Foremost thank you to Simon Winder at Penguin, who generously and enthusiastically believed in this project from the start, and to Wendy Wolf at Viking, who continued to tighten up the story with perfect experience and wit. Associate editors Eva Hodgkin and Paloma Ruiz provided careful, wise, and complementary feedback on the manuscript and so much help with other details, especially images. Thank you to production editor Anna Wilson and to the brilliant copy-editor Richard Mason. Thank you to Alice Gilbert-King for additional backmatter copy-editing. Thank you to my agent Russell Galen for taking me seriously and for his seemingly always correct advice.
My research benefitted from a collection of generous old and new friends, colleagues, and research assistants over three years, who read parts or all of the manuscript, fact-checked, and/or helped with a range of logistical matters and details at different stages of the project. A sincere thank you to Maya Anderson, Carol Baker, Gina Bardi, Dan Brayton, Douglas Brooks, Mike Brown, Trenton Carls, Karen Coates, Serafin “Jun” Colmenares, Alison Glassie, Stan Grayson, Patricia Halagao, Dixon Hollis, Kathi Kehmna, Ben Lowings, Herb McCormick, Alana McGillis, Jaja Martin, Kazuhiro Nishimura, Chris Nolan, Sayuri Norrish, Robin Potter, Hugh Powell, Elliot Rappaport, Matt Rigney, Polly Saltonstall, Susan Schnur, Gregg Selke, Robin Silva, Satomi Tsuboko-Ishii, and Dave Wiegel. Professors Steve Jones and Mike Brown each read a full draft and provided especially valuable feedback, enthusiasm, and knowledge. Captain H. E. Ross kindly offered important expert feedback on a few chapters, and author and editor Ben Lowings provided a brilliant and helpful reading in the final stages. Thank you to Alison O’Grady and the ILL staff at Williams College, to Paul O’Pecko and Maribeth Belinski at the Blunt White Library in Mystic, and to the English Department and library staff at the University of California Santa Cruz. I benefitted from collections, too, at the Filipino American Center at the San Francisco Public Library, Mystic-Noank Library, Connecticut College Library, Portsmouth Athenaeum, Middlebury College library in Monterey, and St Andrews University Library. The “On the Wind” podcast by Andy Schell and his colleagues has some important recent interviews, an oral history record, as does Matt Rutherford’s “Singlehanded Sailing” podcast, the latter filled with his own insights as a solo mariner. I’m grateful to long-time colleagues and students at Williams College-Mystic Seaport and the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Thank you to the anonymous people who built and maintain Google Books, HathiTrust, and Archive.org, opening the world of research to so many. I benefitted almost daily from their work in my research for this project. Mystic Seaport ran a fun seminar around Slocum and Sailing Alone Around the World, during which I learned a great deal from the participants—thank you to Arlene Marcionette for making this happen.
Sailing Alone, in an early form, along with my idea to cross the Atlantic by myself, began at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where I was then in graduate school, surrounded by extraordinary writers and scholars who took time to share their expertise, notably Robert Crawford, Meaghan Delahunt, Douglass Dunn, Kathleen Jamie, and A. L. Kennedy. In Anstruther I spent my most enjoyable days with the Scottish Fisheries Museum Boats Club; I thank all their members those many years ago for taking me in. I remain disappointed I was never able to bring Fox into the harbour there.
Thank you to single-handers Sharon Sites Adams, Kenichi Horie, the late Bill Pinkney, and H. E. Ross for taking their time to speak with me directly. It was an honor and privilege to learn from each of these four. Dame Naomi James, Robin Graham, Laura Dekker, and David’s son Barry Lewis kindly corresponded with me and offered permission to use photographs. Thank you to Rita Gates and Maya Gates-Seymour for contacting me and so generously sharing more about Teddy’s life.
Joel Smith in Noank sold me Fox, formerly Sonar. He gave me great advice. He was justly proud of his boat, he infused it with love, and he was pleased to see it travel far. Wes Maxwell helped enormously at the shipyard, and I’d have gone nowhere slowly—or perhaps never returned at all—if not for Sandy Van Zandt. Thank you to Rush Hambleton and the crew of Catch It!—Jon Mitchell, Lenny Bellet, and Munro Johnson—who joined me on the shakedown cruise and to whom I am so fortunate for their friendship. The tiller pilot, GPS, and radar were all impeccably set up for me by Dockside Electronics.
I’ve benefitted my whole life from endlessly supportive parents, Stephen and Essie King, and the Atlantic crossing would not have happened, nor would the time and space to write this, if not for my spouse Lisa Gilbert. Thank you to our child Alice Day, who gives the voyage meaning.
Richard King
Santa Cruz, California, May 2023