Sailing Alone Around the World

"Sailing Alone Around the World" (1899) is a sailing memoir by Joshua Slocum about his single-handed global circumnavigation aboard the sloop "Spray". Slocum was the first person to sail around the world alone, the book was an immediate success and highly influential in inspiring later travelers.

Background

Captain Slocum, a highly experienced navigator and ship-owner, rebuilt and refitted the derelict sloop "Spray" in a seaside pasture at Fairhaven, Massachusetts during a thirteen-month period between early 1893 and 1894.

Between April 24, 1895 and June 27, 1898, Slocum, aboard the "Spray", crossed the Atlantic twice (to Gibraltar and back to South America), negotiated the Strait of Magellan, and crossed the Pacific. He also visited Australia and South Africa before crossing the Atlantic (for the third time) to reach home after a journey of 46,000 miles.

The Book

There was considerable international interest in Slocum's journey, particularly once he had entered the Pacific; he was awaited at most of his ports of call, and gave lectures and lantern-slide shows to well-filled halls. His journal, which is masterfully self-deprecating, was first published in installments before being issued in book form in 1900 (variously 1899). The book was lavishly illustrated.

Slocum tells his story as a sequence of adventures, understating his own part and giving credit always to the "Spray". He even invents a Columbus' crew-member: the pilot of the "Pinta" to take credit for the safety of the vessel while he sleeps.

The trip itinerary went as follows: Fairhaven, Boston, Gloucester, Nova Scotia, Azores, Gibraltar, (Morocco), Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Maldonado, Montevideo, Strait of Magellan, Cockburn Channel, Port Angosto, Juan Fernandez, Marquesas, Samoa, Fiji, Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania, Cooktown, Christmas Island, Keeling Cocos, Rodrigues, Mauritius, Durban, Cape Town, (Transvaal), St Helena, Ascension Island, Devil's Island, Trinidad, Grenada, Newport, Fairhaven.

Highlights of the journey included perils of sailing blue water such as fog, gales, danger of collision, loneliness, doldrums, navigation, fatigue, gear failure. Other perils of coastal navigation included pirates, attack by 'savages', embayed, shoals and coral seas, stranding, shipwreck. In Tierra del Fuego he was warned that he might be attacked by the Yahgan Indians in the night, so he sprinkled thumbtacks on the deck, and awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of yelps of pain. He also took pride in the fact that the Spray sailed 2000 miles west across the Pacific without him once touching the helm.

The book was greatly admired by Arthur Ransome. Some editions contain an introduction by Ransome, who wrote in 1947: "A school library without this book is incomplete. It should be part of the education of every English or American boy."

Legacy

Captain Slocum was an inspiration for many sailors, many of whom were encouraged by his book to sail great distances alone. He continued to sail the "Spray" for the remainder of his life until, in 1909, he and the Spray disappeared at sea on a journey from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, to the West Indies where he usually spent his winters.

External links

* [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6317 "Sailing Alone Around the World "] , available at Project Gutenberg.
* [http://www.archive.org/details/sailingalonearou00slocuoft "Sailing Alone Around the World"] , available at Internet Archive. Illustrated by Thomas Forgarty and George Varian. Pan-American edition. New York Century Co., 1901.
* [http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/js/saaw.htm "Sailing Alone Around the World "] , available at IBiblio. Illustrated.
* [http://librivox.org/sailing-alone-around-the-world-by-joshua-slocum/ "Sailing Alone Around the World "] , audiobook at Librivox