Sailing Alone Around the World - a Personal Account of the First Solo Circumnavigation of the Globe by Sail

The first lone circumnavigation of the globe under sail

This book is widely regarded a classic of sailing literature because it is an account written by the sailor who made the first solo navigation of the globe under sail. A biography of Joshua Slocum would make riveting reading in its own right, for inherent in him were all the attributes of the ideal seaman of the latter half of the nineteenth century. An unquenchable spirit of adventure propelled him through many voyages and hairsbreadth escapes from the forces of nature and pirates. In 1895 he set sail from America in ''Spray,'' a 36'' 9'''' gaff rigged sloop oyster boat he had rebuilt himself. Navigating mainly without using his chronometer and only by ''dead-reckoning'' Slocum sailed ''Spray'' without actually touching the helm. His circumnavigation, which took three years to complete, covered a distance of some 46,000 miles. His triumphant return to America went virtually unnoticed-because the newspapers were focussed on