Ancient Mariner Home Free - Knox-Johnston

by Sail-World Cruising on 8 May 2007 What is it about ancient mariners? They just seem to keep sailing....Two of the world's best known solo sailors are attempting new solo round world trips at an age when most of the world is relaxing on the front verandah, and the most famous of all has just completed.

Japanese sailor Minoru Saito is currently planning his 8th solo circumnavigation, this time the 'wrong way around.' He will be 75 on its completion in 2009.

Tony Bullimore is 68, and he has just set off from Tasmania to break a solo round world record.

However, last Friday Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, at the same age, has just completed his second solo circumnavigation on 'Saga Insurance'. It's just 38 years ago that he won the world's first Round World Race – the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968/9, being the only competitor to finish. This time, he was participating in the Velux 5 Oceans yacht race; and this time too the grandfather of five and oldest skipper in the race has halved the time it took him to complete the journey when he was just thirty years old. His 2006/7 voyage has taken 159 days and some hours, compared to 313 days in 1969.

We'll be watching the progress of Tony Bullimore and Minoru Saito, but in the meantime, well done, Sir Robin!

About Sir Robin Knox-Johnston:
Sir William Robert Pat 'Robin' Knox-Johnston, CBE, RD and bar (born 17 March 1939) was the first man to perform a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the Earth and was the second winner of the Jules Verne Trophy (together with Sir Peter Blake).

He was born in Putney in London and grew up on The Wirral. From 1957 to 1965 he served in the Merchant Navy and the Royal Navy. In 1965 he sailed his Colin-Archer-design sloop Suhaili from Bombay to England. Due to a lack of money he had to interrupt his voyage for work in South Africa and was only able to complete it in 1967.

On 14 June 1968 the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race started at Falmouth. Robin Knox-Johnston rounded Cape Horn on 17 January 1969, 20 days before the only other remaining contestant Bernard Moitessier who was the favourite to do the fastest circumnavigation, but Moitessier abandoned the race. Thus, Knox-Johnston became the first man to circumnavigate the globe non-stop and single-handed on 22 April 1969, the day he returned to Falmouth.

Robin Knox-Johnston and Peter Blake (who both acted as co-skippers) won the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest circumnavigation in 1994. Their time was 74 days 22 hours 18 minutes and 22 seconds. It was their second attempt to win this prize after their first one in 1992 had to be aborted when their catamaran Enza hit an object which tore a hole in the starboard hull.

From 1992 to 2001 he was President of the Sail Training Association. During his tenure the money to replace the STA’s vessels Sir Winston Churchill and Malcolm Miller by the new, larger brigs Prince William and Stavros S. Niarchos was collected. He was trustee of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich from 1992 to 2002 and still is trustee of the National Maritime Museum – Cornwall at Falmouth, where Suhaili is berthed today. The yacht has been refitted and took part in the Round the Island Race in June 2005.

He was knighted in 1995.