A history of solitary sailing asks why people seek out its danger
“Sailing Alone” is packed with ripping yarns and driven characters
Joshua Slocum, an indefatigable trader, entrepreneur and sailor, born in 1844 on a farm in Nova Scotia, had a patchy record as a ship’s captain. Mutinies had a way of breaking out among his crews—he once shot a man dead—and too many of his ships had ended up grounded or worse. He loathed the look of steamships that by the 1890s had almost entirely replaced sail-powered freighters. What was there for an old sailor “born in the breezes”, who “had studied the sea as perhaps few men have studied it”, to do?
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Rough waters”
Culture September 16th 2023
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