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hen I was 10 I got a book for Christmas that
was as dangerous as they come. It was e
Boy who Sailed Around the World Alone. It was
an unusual combination of children’s picture
book with a National Geographic seriousness
and it detailed the voyage of Californian
schoolboy Robin Lee Graham in his 24-foot yacht Dove.
It perhaps is the most dangerous book I have ever read.
At the age of 13, Robin’s father Lyle sold his home and
business and took his family on a cruise through the Paciic on
their 35-foot ketch. hey returned to Honolulu, but Robin’s
spirit remained in the South Seas and not on his schoolwork.
After attempting to run away to sea in a converted ship’s
lifeboat caulked with chewing gum, Lyle agreed to buy Robin a
Lapworth 24 and it her out for an ofshore voyage. “I igured if
I didn’t help him to do it right, he’d do it on his own in a leaky
boat,” said Lyle with a degree of parental wisdom unusual for
the time.
At its heart, Robin’s voyage is still an amazing feat for one so
young. He had the usual collection of gales, calms, dismastings
and even met the love of his life, Patti Ratterree, in Fiji.
While modern teenage circumnavigators are obsessed with
speed and breaking records, Robin sailed at a saner pace with
the luxury of being able to stop along the way and experience
the world he was sailing around.
Underneath all the nice photographs and the wonder of a
boy exploring the world by yacht, there is a darker tale that is
equally as epic as the supericial one. While the children’s book
never mentions it, the adult versions of the story – Dove and the
later Home is the Sailor – detail the account of a kid put under a
lot of pressure by his father and his sponsors.
Not far into his journey across the Paciic, National Geographic
magazine became interested in Robin’s journey. It carried theW
OPPOSITE Robin Lee Graham – the
boy who sailed around the world alone.
TOP Dove was a Lapworth 24 design.
LEFT Almost home – Robin on the final
leg to Los Angeles.Robin and Dove
had an all-American
photogenic charm and
his adventurous life...