Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum

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 risen from a seaman to the captain of his own ship. Marooned in Brazil, he built a "canoe" in which he returned to America (see The Voyage of the Liberdade). At loose ends at fifty-one, he was offered an old oyster boat which he rebuilt into the 37' Spray and in 1895 he took off from Boston for the Straits of Gibraltar. He is a captivating writer as well; observant, humorous, and evocative: "For, one day, well off the Patagonian coast, while the sloop was reaching under short sail, a tremendous wave, the culmination, it seemed, of many waves, rolled down upon her in a storm, roaring as it came. I had only a moment to get all sail down and myself up on the peak halliards, out of danger, when I saw the mighty crest towering masthead-high above me. The mountain of water submerged my vessel. She shook in every timber and reeled under the weight of the sea, but rose quickly out of it, and rode grandly over the rollers that followed. It may have been a minute that from my hold in the rigging I could see no part of the Spray's hull. Perhaps it was even less time than that, but it seemed a long while, for under great excitement one lives fast, and in a few seconds one may think a great deal of one's past life."He met determined pirates in Tierra del Fuego:"I was not for letting on that I was alone, and so I stepped into the cabin, and, passing through the hold, came out at the fore-scuttle, changing my clothes as I went along. That made two men. Then the piece of bowsprit which I had sawed off at Buenos Aires, and which I had still on board, I arranged forward on the lookout, dressed as a seaman, attaching a line by which I could pull it into motion. That made three of us..."In Africa he met the explorer Henry Stanley:"Mr. Stanley was a nautical man once himself, - on the Nyanza, I think, - and of course my desire was to appear in the best light before a man of his experience. He looked me over carefully, and said, "'What an example of patience!'"'Patience is all that is required,' I ventured to reply."He then asked if my vessel had water-tight compartments. I explained that she was all water-tight and all compartment. "'What if she should strike a rock?' he asked. "'Compartments would not save her if she should hit the rocks lying along her course,' said I; adding, 'she must be kept away from the rocks.' "After a considerable pause Mr. Stanley asked, 'What if a swordfish should pierce her hull with its sword?' "Of course I had thought of that as one of the dangers of the sea, and also of the chance of being struck by lightning. In the case of the swordfish, I ventured to say that 'the first thing would be to secure the sword.'"So this is where Jack London got the idea for watertight compartments! (see Cruise of the Snark, available from The Narrative Press) Discover for yourself why everyone reads this book (called a sailor's Walden) -- even if you're not planning a solo sailing trip. And take it with you if you are!

“The sea was confused and treacherous. In such a time as this the old fisherman prayed, ‘Remember Lord, my ship is small and thy sea is so wide.'”

It's books like these that make me wish I had a boat. I do not have a boat, and I know that boat ownership is exponentially expensive, and yet this book made me want to hop in one and go sail for the horizon.

This is a travel memoir of a guy with a boat, the Spray, where he gets it into his head to sail around the world in 1895. He encounters standard seafaring things: pirates, storms, fishing, and nonstandard seafaring things, such as his mental encounter with the ghost of the captain of the Nina, who saved his ship while he was sick abed. His tongue-in-cheek humor in these encounters is really what makes this book shine, though. He makes repeated jokes about his “crew” (of only him), makes astute and humorous observations about lands and people he comes across, and all-in-all maintains high spirits throughout his journey. I appreciated being along for his historic voyage.

My only (minor) gripe about the book was its nautical terminology – which is to be expected in a book about, y'know, maritime adventure. There's enough ship terminology to maybe make you Google a word or two, but I felt like I got enough of the jist just from larger context in most places.

All in all, a pleasant, easy-to-read adventure classic.

This book amazed me, as it has amazed many other readers lavishing it with four or five stars. For a book published in 1900 it is incredibly readable - to the point where I am left wondering if it has been tidied up in an edit to modernise (my edition is 1948, so my modernise I mean modernise by 50 years!

In short, Slocum takes us through his process of refurbishing a hundred year old sloop found in a farmers paddock in Fairhaven, near Boston, pretty much replacing every element, modifying and improving as he went. She was 36'9'' long, 14'2'' wide and 4'2'' deep in the hold, and she retained the name of the original sloop - Spray. Fully refitted and set up for fishing, Slocum spent a season, and was not a success, but set upon the idea of a solo journey around the world. The appeal of this was that it had not been done before - and his ship was perfectly suited to this task. He refitted her for this solo journey, he set off.

The route he follows (landfalls only, not those he merely passes by) - USA, Azores, Gibraltar, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Samoa, Australia, Cocos Keeling Isl, Mauritius, South Africa, St Helena, Ascension Isl, Grenada, Antigua, USA. He departs Boston on 24 April 1895 and returns a little over three years later, on 27 June 1898.

Under financial constraint, Slocum had a modest selection of equipment. He was obviously a skilled man, as the things he did spend money on, were very efficient - his stove for example, or the old clock he used for navigation. The books is based on his ships log, which he quotes a few times, but obviously inspired his book. The writing is spirited, but comes across as authentic, and written with some humour (like the time he capsized the dory and ‘forgot that he couldn't swim', or the goat he brought aboard for company, that ate his map), yet still records all the people he meets and places he visits, picking some pertinent facts to share from the exotic locations. I also chuckled each time he referred to himself as ‘the crew' when on land.

There is plenty of excitement - but for such a long journey I think Slocum does really well to shorten the long legs where there isn't a lot happening - he can skip over a months travel in a sentence, or a long ocean crossing in a half page, so that there is no real loss of momentum with the narrative. He also does well to limit his use of too much nautical jargon - there is some, but I found it written in a way that is the word was unknown it didn't really effect the sentence. Overall the language wasn't archaic at all (as noted above, in my edition anyway).

Highly recommended - nothing not to like about this classic adventure tale.
5 stars.