Sailing Alone Around the World

Sailing Alone Around the World is a book by Joshua Slocum, first published in 1900. It is a memoir about his single-handed global circumnavigation aboard the sloop Spray. In the late nineteenth century, Slocum became the first person to sail around the world alone. Between 24 April 1895 and 27 June 1898, he crossed the Atlantic twice (to Gibraltar and back to South America), negotiated the Strait of Magellan, and crossed the Pacific. He also visited Australia and South Africa before crossing the Atlantic (for the third time) to return to Massachusetts after a journey of 46,000 miles. On November 14, 1909, he set sail in the Spray from Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, for the West Indies on one of his usual winter voyages, and was never heard from again. In July 1910, his wife informed the newspapers that she believed he was lost at sea. Incredibly, despite being an experienced mariner, Slocum never learned to swim.

This book has 68,875 words, and was originally published in 1900.