Most boat tours in Aruba run modern catamarans: fast, wide, easy to maintain. We could have bought one. Instead, we spent weeks hand-restoring a wooden schooner, and guests ask us why almost every trip.
It had to feel like a real ship
Flagship Aruba started as a childhood joke between three friends about owning a pirate ship someday. A catamaran is a great boat, but it doesn't look or feel like one. A wooden schooner does: the rigging, the deck, the way she sits in the water. If we were going to build this, we wanted guests to step onto something that actually feels like the ship they imagined.
The restoration wasn't glamorous
Before she could carry her first guests, our crew hauled her out, scraped years of growth off the hull, rebuilt sections of the rigging, and repainted her name across the stern by hand. We filmed most of it, and it's not a highlight reel, it's sanding, scraping and a lot of patience. You can watch the actual footage on our homepage.
We still maintain her ourselves
A wooden ship this old only stays beautiful if someone takes care of her like family, so our crew still handles the maintenance directly instead of outsourcing it. It's more work than a fiberglass hull would be. We think it's worth it every time a guest asks if she's a real pirate ship.
See the restoration for yourself
Watch the full behind-the-scenes footage and read the rest of our story.