Joshua Slocum and Spray: the first solo circumnavigation
On 24 April 1895, Joshua Slocum, a 51-year-old deep-water captain, sailed out of Boston aboard Spray, an old 36-foot sloop he had rebuilt with his own hands in Fairhaven. No one had ever sailed around the world alone.
He first crossed the Atlantic to the Azores and Gibraltar, then gave up on the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, where pirates were a real threat. He turned back towards Brazil, Argentina and the Strait of Magellan, where he spent two months among gales and the channels of Tierra del Fuego. The Pacific took him to Robinson Crusoe's island, Samoa and Australia. He sailed up the Great Barrier Reef, crossed the Indian Ocean by way of the Cocos Islands and Mauritius, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and came home by St Helena and the West Indies.
On 27 June 1898, Spray dropped anchor in Newport after more than 46,000 miles and three years and two months away. Slocum told the story in Sailing Alone Around the World (1900), the founding book of single-handed sailing.
- Sailor
- Joshua Slocum
- Boat
- Spray, 36 ft 9 in (11.2 m) gaff sloop, rebuilt by Slocum
- Start
- Boston, April 24, 1895
- Finish
- Newport, Rhode Island, June 27, 1898
- Distance
- more than 46,000 miles (74,000 km)
- Book
- Sailing Alone Around the World (1900)
Ports of call and passages
-
Boston
Start: April 24, 1895
Start of the voyage
-
Yarmouth, Nova Scotia
Start: July 2, 1895
Last North American port, after Brier Island where Slocum grew up
- Horta, Azores Finish: July 20, 1895 · Start: July 24, 1895
-
Gibraltar
Start: August 25, 1895
Slocum gives up on Suez and the Red Sea and heads for Cape Horn; chased by pirates off Morocco
- Pernambuco (Recife) Finish: October 1895 · Start: October 24, 1895
- Rio de Janeiro Finish: November 5, 1895 · Start: November 28, 1895
-
Montevideo
Finish: December 1895
After running aground on a beach in Uruguay
-
Buenos Aires
Start: January 26, 1896
Mast and bowsprit shortened before the strait
- Punta Arenas, Strait of Magellan Finish: February 14, 1896 · Start: February 19, 1896
-
Cape Pillar
Finish: March 1896 · passed without stopping
A storm drives him back towards Cape Horn; he regains the strait through the Cockburn Channel
- Cockburn Channel Finish: March 1896 · passed without stopping
-
Juan Fernández (Robinson Crusoe Island)
Finish: April 26, 1896 · Start: May 5, 1896
The strait finally left behind on 13 April 1896
-
Apia, Samoa
Finish: July 16, 1896 · Start: August 20, 1896
72 days at sea without a port; welcomed by Robert Louis Stevenson's widow
- Newcastle, Australia Finish: October 1896
- Sydney Finish: October 10, 1896 · Start: December 6, 1896
- Melbourne Start: January 24, 1897
- Launceston, Tasmania Finish: January 1897
-
Devonport, Tasmania
Start: April 16, 1897
His first lectures about the voyage; the Spray is hauled out and painted
- Sydney Finish: April 22, 1897 · Start: May 9, 1897
-
Cooktown
Finish: May 31, 1897 · Start: June 6, 1897
Up the Great Barrier Reef by the inner channel
- Thursday Island, Torres Strait Start: June 24, 1897
-
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Finish: July 17, 1897
2,700 miles in 23 days, with less than three hours at the helm
- Rodrigues Start: September 16, 1897
- Port Louis, Mauritius Finish: September 1897
- Durban Finish: November 17, 1897 · Start: December 14, 1897
-
Cape Town
Start: March 26, 1898
Three months' rest after a rough Christmas off the Cape of Good Hope
- St Helena Start: April 20, 1898
-
Ascension Island
Finish: April 27, 1898
On 8 May the Spray crosses her outward track: the circumnavigation is complete
- Grenada Finish: May 22, 1898 · Start: May 28, 1898
- Antigua Finish: June 1, 1898 · Start: June 5, 1898
-
Newport, Rhode Island
Finish: June 27, 1898
Arrival, three years and two months after setting out