Winner Gold Special Jury Award - Houston Film Festival.The career of Joshua Slocum, one of the 19th Century's most successful sea captains collapsed with the end of the Age of Sail...until he was given a 100 year old rotting oyster boat and decided to use it to become the first person ever to sail around the world - alone. His colorful life and remarkable voyage are captured for the first time in this program.Captain Slocum commanded some of the finest tall ships that ever sailed the seas. On April 24, 1895, at the age of 51, he departed Boston in his tiny sloop Spray and sailed around the world single-handed, a passage of 46,000 miles, returning to Newport, Rhode Island on June 27, 1898. This historic achievement made him the patron saint of small-boat voyagers, navigators and adventurers all over the world.This documentary fleshes out Joshua Slocum an independent sailor, following his life from his birth in Nova Scotia to his ultimate mysterious disappearance post-circumnavigation in 1909. Beautifully shot and artfully narrated, the program depicts Slocum's life as a runaway teen, a sea captain in the days of square riggers, an outrunner of pirates, outsmarter of natives and the original "roughin' it" type travel writer.Like Slocum's wry informative novel, this program delights and inspires, as he interviews sailors and historians alike. Showing many "Spray" copies and following their builders as they tell Slocum's story and their own tales of their recreations of his passage. An educational inspiration that leaves a taste of salt in your mouth - not only causing you to yearn for the sea, but in appreciation of Slocum's ardor and the changing times through which he lived.48 mins.
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