Voyages of Joshua Slocum

By Victor Slocum

Soundings, November 1993:

“A paperback version of the author’s 1950 biography about his father, whose sailing adventures culminated in a solo circumnavigation aboard the 36-foot SPRAY. Slocum tells of his father’s life, including 17 years sailing aboard commercial ships to Alaska, Honolulu, China and South America. He recounts two attempted mutinies, the loss of a ship in Brazil, the building of SRAY and his father’s famous voyage.”

Lloyd’s List, September 1993:

“Growing interest in Joshua Slocum rather than only in his classic 1900 book Sailing Alone Around the World, has occasioned this study by his son, intended to supplement his father’s voyage account. Since he is himself a mariner, accompanied his father on the voyage in the barque AQUIDECK when she was lost in South American waters and assisted in the Liberdade venture he describes these adventures from his father from direct experience.

“Joshua Slocum’s earlier nautical career holds just as much interest as his account of his famous voyage. He ran away to sea very early, shipping in a St. Mary’s Bay fishing schooner in the 1850s and by the 1860s he had twice rounded the horn.

“In 1870 got his own command, the barque WASHINGTON. Then the ship B. AYMER he became shipmates with his small son, since by this time he had found a wife. In the medium clipper NORTHERN LIGHT the reader encounters mutinies, ex-cannibals and reads of an incredibly sight seen from the ship, the colossal Krakatoa volcano eruption, just before the entire island exploded.

“The building of the famous SPRAY and also her round-the-world voyage are covered the story ends with the disappearance of the vessel after her departure from Bristol, Rhode Island in 1909.”

Yachts & Yachting, October 1981:

“There can be few in the sport of sailing, from those with Lasers on reservoirs to those with cruisers up creeks, who have not heard of Joshua Slocum, the first man recorded as having taken a yacht around the world alone, and his boat, the SPRAY. Not much else about Slocum has been generally known, especially in this country, but it should come as no surprise to discover that the SPRAY voyage was merely the culmination of a fairly unorthodox life at sea under sail – a life unorthodox even by the uncertain standards of late nineteenth century seafaring. In today’s sailing spars and sails, of chandlery stores and yacht yards apparently in every far-flung corner of the globe we have to make a real mental leap to come to terms with the idea of a chap, shipwrecked in a foreign land, starting his new boat with first cutting down a couple of trees and making his new cordage by twisting vines on an impromptu ropewalk established on the beach: yet such was the stuff of nautical normality for Slocum.

“Slocum was a native of the Nova Scotia town of Brier Island, where if you wanted to be a fisherman you first built yourself a boat, and from there went to sea on a Dublin-bound deal droger (sounds like something out of the memoirs of Garthwaite Strobes), the prologue to a life spent afloat – in the Alaskan fisheries, the China trade, the Honolulu to San Francisco packet trade, the Philippines and the South Americas. Slocum even had a brief period under battle orders, in command of an extraordinary semi-submerging (occasionally by design but more often by accident) warship called the DESTROYER which had a breech-loading underwater cannon in the bows; in this unlikely but formidable weapon he became peripherally involved in a Brazilian rebellion, eager to exact a personal revenge upon an incompetent Brazilian admiral who had cost him one ship and much money a time before.

“Such was the life of Capt. Joshua Slocum before he took up yachting for pleasure, and as was the fashion of the time he often took his wife and growing family with him. Thus his son Victor was doubly qualified to write his biography, having shared many of the Captain’s adventures with him. The book first appeared in 1950 but has long since been out of print, and Kenneth Mason’s 1981 revival is thoroughly welcome. A highly recommended read.”

Coast & Country, October 1981:

“This book was first published in 1950. Joshua Slocum made history in the 1890s when he sailed a 36 ft sloop around the world by himself. This episode, which is described in the captain’s own words, is only one of his many adventures and his son Victor sets out to tell the story of an American shipmaster in the second half of the 19th century. He notes that the American ship-owners lost their lead once steel hulls and steam machinery were developed in England, but their wooden ships were well in advance of English-built sailing vessels.

“Captain Slocum, a Nova Scotian, came up from the foc’s’le and rose to the top. He worked for owners and was himself a part owner of ships. His wife and children sailed with him and, unlike some Yankee ships, his were run without excessive harshness to the crew. Nevertheless he made at least one voyage with a mutinous crew, and trouble flared up on several occasions. It must have been a nerve-racking voyage for the after-guard and for the captain’s wife.

“Joshua Slocum emerges as a fine seaman and navigator. When his one and only chronometer breaks down somewhere between Honolulu and San Francisco he still makes a smart passage and correct landfall because he can take lunar observations and so still knows the exact time. Victor Slocum returns to this point later and discusses it more fully.

“Nothing gets the better of him: he is the ingenious Yankee at his best, whether building a wooden steamer in the wilds of the Philippines, catching and curing salmon in the Pacific Northwest and dealing with the Russians (who had not long relinquished their colony in Alaska at that time). He also sails a home made junk-rigged vessel, the LIBERDADE, 35 ft long, from South to North America, crewed by his wife and family. After that he commands a ‘monitor’ (an early form of ironclad intended for coast defense) on a voyage from New York to Brazil, where she is to be used to quell a South American revolution. The DESTROYER is not fit for sea passage, like most early monitors, and he is tested to the utmost in getting her to her destination in one piece. Then comes the episode of the SPRAY, the first single-handed voyage around the world.

“Sadly, he disappeared at sea on a single-handed passage in the SPRAY in 1909. At last his luck had run out. Victor Slocum, also a shipmaster, gives various theories to account for his disappearance, but admits that he does not know which of them is correct. This book is absorbing reading and is thoroughly recommended.”

Excerpted from Motor Boat & Yachting, September 1981:

“In this supposed time of retrenchment it is reassuring to see publishers saying to hell with safe bets and printing books whose intrinsic value far outweighs the returns they might expect in sales. Capt. Joshua Slocum is one such book, a reprint of Victor Slocum’s biography of his famous father, first published in 1950.

“Number One Son Victor traces the seafaring career of Joshua from his birth in Nova Scotia through his command of various trading ships across the world. These included packets plying between San Francisco and Honolulu, fishing vessels working the waters of Alaska and the NORTHERN LIGHT, a ‘medium clipper,’ described at the time as the ‘finest American vessel built.’ Naturally enough, the book also devotes substantial coverage to the construction and passage of the famous LIBERDADE, a 35 ft junk-rigged dory which the Slocum family built and sailed 5510 miles from South America to New York and, of course, the renowned SPRAY’s voyage around the world.”

Lloyd's List, August 1981:

“First published in 1950, the story of Joshua Slocum's adventure-filled life written by his son fills out the story which most people only know in its culmination Ñ Joshua Slocum's single-handed circumnavigation, the first of many such. His own Sailing Alone Around the World published in 1900, caught the imagination of a world sensing the first unease about technology used merely as a tool of human greed; the concept of escape to the elemental simplicity of single-handed ocean sailing has since caught on in a big way as a lifestyle allowing abandonment of the technological nightmare ashore.

“So this biographical study of a man who started the fashion, of his vastly varied seafaring life, his quiet courage and strength, wit and warmth, come as a stimulation and inspiration to all who read it with emulation in mind, and equally valuable encouragement to the land-locked, those armies of ordinary people who ‘live out lives of quiet desperation.’

“A native of Nova Scotia, that breeding ground of fine sailors, Joshua Slocum sailed in the Alaskan fisheries, a San Francisco packet, charters from Vladivostok to Hong Kong, the NORTHERN LIGHT which just missed the Krakatoa eruption in Sundai Strait, and a gun vessel involved in a Brazilian rebellion. He had actually dreamed since the age of 16 of sailing alone around the world and his son's book adds much further information about this pioneer voyage in the famous SPRAY which Slocum designed and built himself.

“The boat was exceptionally well-balanced and an analysis by C. Andrade reveals an ‘extraordinary focusing of her centres’ which he supposes to be the result of chance since when SPRAY was laid down in 1900 (not 1800 as a misprint suggests) analytic boat designing as known today, was unheard of. The empirical design is ‘none the less marvelous for that.’ The perfect balance of SPRAY allowed her to be left unattended for long periods, a vital necessity for a lone sailor.

“C. Andrade's analysis is, inter alia, a useful and lucid introduction to hull design for anyone interested.

“Sadly, Joshua Slocum and SPRAY disappeared at sea in 1909 and Victor Slocum suggests that an unreported collision is the most likely cause.

“This is a book which should appeal to all sailing enthusiasts and armchair adventurers and can be warmly recommended.”

The Seafarer, Winter 1981:

“First published in American in 1950 this is the first English edition of the biography of the lone sailor who has passed into legend. It is written by his son and contains photographs of JS and the SPRAY. But the SPRAY, well known because of Sailing Alone Around the World, isn’t half the story.”

RNSA Journal, Autumn 1981:

“Joshua Slocum’s epic single handed voyage around the world aboard the 36-foot sloop SPRAY in the late 1890s is well documented in his own account of the voyage in the book Sailing Alone Around the World. Over the years a demand rose to know more about ‘Capt’n Josh’ and this has been fulfilled by his son Victor in this biography. This book details his experiences and adventures whilst commanding a variety of sailing ships engaged in many differing trades all over the world.

“In his commercial seagoing life he was invariably accompanied by his wife and children; son Victor eventually becoming his father’s first mate on the AQUIONECK. It was on losing this vessel in Brazil that he designed and built the 35 ft LIBERADE in which with his family he cruised the 5,500 miles back to his base port in New York.

“The book makes fascinating reading but is so full of facts and unfamiliar places that it demands great attention from the reader. It is clear why Capt’n Josh wished to sail around the world but not why he should do it alone, for he was a man very close to his family and had shared so many adventures with them.

“Of particular interest to yachtsmen is the reprint of an article written by C. Andrade Jr. an engineer and yacht designer, on his analysis of the lines of the SPRAY which gave her such remarkable self steering ability coupled with superb sea-keeping. He quotes one voyage of 2,700 miles completed in 23 days during which Slocum stood at the helm for a total of just one hour and this without steering gear.”

Yachting & Boating, 1981: