A salute to a late great sailing influence

It’s the anniversary of the day that brilliant Captain Joshua Slocum sailed off to cruise right round the world on his own.

He probably didn’t realise it – or think of it - all those years ago, in 1895, but his courage and skill

inspired scores of people to try it themselves, often establishing wonderful records, great books and stories, and every so often paying for it with their lives.

Joshua Slocum wrote a wonderful story of the voyage – Sailing Alone Around the World – and it became one of my favourite reads on late night shifts on a newspaper’s subeditor desk, in my landlubber years

His story certainly encouraged me to circumnavigate, although from my first dreams of voyaging I had always preferred the idea of sailing alone.

Gaining experience

I wanted to get it right, so I raced seriously, with the Royal Ocean Racing Club once I had passed the tough tests and had gained the experience the organisation demanded.

Then – as a warning by Fate, perhaps – one of the first races I competed in as a fully-fledged RORC member was the ’79 Fastnet Race, the event that ploughed into a severe storm which took the lives of 18 amateur sailors.  Continues on the blogs for my ocean adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, at SailingToPurgatory.com