On this day, Joshua Slocum sailed his 11 metre sloop the Spray, into Newport, Rhode Island, having completed the first ever single-handed circumnavigation of the earth in three years and two months. He had set out on his adventure from Boston on 24th April 1895 at the age of 51. Slocum started his career as a merchant seaman at the age of 16, rising quickly through the ranks to become a Chief Mate on British ships transporting coal and grain between the British Isles and San Francisco. His book, Sailing Alone Around the World, published in 1899, won him widespread fame in the English-speaking world. On November 14th, 1909, Slocum set sail in the Spray for the West Indies on one of his usual winter voyages and was never heard from again. In 1924 he was declared legally dead, probably lost at sea.
