GO IT ALONE

MIDWAY ON A SOLO CRUISING CIRCUMNAVIGATION, JAMES FREDERICK SHARES LEARNINGS FROM SAILING AROUND THE WORLD ON A 30FT YACHT

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I was a man obsessed. I longed to see the sea, to sail quietly across its surface driven only by a puff of wind, to smash through the night in a great tempest. I had become seduced by the books I read describing strange distant lands, postcard-esque shorelines, foreign cultures and a complete absence of bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic.

William Albert Robinson's 10,000 Leagues Over the Sea was the first cruising book I read, and it made me want to run away–or rather sail away–from home immediately. Robinson circumnavigated between 1928-1932 on his 32ft ketch Svaap and wrote tales of exploring then-still-exotic Tahiti and spending time with headhunters in Papua New Guinea. I went on to read Harry Pidgeon's book Around the World Single Handed. Pidgeon built his modest 34ft yawl Islander in 1917 on the banks of the Los Angeles harbour, not far from where I refit my own boat, Triteia. Pidgeon was the second person to ever sail solo around the world, 23 years after Slocum. Reading Pidgeon's stories from my own local waters, coupled with the mantra of iconic cruisers Lin and Larry Pardey – 'Go Small, Go Simple, Go Now' – was all the inspiration I needed to charge forward with my own dream.

The thought of going with someone else never even crossed my mind in the early days. On my 40th birthday I was recovering from double pneumonia that nearly took my life, and it was on that day I decided I wanted to circumnavigate. Life is simply too short to wait on dreams.

SELF RELIANCE

August 20th, 2021
28° 52.019N 131° 20.984W