Sailing Alone Around the World

In 1895 Joshua Slocum, a retired sea captain of fifty-one, set out from Boston in the Spray, an old oyster sloop he had rebuilt himself, and over three years sailed some forty-six thousand miles around the world alone. He tells of gales off Cape Horn, the Strait of Magellan, where he scattered tacks on his deck to warn of night visitors, long Pacific crossings with the wheel lashed, and calls at islands, ports and colonies, with dry humour and great seamanship.

Slocum was the first person to sail around the world single-handed, and his account of 1900 remains a classic of the sea. Alan Chant reads it alone, in about eight hours.