It is known that when a sailboat and a motor vessel heading toward each other appear on the horizon, the time to collision is approximately 20 minutes. One experienced yachtsman told that after a radar breakdown while crossing the Atlantic, he slept for fifteen days, setting an alarm every twenty minutes. Therefore, when planning to go on a circumnavigation, first of all, you need to honestly answer yourself the question: am I ready to do the impossible to survive and win?
Anna Gash: The First Female Circumnavigation
Anna Gash, a nurse and mother of six children,
completed the first female circumnavigation
on an old yacht
Formally, the first female circumnavigation is credited to Polish yachtswoman Krystyna Choynowska-Liskiewicz. But half a year before her, elderly Australian Anna Gash, a nurse by profession who raised six children and four grandchildren, decided to set sail from Australia to Britain. Gash played the tin whistle at the local church on Sundays. After recording a cassette of her music, she sent it to her daughter in London as a Christmas gift. Her daughter took the cassette to the BBC, which had just announced a competition for tin whistle players. And Gash was invited to England.
The nurse had little money, but she had an old and poorly equipped folding yacht, "Ilimo." The voyage began in 1975. Anna learned to sail as she crossed the open sea, as she had never before ventured into open waters. After experiencing many events, tragic and funny, Anna reached England and made it to the festival in time. As a participant, she was invited on a tour of Europe, and she returned home on her "Ilimo," but... around the globe. Almost all of her journey was solo, except for a short segment where she took a passenger on board.
At the end of 1977, Anna returned to Australia, as inconspicuously as she had once left it. The circumnavigation of an Australian, an ordinary elderly woman, not a yachtswoman, was an exceptional phenomenon in world yachting. According to her, it was a wonderful experience, especially valuable because she achieved her goal thanks to her strength of spirit. To the madness of the brave...
Steven Callahan: 76 Days Held Captive by the Sea
Steven Callahan managed to survive in the ocean,
drifting on a rubber raft
surrounded by hungry sharks
American yachtsman Steven Callahan, a few days after setting out solo into the Atlantic on his yacht, suffered a shipwreck. Apparently, at night, the yacht collided with a sleeping whale. The giant animal swung its tail and... Steven had about a day to transfer to a life raft before the yacht sank. Ironically, Steven ended up in areas where there is virtually no regular shipping.
At first, he relied on a radio buoy that sent distress signals for several days, and hoped that they would start searching for him. But the batteries died, and after a week he realized that he was left alone with the ocean on a life raft, being slowly pushed by the trade winds towards America.
To imagine his situation, try to get into a children's inflatable pool measuring two by two meters, and imagine that under the bottom of the pool is an abyss. Within a week, the raft grew algae on the bottom, and a colony of fish appeared around it, thinking it was a small island. Following the harmless fish came sharks. Later, Callahan recalled that while falling asleep on the bottom of the raft, he felt the sharks' fins scratching his back. He never understood why these machines of death, which could have bitten through the thin rubber in an instant, never did so.
On the fortieth day, the raft's warranty expired. From that moment, Steven began counting down his own life: every day as if it were the last. He learned to win battles for fish from the sharks darting around, made a desalinator from a plastic bag that provided half a cup of water per day, figured out how to determine his location in the ocean, and found a way to keep track of days and weeks. And most importantly, he managed not to go insane.
On the 75th day of his voyage, April 20, 1982, his raft washed up on the island of Marie-Galante, near Guadeloupe. He was very lucky. If the island hadn't been in his path, he could have drifted another thousand miles to mainland America. During his drift, Callahan covered more than 3000 kilometers in the open ocean. Amazingly, after a few months, having regained his strength, Steven set off on a return crossing towards Europe, again solo. To the madness of the brave...
Yevgeny Gvozdev: A Pensioner from Makhachkala
Yevgeny Gvozdev built a yacht
on the balcony of his one-room
Khrushchev-era apartment in Makhachkala
The name Yevgeny Gvozdev is practically unknown in our country. Few people know how a pensioner from Makhachkala twice circumnavigated the globe on boats no bigger than a bathtub. "I just really wanted to go to sea," he admitted.
Gvozdev worked on large fishing vessels for over 30 years. In the late 1960s, he read a newspaper article about a solo circumnavigation on a yacht and began dreaming of his own circumnavigation. But he turned his dream into reality only a quarter of a century later.
In 1992, after the fall of the USSR, Yevgeny Gvozdev obtained a foreign passport – with great ordeal struggling against bureaucracy – cleared customs at the port of Novorossiysk and set out to sea, heading for Turkey. The yacht "Lena" – length five and a half meters, outboard motor, centerboard (which means the yacht has no keel and easily capsizes in strong wind). Starting from Makhachkala with a hundred dollars in his pocket, by August 1993 he reached the Canary Islands. By that time, Gvozdev decided to cross the Atlantic. Well, then – like Forrest Gump. He started running and couldn't stop. In four years, he circumnavigated the globe on a boat designed for light coastal sailing. To the madness of the brave...
Three years after returning from his first circumnavigation, Gvozdev set sail again – this time on a yacht of his own construction, the 'Said'. Due to lack of funds, he built the yacht literally from whatever was available and from gifts from friends. He built it on the balcony of his one-room Khrushchev-era apartment in Makhachkala.
The yacht 'Said' – length 3.7 meters, width one and a half meters. Five and a half meters of Russian territory that circumnavigated the globe under the Russian flag – against all odds. The second voyage proved more difficult. Gvozdev decided to go not through the Panama Canal, but through the Strait of Magellan, rounding South America. According to Argentine law, vessels not equipped with engines are prohibited from passing through the Strait of Magellan. Gvozdev, forced to load an outboard motor onto the yacht, brought it back sealed to his native Makhachkala.
On September 19, 2008, on the yacht 'Getan 2', Yevgeny Gvozdev set out from Novorossiysk on his third circumnavigation and again set a course for the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. On December 10, 2008, his body was found on the beach of Castelporziano in southern Italy next to his wrecked yacht. He was 75 years old.
Friends recall that Gvozdev seemed afraid of dying on the shore – he wanted to depart like a true sailor. If so, then he probably left happy. Having proven that a dream can be realized at any age and despite circumstances.
To sail a yacht, you don't need money. You just need the desire. Go to the sea. Don't be afraid of it. And it will accept you.