| IMO | 8712178 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 5,000 GT |
| Length | 133.74 m |
| Beam | 16.28 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 227 |
| Service speed | 13.5 knots |
| Builder | Gdańsk Shipyard; De Merwede |
| Hull number | 681 |
| Launched | 2000 |
| Maiden voyage | 2000-07 |
| Operator | Star Clippers |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Royal Clipper is a steel-hulled, five-masted, fully rigged tall ship in service as a cruise ship for Star Clippers — and she is, by the measure that matters for her kind, the largest of her kind in the world. Star Clippers describes her as the largest true sailing ship built since the German windjammer Preussen of 1902, on which her design was based, and she is listed in Guinness World Records as the largest square-rigged ship in service, with about 5,202 square metres of sail. She was the first five-masted full-rigged sailing ship built since Preussen herself, nearly a century earlier.
Yet she is a cruise ship, not a museum piece or a sail-training vessel: 227 passengers, a crew of about 106, swimming pools, a marina platform and air-conditioned, Edwardian-styled interiors, all carried on a working square rig of 42 sails that a deck crew of about twenty can handle with powered assistance. That combination — genuine square-rig sailing at resort-ship comfort — is her whole identity, and it has kept her with a single operator, under a single name, since 2000.
Key specifications
The dataset records Royal Clipper at 5,000 GT, 133.74 m long with a beam of 16.28 m, a maximum capacity of 227 passengers and a speed of 13.5 knots, from hull number 681, launched and entering service in 2000. The tonnage deserves a note: Star Clippers' own published technical data gives her gross tonnage as 4,425, against the dataset's rounder 5,000 — the dataset figure is used in the specification box, and the discrepancy is logged with this batch.
The figures that define her kind are not in the dataset and come from her Wikipedia article and Star Clippers material: five masts, the tallest about 54 m high with a hinged top section that can fold down for passing under bridges and power lines; 42 sails with a total area of about 5,000–5,200 square metres; a draught of about 5.6 m; and twin diesel engines for use when wind, weather or schedule require them, with the ship intended to be under sail power whenever conditions allow. Her published speed figures vary by source and by whether she is under sail or engine, which is why the dataset's single figure should be read as nominal.
Design and construction
Her construction history is one of the strangest in this directory. She was redesigned by Robert McFarlane of McFarlane ShipDesign — the designer behind Star Clippers' first two vessels, Star Clipper and Star Flyer — around an existing steel hull designed by the Polish sailing-ship designer Zygmunt Choreń. That hull had been begun at the Gdańsk Shipyard for the Polish communist authorities as Gwarek, intended as a floating holiday home for miners, and was sold when the project ran into financial problems. At Gdańsk the hull was modified and lengthened by about 24 metres. The ship was then completed by the Merwede shipyard in the Netherlands — the dataset's "De Merwede" — which finished the interior; the dataset's hull number, 681, belongs to this construction history.
The completed ship was modelled consciously on Preussen, the famous five-masted Flying P-Liner built in 1902 for the Chilean nitrate trade: a full ship rig on five masts, the only such rig ever widely used, revived a century later for passengers instead of cargo. The Merwede yard completed her interior work in July 2000, with the ship presented to the travel industry around that time — including a visit to the Pool of London for her pre-launch presentation.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
The dataset dates both her launch and her maiden voyage to 2000, the year she was completed and joined the Star Clippers fleet in July. The name Royal Clipper places her at the head of Star Clippers' family — the larger successor to Star Clipper and Star Flyer, with "Royal" marking her as the fleet's flagship, a status her capacity confirms: at 227 passengers she carries substantially more than her two four-masted predecessors, which take about 166 passengers each.
Career by operator
| Period | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 2000–present | Royal Clipper | Star Clippers |
Before that single line, her hull had an unrealised first career as the Polish project Gwarek, described above; she was never completed or operated under that name. As Royal Clipper she has known one operator only, and no transfer, charter under another name or lay-up of significance is recorded for her. Her working pattern, as her operator describes it, is seasonal in the classic tall-ship manner, with transatlantic crossings between seasons and a size that lets her use smaller ports larger motor cruise ships cannot reach.
Onboard character
Royal Clipper's character is the sailing ship herself. Passengers live under a working square rig: sails are raised and set with powered controls by a small deck crew, guests can climb to a crow's nest high above the water, lie in the bowsprit net over the sea, and treat sail handling as the day's entertainment rather than as transport. Her operator's material emphasises that she is under sail whenever weather and conditions permit, assisted by her engines only when necessary.
Below and around that rig, the interiors were designed to match the silhouette. Yacht designer Donald Starkey was commissioned for the interior, in a traditional Edwardian nautical style — mahogany, brass, antique prints and paintings of famous sailing vessels — with a Mediterranean-inflected decoration that included fresco-style murals by Rainer Maria Latzke. The signature spaces reported across sources are the three-deck atrium funnelling daylight down to the dining room, an observation lounge and piano bar, a library, three outdoor pools, and the Captain Nemo lounge and spa, whose underwater portholes look directly into the sea. A marina platform at the stern gives access to water sports. It is a deliberate double identity — 1902 above decks, contemporary below — and it, rather than any itinerary, is what a Royal Clipper voyage is sold on.
Major refits and incidents
No major casualty, fire or reconstruction is recorded for Royal Clipper in the sources used for this guide. She is listed by several cruise sources as having been refurbished in 2010, and a ship in continuous service since 2000 will in any case have been through the normal cycle of drydockings, rigging and sail renewal that a square-rigged vessel demands — her sails, running rigging and powered sail-handling systems are wearing parts in a way that a motor ship's fittings are not.
Sister ships and class
Royal Clipper has no true sister — no other ship was built to her design. Her family is the Star Clippers fleet: Star Clipper and Star Flyer, the smaller, four-masted barquentines designed by the same designer, Robert McFarlane, which preceded her in the 1990s and established the modern sailing-cruise concept she enlarged. She is their flagship in the fleet's own presentation: five masts against their four, 227 passengers against about 166.
Her other "class" relationship is historical rather than commercial. Through her design model, Preussen of 1902, she belongs to the line of the great German Flying P-Liners — the last generation of commercial square-riggers. Naval architects classify by rig as much as by hull, and as the only five-masted full-rigged ship in passenger service, Royal Clipper is effectively a class of one, which is precisely the Guinness-recognised distinction her operator claims for her.
Fate and where she is now
The dataset's verdict is simple: status active, fate "Operating," operator Star Clippers — unchanged since 2000. Royal Clipper's significance does not depend on any record of size among cruise ships generally; at 5,000 GT in the dataset she is one of the smallest vessels in this directory. It depends on her being, in the age of the 200,000-ton resort ship, a working square-rigged sailing ship carrying fare-paying passengers under 42 sails — a 1902 idea, financed and engineered into a durable modern business, and still sailing with her original operator under her original name.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Clipper, https://www.trailfinders.com/cruise/operators/star-clippers