"Come to Fairhaven and I'll give you a ship. . ."
This offer in 1892 from a retired whaling captain was apparently irresistible to Joshua Slocum, a blue-water shipmaster stuck in Boston without a command. The next day Slocum was in Fairhaven to begin a six-year project that would make him the world's first solo circumnavigator.
The 'ship' in the offer "proved to be a very antiquated sloop called the Spray. . . affectionately propped up in a field, some distance from salt water. . ." where she had been for seven years. But after "$553.62 for materials and thirteen months of my own labor" Slocum had the newly rebuilt Spray ready to slide into the Acushnet River.
{Slocum, pp 72-76}
Slocum's account of his adventure may not be the founding narrative of small boat cruising. (In New England, that distinction probably belongs to Robert Carter's 1864 A Summer Cruise. . .) But Sailing Alone Around the World has rightfully inspired every subsequent generation of both cruising sailors and armchair explorers.
