Our current office in St Mawes is tiny but outside is a perfect bit of rural Cornwall. When the SE gales blow you can hear the surf on the Roseland coastline and taste the salt in the air. Within two hundred yards we have views of the English Channel to the South East and Falmouth Harbour to the west. We are spoilt for choice with footpaths for exercise and dog walking.
Jess was a little late to the sailing party, taking her first step aboard a Tall Ship when she was 30. Which is not all that surprising having been born and raised in land-locked Birmingham. She soon caught up however, after a life changing trip through Classic Sailing on Dutch Brig, Morgenster and subsequently volunteering all of her spare time on the heritage sailing trawler, Pilgrim of Brixham. She eventually left her career in the education sector to take on National Historic Ships UK’s SHTP2 traineeship in 2019.
Jess spent 2021 “ship hopping”, building on the skills gained by the traineeship by sailing around 15 ships all with different rigs around the country. Jess has worked in a variety of roles onboard from Mate to Cook and now runs a traditional ships podcast – ‘Off Watch’
Jessie is a colour blind sailor and jumped-up ship’s cook who has spent most of her adult life as a traditional seafarer. She has been involved in all aspects of the industry, starting as a deckhand and bosun’s mate on the square-riggers over a decade ago.
Having sailed professionally on ships of all sizes, from 40′ gaff cutters to 150′ barques, Jessie has since moved on to vessel support and marine coordination (although she’d still be happier scurrying up the rigging while dinner’s in the oven…)
Adam is a life long entrepreneur and sailor and has always been the business genius behind Classic Sailing. He is always learning new things about marketing and trying to find approaches to selling experiences that no one else has thought of.
A RYA Yachtmaster Instructor, Adam was Classic Sailing’s first RYA Principal, now succeeded by Debbie. Adam has been the driving force of the business and instrumental in growing the Classic Sailing fleet to about 25 vessels working all over the world.
Debbie helped create and set up Classic Sailing with Adam in 1996. She was Operations Manager and skipper of Eve of St Mawes for 20 years, as well as using her creative talents and photography to design and write our websites, most the brochures and sales literature. Involved in all aspects of the business she is also a very well travelled as a tall ship sailor. If you want to know more about Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland, Cape Verde, Cuba and most of our fleet then she is happy to talk to you. Debbie is also our RYA Chief Instructor and has been to Nautical College to gain her STCW95 Deck Officer ticket so she can advise you on sailing career paths too.
