Seems like a high bar. I think Shackleton and Bligh make the cut here. But of course maybe better if we don’t get too pedantic (if it’s not already too late for that).
I notice young people use the word “epic” as an adjective indicating something extraordinary or momentous. My guess the change in language is the result of advertising copy used for gaming.
Ragnar Thorseth has done many stunts like this in his long career as an Adventurist and Polar explorer since his first in 1969, at age 21, when he rowed single handed from Norway to Shetland and back in a traditional Norwegian “Færing” (open rowing boat)
A stunt he repeated in 2015, at the age of 67:
Not to denigrate Thorseth’s drive or organizational skills, but the boat was IMHO, just a variation of yacht. Here is a description of the boat:
Although the pine-and-oak hull is sealed with tar and the rigging is made of hemp, the ship includes many concessions to safety and comfort, including two small cabins, a motor, a stove, electronic navigation and communication equipment and a VCR. “Our living conditions were definitely better than the Vikings had 1,000 years ago,” says Thorseth. “But then, they only took 14-day trips to Greenland and never went around the world. It would be crazy not to have modern life-saving equipment. I don’t believe in dead heroes.”
(END)
And the boat was 57’ feet long. Not small, by yacht standards. And he had a crew.
I’m not hating on Thorseth in any way. I respect guys who have the organizational skills to pull off voyages like his.
I’m just saying if we include this under “Epic Small Boat Voyages" we have to include all yachts 57’ and under, with cabins and motors and multiple person crews .
I also make exception for Webb Chiles. When I first heard he was circumnavigating in a Moore 24 I thought he was another crackpot. But reading his blog (http://inthepresentsea.com/the_actual_site/webbchiles.html) I found him to be very much a knowledgeable and prudent mariner. Not out to set records, “find himself”, or reap any kind of fame or fortune, just someone that when ashore itches to be be back at sea.
Like Slocum his voyage was epic but not in a “cheating death” way, and that’s his point.
They had elegant lines, like the steam ships of the same era; my first impression of what things were supposed to look like growing up. Spare me the OK boomer jokes.
I don’t know for sure if Pan Am was responsible for H.O. 249, but they did a lot of pioneering of navigation techniques and radio communications back then. I learned the “air tables” because they were faster and easier. The story went 229 took too long for airplanes, by the time you got the site reduced and plotted you were someplace else. For sailboats the extra accuracy of 229 was not often useful, you are on a bouncy enough platform that +/- a few miles is going to be the best you can get anyway most of the time.
There is epic because your ship sank or the crew tossed you off and it is the lifeboat/raft or nothing.
There is Webb Chiles type epic too, where someone is challenging themselves in relative obscurity.
Now we have “YouTube” epic where idiots do stupid things for hits and money
One such YouTube crew sailed TOWARDS a hurricane to get more hits from the resulting videos, their boat sank in the harbor when the hurricane - as predicted - came by, and then they ended up begging for food and shelter on whatever island they sank near when the locals had enough of their own issues.
We have ample recent evidence of people that consider airtime / hits more important than safety for themselves or those around them. I don’t consider this epic, more like epic fail.
One thing I remember as a young lad in the navy was coxswain of a small boat passing a Sunderland flying boat of the Royal New Zealand Airforce at anchor and smelling bacon and eggs cooking.
249 came out early '50s. I never saw 229 until early '70s. That doesn’t prove my observation. The captains and mates I sailed with then all used 214 and 249. I learned azimuths and sun lines with 214. The 7 selected stars in 249 sure sped things up.
Don’t know how widespread Thor Heyerdahl’s ideas were in 1947 but today they’d be seen as out of step. The idea of "civilizing the “dark-skinned races”.
First pushing off in March 1975, the Hokulea made her famous maiden voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti in 1976 . The primary goal of this first trip was to support the theory of Asiatic origin of native Oceanic people, Polynesians and Hawaiians.
They were NOT trying to copy the dress style of ancient people, only to prove that it was POSSIBLE to cross the S.Pacific from S.America to the Polynesian islands on primitive crafts commonly used in S. America a LONG time ago. (Still on Lake Titicaca)
Yes they had a cabin,radio and other modern amenities, (No GPS)
