Picton Castle is a tall ship used for deep-ocean sail training and long distance education voyages.

In December 2006 a crew member, Laura Gainey, was swept overboard from the ship in the Atlantic Ocean and presumed drowned.

[8] With the help of a small crew he brought her across the Atlantic Ocean, eventually ending up in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia where she began her multimillion-dollar refit.

[10][11] In the spring of 2007, Picton Castle was featured in Mark Burnett's CBS reality show Pirate Master.

[12][13] In October 2013 Picton Castle participated in the International Fleet Review 2013, the centennial anniversary of the Royal Australian Navy, in Sydney, Australia along with fifteen other tall ships.

[14] On the night of December 8, 2006, as Picton Castle was roughly 475 miles (413 nmi) south-east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the ship encountered bad weather.

[15] A search for her by the Picton Castle, aircraft of the United States and Canadian Coast Guards, and nearby merchant vessels, was unsuccessful and called off after three days,[1] and the ship continued on its voyage.

[17] A formal inquiry was established in March 2007,[2] and reported back in July, concluding that Gainey was an "unlucky victim" of an accident and that no changes needed to be made.

[19] Later that month an investigation by the CBC program The Fifth Estate claimed that the Picton Castle was ill-prepared to sail, discouraged the use of safety equipment, and had doctored statements given to the Maritime Cook Islands inquiry.