Sailing Alone Around the World

Joshua Slocum, one of the most famous of American sea captains, really was "The First" to single-handedly circumnavigate the world. The epitome of Yankee independence, he had been captain of his own single-decker, the Aquidneck, and built the Liberdade but he was at loose-ends at fifty-one.

An old friend offered him the old oyster boat which he rebuilt into the 37' Spray and in 1895 he took off from Boston for the Straits of Gibraltar, sailed back across the Atlantic and around South Americ...