Alone Through the Roaring Forties

Book excerpt: Alone Through the Roaring Forties is the story of Vito Dumas's wartime voyage from Argentina eastward around the globe in the 31-foot canoe-sterned ketch Lehg II. By any measure, it was a remarkable, unprecedented voyage over what Dumas justly called the impossible route - south of the Cape of Good Hope, south of Australia, south of Cape Horn. Leaving Buenos Aires in June 1942, he made the 20,000-mile voyage singlehanded, becoming the first to do so. He was also the first solo sailor to round Cape Horn and survive, and the first to sail around the world with only three landfalls. Dumas completed his high-latitude voyage through the great Southern Ocean, where prevailing westerly gales push huge seas unimpeded around and around the bottom of the globe. His gear and provisions were makeshift - he suffered inordinately because his tattered clothing provided no protection from the cold wind and water - but his boat, though very small, was tough and well mannered. He was awarded the Slocum Prize in 1957 to honour the extraordinary voyages made by the greatest solitary navigator in the world. Alone Through the Roaring Forties was first published in Spanish, then in French, and finall