CREW RECORDS
CAYMAN ISLANDS MARITIME HERITAGE
A register of masters, owners, officers, and crew who served aboard the schooners, yawls, and sloops of the Cayman Islands fleet. Records drawn from the Mercantile Navy List (1940 & 1947 editions), the Cayman Seafarers Registry Memory Bank Project, the Cayman Maritime Heritage Foundation's Turtlers and Schooners (2023), and the Cayman Islands National Museum Maritime Heritage Trail.
RESEARCH NOTES
These records represent the crew and owners documented in official British shipping registers and community oral history archives. The Mercantile Navy List entries record the registered managing owner — typically the principal owner or the person responsible for the vessel's operation — rather than a full crew manifest. Actual crew lists (BT 99 agreements) for Cayman-registered vessels were filed at the port of registry in Kingston, Jamaica; most have not survived or have not yet been digitised.
The Cayman Maritime Heritage Foundation's book A History of Turtlers and Schooners of the Cayman Islands (compiled by Suzy Soto) contains the most comprehensive collection of individual crew stories and biographies. The Cayman Islands Seafarers Registry (seafarersregistry.ky) holds discharge books, crew lists, and seafarer biographies that continue to be digitised.