Joshua Slocum

[Scott Hotes]

OK, since it came up at our last dinner…

Here is the sailing adventure book by Joshua Slocum, first person to circumnavigate the world alone:

Yes, this Wikipedia article does relate the incident where he used tacs on his deck to ward off attacks by indigenous people in Tierra Del Fuego…

Scott

[Friedrich Sommer]

And here a recent video of Jeanne Socrates, the world circumnavigator I mentioned

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8MfD-pEIKU  

She is still sailing at 82 now..

Fritz

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[Scott Hotes]

Hi Fritz, what an amazing story!  We should all be so lucky to be sailing at 80!  Thanks for sending.

Scott

On Mar 4, 2026, at 10:46 AM, Friedrich Sommer <fso...@berkeley.edu> wrote:

And here a recent video of Jeanne Socrates, the world circumnavigator I mentioned

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8MfD-pEIKU  

She is still sailing at 82 now..

Fritz

On Wed, Mar 4, 2026 at 10:36 AM Scott Hotes <sah...@gmail.com> wrote:

OK, since it came up at our last dinner…

Here is the sailing adventure book by Joshua Slocum, first person to circumnavigate the world alone:

Yes, this Wikipedia article does relate the incident where he used tacs on his deck to ward off attacks by indigenous people in Tierra Del Fuego…

Scott

[Rupert Clayton]

Growing up in the UK, the two solo circumnavigators we were always told about were:

• Francis Chichester, who did the first solo circumnavigation by the West-to-East clipper route in 1966–67, with one stop in Sydney. Chichester's trip took nine months.
• Robin Knox-Johnston, who was the first person to complete a solo, non-stop circumnavigation, in 1968–69.

Knox-Johnston's voyage was made as part of the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. One of the other competitors, Donald Crowhurst, is believed to have committed suicide after experiencing acute mental distress during the voyage. At the time, it was speculated that he had tried to fake his log-book entries.  

  

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[Scott Hotes]

Interesting…. “The Mercy” is a fairly cheesy reenactment of the Crowhurst story.  I saw it a few years ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mercy

Loosely related, Matt Rutherford, in 2011 did a solo circumnavigation on a 27 ft Albin Vega.  The record for smallest boat to do so:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Rutherford_(sailor)

Maybe relevant in part since that is the boat I have… (no circumnavigations yet, just maybe Angel Island…)

[Friedrich Sommer]

Below the route of Jeanne's 2019 trip. Reconstructing from my radio log, I had chats with her at the yellow circles. Brief conversations, she would often describe the weather and some of the technical and weather troubles she was facing (quite often her wind generator broke). She always seemed quite relaxed - in moments of stress she obviously would use the radio. Her signal was mostly quite readable (she only did single sideband at 100W, so no option to switch to morse code when S/N got lousy). However, from the Indian Ocean position the signal was weak - just a brief exchange of callsigns. 

It was also interesting to listen to her directed radio contacts with friends, each one an expert for one of her equipment pieces. These guys helped her troubleshoot and go step by step through repairs she could do.

/F