Solo around Cape Horn: and beyond... - Paperback

by Edward Allcard (Author), Tom Cunliffe (Foreword by)

Solo Around Cape Horn tells the story of a pioneering English yachtsman's adventures in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in his elderly wooden ketch.

When Edward Allcard sailed south from the River Plate in 1966, he was heading into a territory which was almost entirely unknown to yachtsmen - but that was part of the attraction. Such trail-blazing adventures were nothing new for Allcard. In 1948 he had sailed alone from Gibraltar directly to New York. And two years later, on crossing back again, he had become the first yachtsman to sail solo both ways across the Atlantic.

Cruising in the high latitudes was a very much more challenging and dangerous business in the days before sailors had access to weather forecasts and modern electronics. Edward Allcard's yacht also lacked an efficient self-steering system, and so, as a single-hander, he often had to spend an entire day or night at the helm. Heavy weather challenged not only his own endurance but also that of his 55-year-old wooden craft.
There were times during the voyage to Cape Horn when the duo seemed to have met their match, and Allcard certainly came perilously close to losing his boat and his life.

Having survived the Horn - and having endured a winter in Tierra del Fuego - Edward Allcard sailed north through the Chilean Channels to Valparaiso.

The wild Patagonian scenery, his encounters with the fast-vanishing Yaghan indians, and his escapades foraging for food and firewood all lived up to Edward Allcard's expectations for this cruise - and thus it was that, some 40 years afterwards, he decided to share them with the world. Based on memory and his logbooks, Solo Around Cape Horn was finally finished in his 100th year, and it is expected to be ready for publication in this, the 50th anniversary of his voyage.