I was chatting with a friend, Jamie Jones, about sailing, writing and a myriad of other topics when he suggested that I add to my nautical book review series with an article about single handed around the world sailing adventure books. We spent a fun half hour regaling each other with our individual favorites, which in many cases overlapped. We had of course both read Canadian-American sailor Joshua Slocum’s 1900 classic Sailing Alone Around the World as well as Sir Francis Chichester’s books about his single handed trans-Atlantic competitions and around the world sailing achievements in the 1960s. Happily, we were able to help each other with a few less familiar recommendations.

I’ve always enjoyed single handed sailing, though on balance I prefer the comradery of a crewed voyage. Recently, my single-handed sailing adventures are limited to occasional cruises between Burnt Store Marina and the Isles Yacht Club in Punta Gorda for Harbor 20 sailboat regattas. There is definitely a unique tranquility about being alone on the harbor with just the wind, water and occasional dolphin for company.

This idea of writing about single handed sailing books lay dormant for a while until another friend, Tom Frank, mentioned to me Richard J. King’s 2023 book Sailing Alone: A Surprising History of Isolation and Survival at Sea. It turns out that Mr. King had embraced this idea of a review of books about sailing alone and had really gone to sea with the idea. First, he actually did his own single-handed crossing of the Atlantic, then he completed a PhD thesis on the subject, and finally reworked his material into a 400+ page survey of such voyages and how the sailors documented them. After reading the book I concluded that my work had been done for me and all I really needed to do was point people to this book.

Mr. King does a good job of weaving together many different sailing stories into themes such as the environment, sea creatures, storms, technical aspects of sailing and navigation, around the world races, phycological impacts and survival instincts, while also lightly incorporating his own ocean crossing. A regularly repeated theme which resonated with me was how so many of the sailors felt compelled to document and write about their adventures. The book contains a 20-page selected bibliography which includes a list of over 50 solo-sailor narratives.

Mr. King touches often on the life and adventures of Bernard Moitessier, an almost mythical figure in the sailing world. In 1968 Bernard was leading the first Sunday Times Golden Globe single handed around the world race when near the finish line in England he veered off and returned to Tahiti rather than participate in the commercialization of the race.

If you have an interest in high adventure at sea and are curious about what drives men and women to put their lives at risk to cross oceans and circle the globe alone on boats, this book will provide many insights and also direct you to an exhaustive list of other books to explore.