A Bermudian woman is second in command on a sail training ship on the last leg of a round-the-world trip.

Erin Greig is the chief mate on the Picton Castle, which had docked in Bermuda before it completes its voyage with a return to its home port of Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, next week.

Ms Greig, who was not available for interview yesterday, has worked with a 40-member crew under Captain Daniel Moreland.

The ship tied up at Ordnance Island, St George’s, yesterday and will leave the island on Friday. It is scheduled to arrive home on June 1.

Captain Moreland said: “Some people may think that because we have made this voyage seven times that somehow it has become easy or routine. I can assure you that is not the case. No voyage is.”

The vessel, registered in the Cook Islands in the Pacific, started its seventh world voyage last April and sailed more than 30,000 miles and stopped at 26 ports.

It sailed the North Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, the South Pacific Ocean, the Coral Sea, Timor Sea, South Indian Ocean, Cape of Good Hope and the South Atlantic.

The Picton Castle crossed the equator twice before it returned to the North Atlantic.

Captain Moreland, in command for the ship’s seven world voyages, said this will be the ship’s last world trip.

Picton Castle will focus on sailing the Atlantic waters of Europe and West Africa and the Caribbean islands.

Captain Moreland said the seventh voyage “was amazing with a great crew”, but that it was time to end the world tours.

He added: “This certainly won’t be the last time we visit Bermuda.”

The ship’s website said its mission was “to cross the great oceans of the world under canvas, gain and practise the arts and skills of the accomplished seafarer of steering a large sailing ship, rigging, splicing, sailmaking, chartwork, navigation and small-boat handling”.

The crew helped deliver vital supplies to remote Pitcairn Island and Palmerston Atoll in the South Pacific and helped to carry out medical clinics in the Vanuatu island, also in the South Pacific.

The ship also delivered tons of schoolbooks and supplies donated in Nova Scotia to impoverished South African schools.

The 179ft vessel has 12,450 square feet of sail, a riveted steel hull, pine decks, steel masts and wooden and steel yards.

The ship also has a powerful 690hp diesel engine.

The galley, located on deck, has an 1893 stove similar to those used on sailing ships 100 years ago.

The Picton Castle, built as a trawler in 1928, was refitted for ocean voyaging under square sail in Lunenburg in the 1990s.

All her masts, rigging, blocks, steel and iron work, hull work and sails were made in Lunenburg shipyards and workshops.