Joshua Slocum’s Solo Voyage on the Spray (1895–1898)

The Spray: First solo circumnavigation of the earth

Slocum rebuilt the 36 ft 9 in (11.2 m) gaff rigged sloop oyster boat named Spray in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, during 1891 and 1892. On June 21, 1892, he launched the painstakingly rebuilt vessel.

I had resolved on a voyage around the world, and as the wind on the morning of April 24, 1895 was fair, at noon I weighed anchor, set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the Spray had been moored snugly all winter. The twelve o'clock whistles were blowing just as the sloop shot ahead under full sail. A short board was made up the harbor on the port tack, then coming about she stood to seaward, with her boom well off to port, and swung past the ferries with lively heels. A photographer on the outer pier of East Boston got a picture of her as she swept by, her flag at the peak throwing her folds clear. A thrilling pulse beat high in me. My step was light on deck in the crisp air. I felt there could be no turning back, and that I was engaging in an adventure the meaning of which I thoroughly understood.

After an extended visit to his boyhood home at Brier Island and visiting old haunts on the coast of Nova Scotia, Slocum departed North America at Sambro Island Lighthouse near Halifax, Nova Scotia, on July 3, 1895.

Slocum intended sailing eastward around the world, using the Suez Canal, but when he got near Gibraltar he realized that sailing through the southern Mediterranean would be too dangerous for a lone sailor because piracy was still prevalent there at the time. So he decided to sail westward, in the southern hemisphere. He headed to Brazil, and then to the Straits of Magellan. At that point he was unable to start across the Pacific for forty days because of a storm. Eventually, he made his way to Australia, sailed north along its east coast, crossed the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and then headed back to North America.

Slocum navigated without a chronometer, instead relying on the traditional method of dead reckoning to establish longitude, which required only a cheap tin clock for approximate time, and used noon-sun sights for latitude. On one long passage in the Pacific, he also famously shot a lunar distance observation, decades after those observations had ceased to be commonly employed, which allowed him to check his longitude independently. However, Slocum's primary method for finding longitude was still dead reckoning, and he recorded only one lunar observation during the entire circumnavigation.

Slocum normally sailed the Spray without touching the helm. Due to the length of the sail plan relative to the hull, and the long keel, the Spray was capable of self-steering (unlike faster modern craft), and he balanced it stably on any course relative to the wind by adjusting or reefing the sails and by lashing the helm fast. He sailed 2,000 miles (3,200 km) west across the Indian Ocean without once touching the helm.

More than three years later, on June 27, 1898, he returned to Newport, Rhode Island, having circumnavigated the world and sailing a distance of more than 46,000 miles (74,000 km). Slocum's return went almost unnoticed. The Spanish–American War, which had begun two months earlier, dominated the headlines but, after the end of major hostilities, many American newspapers published articles describing Slocum's adventure.

In 1899, he published his account of the voyage in Sailing Alone Around the World, first serialized in The Century Magazine and then in several book-length editions. Reviewers received the slightly anachronistic age-of-sail adventure story enthusiastically. Arthur Ransome went so far as to declare: "Boys who do not like this book ought to be drowned at once." In his review, Sir Edwin Arnold wrote, "I do not hesitate to call it the most extraordinary book ever published."

Slocum's book deal was an integral part of his journey.