A Man for All Oceans: Captain Joshua Slocum and the First Solo Voyage Around the World

“When Joshua Slocum made his voyage at the tail end of the nineteenth century, the idea that a small boat could voyage alone around the world was dismissed as a fool’s errand,” writes Stan Grayson in his introduction to A Man for All Oceans: Captain Joshua Slocum and the First Solo Voyage Around the World. Grayson’s biography celebrating Slocum follows in a long line of books about the man who first opened up the world to cruising circumnavigators. Grayson spent 40 years tracking down as much information as possible about Slocum’s incredible feat, and the author uses this bounty of research to make the hero seem more human in a way Slocum’s own Sailing Alone Around the World and previous books on Slocum do not. Slocum was not just the world-weary, wizened loner who appears in the photos of Sailing Alone. The mists of time make Slocum’s purchase of Spray seem like a fait accompli, Grayson says, but in fact, Slocum was kicking around ways to occupy himself as the age of sail drew to a close. When Slocum purchased Spray, the now-famous boat was just a tired old oyster sloop moldering away on a beach. Grayson writes that Slocum prevaricated about what his route aboard Spray might be and didn’t actually decide to sail around the world until just before leaving Boston, in April 1895. He was not a wealthy man, and in a surprisingly modern fashion, he approached his various sailing trips as an entrepreneur might. He was often looking for ways to promote himself, selling books and souvenirs from his trips and giving talks for money. He disappeared at sea on Spray in winter 1909; Slocum and Spray were never seen again, and Slocum was declared legally dead in 1924.