Joshua Slocum

Joshua Slocum (February 20, 1844 – on or shortly after 14 November, 1909) was an American seaman and adventurer and the first man to sail single-handedly around the world.

Related Topics:
February 20 - 1844 - 14 November - 1909 - American

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Born in Wilmot, Nova Scotia, he ran away from home at the age of twelve and earned a living as a cabin boy among the fishermen of the Bay of Fundy. At sixteen he shipped "before the mast", working a passage to England, where he joined the British vessel Tanjore as an ordinary seaman. Working the trade routes between Britain and the Far East, Slocum rose in the ranks to become a chief mate on British ships transporting coal and grain between the British Isles and San Francisco. In 1865 he made San Francisco his home port and applied for United States citzenship. In 1869, at the age of 25, he was given command of a schooner working between San Francisco and Seattle.

Related Topics:
Wilmot - Nova Scotia - Bay of Fundy - England - British - Tanjore - Britain - Far East - Coal - Grain - British Isles - San Francisco - 1865 - United States - 1869 - Schooner - Seattle

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Slocum spent most of his life at sea. When shipwrecked on his way to Montevideo in 1887, he sold the wreckage, paid off his crew and built the Liberdade, a 35-foot junk-rigged boat, in which he and his family sailed home to Washington, DC. In 1894 he published Voyage of the Liberdade describing this adventure.

Related Topics:
Montevideo - 1887 - Junk - Washington, DC - 1894

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On April 24, 1895, in a rebuilt 36′ 9″ (11.2 metre) sloop-rigged fishing boat named Spray (Later re-rigged as a yawl after problems he encountered in the Strait of Magellan), he set sail from Boston, Massachusetts. More than three years later, he returned to Newport, Rhode Island on June 27, 1898 having circumnavigated the world, a distance of 46,000 miles (74,000 km). In 1899 he wrote his classic, Sailing Alone Around the World, a classic of travel literature, describing this voyage.

Related Topics:
April 24 - 1895 - Sloop - Spray - Yawl - Strait of Magellan - Boston, Massachusetts - Newport, Rhode Island - June 27 - 1898 - Circumnavigated - 1899 - Sailing Alone Around the World - Travel literature

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This book is a classic adventure story of the Age of Sail; Arthur Ransome said of it that "boys who do not like this book ought to be drowned at once."

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In November 1909 he set sail for the Orinoco River in Spray and disappeared. It was assumed he was run down by a steamer or struck by a whale, the Spray being too sound a craft and Slocum too experienced a mariner for any other cause to be considered likely, and in 1924 he was declared legally dead.

Related Topics:
1909 - Orinoco River - 1924

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Long-distance French sailor Bernard Moitessier christened his 39-foot ketch-rigged boat Joshua in honor of Slocum. It was this boat that Moitessier sailed from Tahiti to France, passing through six days and nights of deadly storms near Cape Horn. He sailed Joshua in the 1968 Golden Globe race around the world, making great time, only to drop out near the end and sail on to Tahiti.

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An underwater glider, a type of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), designed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was named after Slocum's ship Spray. It became the first AUV to cross the Gulf Stream http://www.whoi.edu/media/2004_Spray_Release.html. A ferry named for him served the two Digby Neck runs between 1973 and 2004 and was featured in the film version of Dolores Claiborne.http://www.newscotland1398.net/digbyco/slocumjmem.html

Related Topics:
Underwater glider - Autonomous underwater vehicle - 1973 - 2004 - Dolores Claiborne

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Over the years since Slocum's death a number of attempts at more or less reconstructing the Spray have been undertaken, with various degrees of success.

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