| IMO | 8420878 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 5,307 GT |
| Length | 135.0 m |
| Passenger capacity (double) | 148 |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 159 |
| Service speed | 15.0 knots |
| Builder | Ateliers et Chantiers du Havre |
| Hull number | 269 |
| Launched | 1985 |
| Maiden voyage | 1986 |
| Operator | Windstar Cruises |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Wind Star is a motor-sailing cruise ship operated by Windstar Cruises — a modern, steel, four-masted sailing ship whose sails are set, trimmed and furled by computer at the push of a button. She was the first of the three sailing ships with which Windstar built its identity in the 1980s, delivered from Le Havre, France, in 1986, and she remains in service forty years later, still doing the thing she was designed for: carrying about 148 guests into small harbours under a press of white sail.
Her importance is disproportionate to her size. Wind Star and her sisters proved sail could be a cruise product in the megaship age — not nostalgia, but a working propulsion system and a brand. The type she founded has since been taken up at much larger sizes, but her silhouette — four masts, six triangular staysails, a low white hull — is still the image Windstar sells. Few 1980s ships are so completely unchanged in role.
Key specifications
The dataset records Wind Star at IMO 8420878, 5,703 GT, 135.0 m long, built by Ateliers et Chantiers du Havre as hull 269, launched and on her maiden voyage in 1986, with a speed of 15.0 knots. Her registry-referenced characteristics give a slightly different set, and the difference is worth stating plainly: Equasis-referenced figures give 5,307 GT, a length of 134 m, a beam of 15.8 m and a draught of 4.1 m. Her launch was likewise earlier than the dataset's year: she was launched on 13 November 1985 and completed and delivered on 1 November 1986.
Her speed needs the same care: under power alone she makes about 10–11 knots; the dataset's 15.0 knots requires sail assistance (her characteristics give up to 15.8 knots with a favourable wind). She carries 148 passengers in 74 staterooms, with a crew of about 90–101 in published summaries. Her rig is the specification that matters: a four-masted staysail schooner with about 2,000 square metres of sail, computer-controlled and furling in about a minute, over diesel-electric machinery of about 3,150 kW.
Design and construction
Wind Star was built at Le Havre by Ateliers et Chantiers du Havre as yard number 269, for the newly formed Windstar Sail Cruises. The concept, developed with French sailing expertise, was radical for 1986: a small luxury cruise hull with a full sailing rig as genuine auxiliary propulsion, every sail controlled hydraulically and electronically from the bridge. No crew hauls ropes; the sails furl at the touch of a control.
The result is long, low and narrow — 134 m on a beam under 16 m — with teak decks and masts rising about 204 feet. She was launched on 13 November 1985 and completed on 1 November 1986, at a reported build cost of about US$65 million — serious money for 148 berths, and a measure of how much of her value was in the rig rather than the steel.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
The dataset dates launch and maiden voyage to 1986; the documented sequence is launch on 13 November 1985, delivery on 1 November 1986, and service entry the same year. The name set the fleet pattern — Wind Song and Wind Spirit followed — and the company's brand is simply this ship's name generalised. No godmother or naming ceremony is recorded in the sources used, and none is invented.
Her debut established the type's pattern: Mediterranean summers and Caribbean winters in contemporary descriptions, in small ports and anchorages big ships cannot use. The departure ritual guests remember was established early and is still described in reviews: as the sails unfurl on leaving port, Vangelis's "Conquest of Paradise" is played — theatre made possible only by a rig that sets itself.
Career by operator
| Period | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 1986–present | Wind Star | Windstar Cruises |
The ship has never changed name or brand; what changed was Windstar's ownership. Holland America bought half of Windstar in 1987 and the rest in 1988, and became a Carnival subsidiary in 1989, so Wind Star spent two decades as a sail-powered corner of the Carnival empire. In March 2007 Carnival sold Windstar to Ambassadors International for a reported US$100 million; after Ambassadors' difficulties the brand passed to Xanterra, its present owner. Throughout, her work did not change.
Onboard character
Wind Star's character is the rig. Everything is subordinate to being under sail on a small ship: open teak decks with views up to the sails, a low superstructure, all 74 staterooms outside and nearly identical, and a single relaxed dining room with open seating. A small pool aft, a lounge and piano bar, a compact casino and library complete the type.
With 148 guests and about a hundred crew the ship runs on informality — no formal nights, officers and guests on first-name terms, an open bridge. Reviews across four decades return to the same observation: the hush when the engines are cut and she gathers way under sail alone. That continuity is her era-defining quality — a 1980s cruise ship whose concept did not date.
Major refits and incidents
A sailing ship in continuous service refits on a short cycle, and Wind Star has been refurbished repeatedly; commercial summaries list refit years including 2001, 2012 and 2023. None altered her rig, dimensions or role; they are refreshes, not rebuilds.
No major casualty is recorded for Wind Star herself in the sources used. The caution belongs to her sister: Wind Song, the second of the three, was lost after an engine-room fire in French Polynesia in December 2002 and was subsequently scuttled — an event in the class's history that does not belong in Wind Star's own record, and is noted here only so that it is not mistakenly attached to her. Wind Star's own four decades show no equivalent event in the consulted sources.
Sister ships and class
Wind Star is the first of three computer-controlled sailing cruise ships from Le Havre: Wind Star (1986), Wind Song (1987) and Wind Spirit (1988) — near-identical, four-masted, 148 guests, and together the whole Windstar fleet for its first quarter-century. Wind Song's loss in 2002 reduced the class to two; Wind Spirit survives alongside her, among the oldest purpose-built cruise ships still in their original role.
The design's descendants are larger: the five-masted Wind Surf (the former Club Med 1, joined 1998) and the still larger sailing cruise ships built for other operators since. All trace the idea — a real rig, computer-run, on a cruise hull — back to this 1986 Le Havre ship.
Fate and where she is now
Wind Star remains in active service with Windstar Cruises under her original name, as the dataset records, forty years after her delivery. No sale, renaming or withdrawal has been announced for the hull. She is that rare thing in this directory: a ship whose page could have been outlined in 1986 — same name, same brand, same rig, same trade — and would only have needed its dates filled in.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships; Wikipedia, "Wind Star (ship)" (launched 13 November 1985, Equasis-referenced 5,307 GT, 134 m × 15.8 m, 148 passengers), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_Star_(ship); ShipStamps ship history, "WIND STAR cruise vessel 1986" (yard 269, delivery 1 November 1986, sail area and ownership chronology); Windstar / CLIA ship descriptions (four-masted, computer-controlled sails, 74 staterooms, 148 guests).