MARIO RUEL
SAILING MASTER • RIGGER • TRADITIONAL MARINER
A life shaped by tall ships, ocean passages and the craft of traditional sailing.
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
FROM QUÉBEC TO THE WORLD
Mario Ruel grew up in a small farming village in Québec, where winter temperatures could fall to minus 30°C and the world of tall ships seemed impossibly far away.
At seventeen, he discovered that world. His first experiences aboard traditional sailing vessels opened a path that would take him across oceans, through demanding passages and into the company of sailors, shipwrights and riggers whose knowledge would shape the rest of his life.
Bounty would eventually become one of the most important chapters in that journey.
QUÉBEC • ACAPULCO • PANAMA • CARIBBEAN
THE MAKING OF A MARINER
LEARNING THE SEA
OUR SVANEN
Mario's first major experience of life aboard a traditional sailing vessel came aboard Our Svanen, sailing from Acapulco through the Panama Canal to Puerto Rico.
Summers aboard the Canadian brigantines Pathfinder and Playfair followed, where he learned the manoeuvres, discipline and practical seamanship of traditional sailing.
BACK TO OUR SVANEN
Recalled to Our Svanen as an officer, Mario spent extended periods aboard her during the early 1980s, sailing between Denmark, the Canary Islands, Bermuda, Canada and the Caribbean.
The sea became his classroom.
THE DAY MARIO WALKED ABOARD
SYDNEY • NOVEMBER 1986
In November 1986, Mario arrived at Pier One in Sydney and walked aboard Bounty.
The ship already had a full crew.
Somehow, he impressed the Captain enough to earn a place.
He joined a vessel that would take him across some of the world's great oceans and into one of the most important chapters of his life at sea.
“I walked aboard The Bounty.”
THE BOUNTY UNDER SAIL
WHEN EVERY SAIL WENT UP
For Mario, one of the great pleasures of Bounty was experiencing her as a sailing vessel.
Her size, her traditional rig and the opportunities to work with sails, spars and rigging made her something unusual even among historic and replica vessels.
The memory that stayed with him was simple:
"Emptying the sail locker and setting every sail they had."
MARIO RUEL
Sailing Master • Rigger • Traditional Mariner
THE RIGGER'S HAND
Mario's knowledge of rigging was built over decades and across many vessels.
On Bounty, that knowledge became practical work — from replacing shrouds and maintaining rigging to working with wire, rope, spars and traditional techniques.
The knowledge he brought aboard Bounty did not stay aboard Bounty.
It travelled with him.
RIGGING
Wire • Rope • Shrouds • Standing Rigging
SEAMANSHIP
Sail Handling • Traditional Practice • Ocean Passage
AUTHENTICITY
Historical Rigging • Research • Traditional Craft
FROM BOUNTY TO LE PÉLICAN
THE KNOWLEDGE TRAVELS
Mario's years aboard Bounty became part of a much larger body of knowledge — knowledge carried from ship to ship, from one crew to another, and from one generation of traditional mariners to the next.
After Bounty, that experience continued into the research, construction and rigging of Le Pélican D'Iberville, a reconstruction of a seventeenth-century French warship.
For Mario, the work was not simply about making a ship look authentic.
It was about understanding how the rig worked, how it was made, and how traditional knowledge could be brought back to life.
“I would like to reiterate the exceedingly high calibre of the rigging and the marlinspike seamanship…”
MELBOURNE SMITH • 1994
Review of rigging and authenticity
THE KNOWLEDGE DOESN'T BELONG TO ONE SHIP
A traditional vessel survives because someone chooses to care for the knowledge that keeps her alive.
Mario's story is not only about sailing ships. It is about custodianship — the responsibility to understand how vessels were built, rigged, sailed and maintained, and to pass that knowledge forward.
What one sailor learns becomes part of what the next sailor inherits.
WE ARE NOT THE OWNERS OF THIS KNOWLEDGE.
WE ARE ITS CUSTODIANS.
FROM MEMORY TO REVIVAL
Mario's story is part of a much larger chain of knowledge passed from sailor to sailor, vessel to vessel, generation to generation.
He learned from the ships that came before Bounty.
He carried that knowledge aboard Bounty.
He carried it beyond Bounty.
THE SHIP MAY BE RESTORED.
THE KNOWLEDGE MUST LIVE ON.