Sailing Alone Around the World, part 2

HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

This episode continues our story of Joshua Slocum and his solo circumnavigation of the globe. We’ll follow Captain Slocum as he builds the little sloop Spray and hatches a plan to make money for his family by sailing alone around the world for the first time. We’ll follow his astounding path from Boston to the rock of Gibraltar, back to South America, and through the months long ordeal of the Straits of Magellan. We’ll learn how he sailed thousands of miles across the South pacific to Samoa without ever touching the wheel of the sloop, while his family worried that he had perished at sea. And we’ll follow him on his pilgrimage to the home of Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson, his adventure in South Africa, and finally across the Atlantic and home, covering about 46,000 miles in three years, two months, and two days.

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/248/

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Sailing Alone Around The World

The Globe’s famous etching of the Spray

Via New Bedford Public Library

The Sloop Spray in Later Years

• Sailing Alone Around the World, by Joshua Slocum
• Joshua Slocum, by Walter Magnus Teller
• Gerard, Philip. “Adventures in Celestial Navigation.” Creative Nonfiction, no. 18, 2001
• Boston Globe (Paywalled)
  • 15 Jul 1893 Going mackerel fishing on the Spray
  • 16 Apr 1895 Announces plans to sail solo around the world
  • 25 Apr 1895 The Spray leaves Boston on her circumnavigation, famous etching
  • 14 Oct 1895 Arrives Gibraltar, picture of Slocum in the cabin
  • 21 Oct 1895 Threat of piracy drives Slocum from his Red Sea plan
  • 3 Apr 1896 First news of Slocum and the Spray in months
  • 1 Oct 1896 The Spray arrives in Australia
  • 28 Jun 1898 The Spray and Slocum complete their circumnavigation in Newport
  • 27 Oct 1904 Photo of the Spray
  • 25 Jul 1910 Hettie giving Joshua Slocum up for dead after 18 months
  • 17 Apr 1911 No word from Slocum or the Spray in 2 years
  • 21 Oct 1952 Hettie Slocum dies
• Wire service stories
  • 8 May 1895 Leaving Gloucester, bound directly to South America
  • 21 Aug 1896 Interview with Slocum upon arriving in Samoa
  • 15 Oct 1897 Slocum arrives in Mauritius after being presumed dead
  • 5 Feb 1898 The Spray arrives in South Africa
  • 25 Sept 1898 Photos of Slocum and the Spray, overview of voyage