Dropping out of college for a life at sea is not something most parents would agree with, but for 23-year-old Erin Greig, that was never a problem.

Armed with supportive parents, a strong back, and a willing heart, Erin has spent over two years at sea aboard various yachts, barques, sloops, and other tall ships, teaching children and delivering ships to islands around the Caribbean and beyond.

The former Warwick Academy student has just ended her latest stint — over seven months at sea — working as an Able Bodied Seaman aboard the SS Sorlandet, where she has explored over 20 ports of call worldwide.

A high school on the seas, the Norwegian flagged ship chartered by Class Afloat.

As a professional crew member, Erin is responsible for rotating the students through their respective duties aboard the ship when they’re not studying.

Erin herself puts in ten hours a day — two four-hour shifts and two hours of maintenance — working with all the students as they sail the high seas.

“The ship itself is required to have four physical position stood at all times. One student will stand lookout, there will be a helmsmen, there will be a standby helmsman, and there will be a safety watch.

“In between that the students have spare time, while at night they can be on standby for sail manoeuvres or any cleaning routines we have.

“During the day when we have maintenance projects such as painting, sanding varnishing, and lots of cleaning, so there’s a pretty heavy routine that is required.”

Erin didn’t happen upon the job by chance. She was a student on Class Afloat for ten months, from 2007 to 2008.

But after two years at University, Erin decided she wanted to get back out to sea.

“I decided to take a gap year in my third year,” said Erin. “I guess I’m still on my gap year.”

“It’s one thing to stand on a dock and see the beauty of a full rigged ship, but its another thing to see her really spread her wings and cruise under 12 knots in 30 knots of wind; 800 tons of ship crossing the Atlantic.

“Controlling that with your own hands is a phenomenal feat when you’re using what many people would consider are older methods of transportation.”

She first started working aboard the SS Sorlandet in 2011, but only on a four and a half month contract.

After that, it was back home, where Erin would end up working with the Spirit of Bermuda for ten months.

After that, Erin spent a year bumming around the Caribbean, delivering yachts to ports in Bolivia, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda and other islands.

Last May, she returned to the SS Sorlandet for a second stint, where she worked for one month before singing the seven months contract, which ended in January in Barbados.

Next up, Erin will be serving an apprenticeship aboard the Picton Castle, a three-masted training barque based out of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, where she will be exploring the legendary South Pacific, from including Pitcairn Island, French Polynesia, Samoa and Fiji, to Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Bali, Reunion, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, St. Helena, Senegal, Cape Verde, and Eastern Caribbean.

After two years at sea, one might think some time on land would be in order. Erin would disagree.

“I definitely see it as a career. Sailing classing tall ships is an incredibly difficult thing to describe to anyone who hasn’t done it before, but anyone who has been out at sea for any number of days knows it’s a completely unique environment.

“The ocean is the one thing in the world that has changed the least over hundreds of millions of year.

“To work on a traditional sailing boat, doing rig work and practices that have been going on for hundreds of years, even though they’re slowly dying, to be a part of keeping that antiquity alive is something that I really enjoy and really love to pass on to students that are on these programmes.”