World of My Own

From Googlebooks: Originally published in 1970, Robin Knox-Johnston's A World of My Own has become a treasured classic - the dramatic account of the first nonstop, single-handed voyage around the world, for which Knox-Johnston won the Sunday Times Golden Globe trophy. On June 14, 1968, Suhaili, a tiny ketch, slipped almost unnoticed out of Falmouth harbor while Knox-Johnston's family and a few friends waved goodbye to the solitary twenty-nine-year-old figure at the helm. His was an incredible adventure, a feat of endeavor and seamanship which will be unsurpassed and unforgotten. Sheer determination helped him survive every imaginable difficulty: Several knockdowns in the Southern Ocean, the disintegration of the self-steering system, polluted water tanks and acid burns were among the numerous setbacks he encountered even before reaching Cape Horn, the fearsome test of any seaman's nerve.