

	Royal Clipper	Star Clipper
In service	2000	1992
Rig	Full-rigged ship, 5 masts, 42 sails	Barquentine, 4 masts, square sails on the front mast only
Guests	227	170
Suites with verandahs	Yes, 14 Deluxe Suites	No
Winter 2027–28 base	Bridgetown, Barbados	St John’s, Antigua, then Panama and Costa Rica

If what you want is the full square-rigged look, every mast hung with sails, that’s the Royal Clipper. If you’d rather be one of 170 than one of 227, look at Star Clipper or her twin, Star Flyer. Our Royal Clipper cabins guide compares their cabins.

Where is the Royal Clipper now?

She works to a fixed yearly pattern, so you can usually work out roughly where she is from the date. From Star Clippers’ 2026–2028 schedule:

• Late November to March: the Caribbean. 7-night round trips from Bridgetown, Barbados.
• Late March to April: east across the Atlantic. Crossings from Barbados to Lisbon, Malaga, Nice or Civitavecchia, 15 to 28 nights.
• April to October: the Mediterranean. Sailings from Nice, Civitavecchia (the port for Rome), Venice, Valletta in Malta and Piraeus for Athens.
• October to November: west across the Atlantic back to Barbados.

As I write this in early November 2026, her schedule has her on a two-week sailing from Barbados to Panama (31 October to 14 November), then from Panama to Antigua.

For her exact position, use a ship tracker. Search her IMO number, 8712178, on VesselFinder or MarineTraffic. These sites read the signal ships broadcast (called AIS), and free versions can lag by hours, so don’t plan a pier-side wave around one. (Search by the number, not the name. Plenty of ships are called something Clipper.)

Does the Royal Clipper sail Rome to Venice?

Yes, on a few summer dates. Star Clippers’ schedule has a 10-night “Italy, Albania & Croatia” sailing from Civitavecchia to Venice on 7 July 2027, calling at Ponza, Lipari and Stromboli, Taormina in Sicily, Crotone, Saranda in Albania, Monopoli, then Vis, Šibenik and Rovinj in Croatia. There’s a 17-night “Grand Voyage” version too, and an 11-night sailing the other way, Venice to Civitavecchia. Most of her summer, though, is 7-night round trips from Venice or from Civitavecchia. Star Clippers’ schedule doesn’t say where in Venice she ties up, so ask when you book.

How long is a Royal Clipper cruise?

Most are 7 nights. The full range, from the same schedule:

Length	What it is
3 to 5 nights	Short Mediterranean sailings in spring and fall
7 nights	The standard week, Caribbean and Mediterranean
10 to 14 nights	Longer Mediterranean routes, Barbados to Panama, and the Christmas and New Year Caribbean sailings
12 to 17 nights	”Grand Voyages,” two sailings booked back to back
15 to 28 nights	Atlantic crossings

Life on board: what a day is like

The ship usually sails at night and anchors near an island by morning. You go ashore in the ship’s tender boats. The afternoon is often a second stop or a beach. Here’s the routine as guests and writers describe it:

• Sail-away. At departure the crew sets sail while “Conquest of Paradise” by Vangelis plays over the deck speakers. Star Clippers treats it as a house tradition. (If you know the song, you know it’s not subtle.)
• Sailing. You can watch the crew set and trim the sails. Wikipedia notes powered controls let as few as 20 crew handle them.
• The bowsprit net. A rope net hangs under the bowsprit at the very front of the ship. You can lie in it, over the water, while she’s sailing.
• Mast climbing. Supervised climbs are offered on most cruises, usually a couple of times a week.
• Water sports. On beach days the crew lowers the marina platform at the stern for swimming, kayaking, paddle-boarding and small-boat sailing. All included.
• Evenings. The Tropical Bar on deck is where everyone ends up. Reviewers describe a nightly musician, and “captain’s story time,” when the captain talks about the next day’s island, the ship and the history of sail.
• Meals. The dining room has one open seating, so you sit where and with whom you like.
• Dress. Casual by day. Guides describe smart-casual dinners (no shorts or T-shirts at dinner) and no formal nights. Leave the gown at home. Cruise Critic adds no swimsuits or flip-flops in the dining room, and iglu cruise mentions a Captain’s Dinner if you want an excuse to dress up a bit.

Photo: Star Clippers

Royal Clipper Caribbean cruise routes from Barbados

From November to March the Royal Clipper sails 7-night round trips from Bridgetown, Barbados, Saturday to Saturday. She alternates two routes. These are the January 2028 versions from Star Clippers’ itinerary file:

Day	Grenadine Islands (8 and 22 Jan 2028)	Windward Islands (15 and 29 Jan 2028)
Sat	Bridgetown, Barbados: board	Bridgetown, Barbados: board
Sun	Beach day in the Grenadines	Rodney Bay, St Lucia
Mon	St George’s, Grenada	Sail alongside Star Flyer to Cabrits, Dominica
Tue	Tobago Cays	Falmouth Harbour (Nelson’s Dockyard), Antigua
Wed	Kingstown, St Vincent (am); Bequia (pm)	Basseterre, St Kitts (am); South Friar’s Bay beach (pm)
Thu	Fort-de-France, Martinique (am); beach (pm)	Terre-de-Haut, Îles des Saintes
Fri	Marigot Bay, St Lucia (am); Soufrière (pm)	Beach, Martinique
Sat	Bridgetown: disembark	Bridgetown: disembark

How to choose: if you want beaches and snorkeling, pick the Grenadines. The Tobago Cays are a marine park, and the Soufrière stop puts you right under St Lucia’s Pitons. If you want history, pick the Windward route. It sails further north and packs in two UNESCO sites, a national park in Dominica, and the islands where a 1782 sea battle stopped a French invasion of Jamaica. That’s the one we chose.

Both routes start and end in Barbados. If you’re flying in, our Bridgetown, Barbados guide covers the cruise port and what to do with a spare day.

The Windward Islands route, port by port

This is the route our January 2028 trip sails. Port order and stops are from Star Clippers’ itinerary file for the 15 January 2028 sailing (cruise code RC150128). Star Clippers can change ports for weather, so treat this as the plan, not a promise.

Saturday: Bridgetown, Barbados

You board in the afternoon, and the sails go up as the ship leaves harbor. Bridgetown’s old center and its Garrison are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My advice: fly in a day early. It takes the stress out of flight delays, and there’s plenty to see.

Sunday: Rodney Bay, St Lucia

Rodney Bay is on St Lucia’s northwest coast. It’s named for Admiral George Rodney, whose British fleet anchored here (then Gros Islet Bay) in 1782, with lookouts on Pigeon Island watching for the French fleet. Remember that name; it comes back on Thursday. Pigeon Island, now a national landmark with an 18th-century British fort, is beside the bay. The fishing village of Gros Islet next door is a setting in Omeros, Derek Walcott’s long poem. One honest caveat: the Pitons are at the other end of the island, about 50 km by road, so this route doesn’t stop there. If the Pitons are on your list, that’s a point for the Grenadines route.

Monday: sail with Star Flyer to Cabrits, Dominica

Star Clippers’ itinerary has the Royal Clipper and the four-masted Star Flyer sailing alongside each other on the way to Cabrits, a national park on Dominica’s northwest tip. Two tall ships in sight of each other at sea is not something you get to see often. The park includes Fort Shirley, a restored 18th-century British garrison. Nearby, the Indian River runs into the sea at Portsmouth; guides row visitors up it, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest filmed river scenes there. Dominica is also where the novelist Jean Rhys was born. More in our guides to things to do in Dominica and the Pirates of the Caribbean filming locations.

Tuesday: Falmouth Harbour, Antigua

The ship anchors next to English Harbour, home of Nelson’s Dockyard, a Georgian Royal Navy yard that’s now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Horatio Nelson served here as a young captain from 1784 to 1787. Shirley Heights, the old lookout above the harbor, is a short drive up the hill. See our guide to things to do in Antigua.

Wednesday: Basseterre and South Friar’s Bay, St Kitts

The morning stop is Basseterre, St Kitts’s capital. The big sight is Brimstone Hill Fortress, a UNESCO site on a volcanic hill above the west coast. The afternoon is a beach stop at South Friar’s Bay. St Kitts was the first English colony in the Caribbean, settled in 1624. More in things to do in St Kitts.

Thursday: Terre-de-Haut, Îles des Saintes

The Îles des Saintes (Les Saintes) are a group of nine small islands south of Guadeloupe. They’re part of France, so it’s French and euros here. Only two islands are inhabited, Terre-de-Haut and Terre-de-Bas; the ship anchors off Terre-de-Haut.

Three things to know:

• Fort Napoléon. The fort on the hill above town was built between 1844 and 1867. It now holds a museum about the islands, including models of the Battle of the Saintes and its flagships. It’s open mornings only, so go first thing, before the beach.
• The Battle of the Saintes. On 12 April 1782, Rodney’s fleet (which had left Rodney Bay in St Lucia four days earlier) defeated the French fleet of the Comte de Grasse in the channel between these islands and Dominica. De Grasse was captured with his flagship, Ville de Paris, and the French invasion of Jamaica was called off. This is the best reason to pick this route: Rodney Bay on Sunday and Les Saintes on Thursday are both ends of the same story.
• The bay. The Baie des Saintes joined the Club of the Most Beautiful Bays of the World in 2001. (Yes, that club is real.) The Pain de Sucre, a small basalt peninsula, and Le Chameau, the 309-meter hill at the west end, are the landmarks.

One for the readers: the Guadeloupe novelist Maryse Condé moved Wuthering Heights to Guadeloupe and Cuba in Windward Heights (1995). So Les Saintes links this route straight back to the Brontë country of Yorkshire.

Friday: beach day, Martinique

Star Clippers’ file just says “Beach, Martinique.” They pick the bay nearer the date, so I can’t tell you which one yet. Honestly? After a week of ports, a beach with no plan is fine by me. Martinique is French too. See things to do in Martinique.

Saturday: back to Bridgetown

The ship returns to Barbados in the morning and you disembark after breakfast. Don’t book an early flight home.

Royal Clipper cabins

There are eight cabin types, from inside cabins of about 108 sq ft up to two Owner’s Suites of about 430 sq ft. Most cabins are Categories 2 to 4: outside cabins of about 145 sq ft with portholes, twin or double beds, and marble bathrooms with showers. Fourteen Deluxe Suites on the Main Deck have private verandahs. They’re compact, as you’d expect on a sailing ship, so pack light. Our Royal Clipper cabins guide has the full table, where each category sits on the deck plan, and which cabins to avoid for your situation.

Photo: Star Clippers

How much does a Royal Clipper cruise cost?

As of November 2026, Star Clippers’ advance-purchase fares for a 7-night January 2028 Royal Clipper sailing from Barbados start at $2,620 per person, sharing, for an inside cabin, and run to $6,070 per person for an Owner’s Suite. Fares don’t include flights, drinks, gratuities or port charges, so budget for those on top. Holiday sailings cost more. The Royal Clipper cost guide has every category, last season’s fares, and the extras.

Royal Clipper ship reviews: what to expect

I haven’t sailed her yet, so I’m not going to review her. Here’s what the published reviews, including the ones in our sources, agree on:

• The sailing is the point. Reviewers single out the sail-away, the bowsprit net, the mast climb and watching the crew handle 42 sails.
• It’s informal. No formal nights, one open seating, a small-ship crowd.
• You’ll feel the sea. She’s big for a sailing ship and small next to a modern cruise ship, and that’s rather the point. If you get seasick, pack whatever works for you.
• Tenders most days. At most stops she anchors and you go ashore by boat. If you need step-free access, ask Star Clippers about tenders, stairs and cabins before you book, not after.
• Extras add up. Drinks and gratuities are on top of the fare.
• Power is 220 volts. US chargers that say “100–240V” are fine with a plug adapter; single-voltage devices (looking at you, hair tools) need a converter.

How our trip uses the Royal Clipper

Twice Told Stories runs a hosted week on the Royal Clipper’s Windward Islands route, Saturday 15 to Saturday 22 January 2028, round trip from Bridgetown, for up to 20 guests. I host on board all week. Before the trip, the group reads Caribbean novels and a pirate classic together and watches the films shot on these islands, and then each day has one story stop on shore. See Mermaids, Pirates and Poets (Caribbean Sail) for prices and the waiting list, and our Royal Clipper reading list for the books.