Forgotten odyssey

SIR – With the release of the film The Mercy, about a dishonest sailor called Donald Crowhurst, numerous people have claimed that Britain’s Sir Robin Knox-johnston was the first man to sail solo around the world in 1969.

In fact this was first done by an American, Joshua Slocum, who sailed from Boston, Massachusetts on April 24, 1895, and returned to Newport, Rhode Island on June 27, 1898, having sailed more than 46,000 miles in a rebuilt fishing boat called Spray.

It was only when his book, Sailing Alone Around the World, was published a year later and became a bestseller that notice was really paid to his extraordinary voyage. Brian Milton

London E2