The Circumnavigators: Small Boat Voyagers of Modern Times

Author Donald Holm has researched and analyzed the most famous and notable of these voyages, unearthing many previously unknown personal accounts. He vividly recreates these exciting and audacious battle against the sea andseeks to define the underlying reasons why a man leaves the comfort of society to  "bounce around the world at an average rate of five miles an hour in cramped, damp, and usually extremely uncomfortable quarters".

THE CIRCUMNAVIGATORS tells of voyages made against astronomical odds: The three year trip of Capt. Joshua Slocum, the crusty New Englander who was the first man to circumnavigate in a small boat, but not the last to be told he'd never return... Alain Gerbault, the World War I Ace and tennis star, who dropped out of the postwar party circuit to "sail Around", surviving more by sheer endurance than sailing skill... and the more modern feats of Sir Francis Chichester and Robin Lee Graham, who circumnavigated alone at the age of sixty three and sixteen, respectively. The book is more than an engrossing adventure. The circumnavigators' private note, many published for the first time, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the boats they used. There is an analysis of the routes favored over the years, including those which touch at exotic ports and those for the more solitary mariner. 

Some of the outstanding voyagers whose stories are told in The Circumnavigators: Joshua Slocum; Francis Chichester; Vito Dumas; Alain Gerbault; Alec Rose; Bernard Moitessier; Harry Pidgeon; Peter Tangvald; Chay Blyth; Eric C. Hiscock; Arthur Piver; Robin Lee Graham; Robin Knox-Johnston