The Voyage

This is what it is like to sail an ocean alone.

Not the world-girdling marathon of the Southern Ocean racers or the “cruise in company” as part of a trade-wind rally, but what it is really like to set off for 3,496 miles from the British Virgin Islands to Falmouth in the UK, totally alone.

That means no contact with the shore, no high-frequency radio or satphone. No weather forecasts, no texts from loved ones. No news…Just complete and uninterrupted isolation for 44 days.

In other words, this is singlehanded ocean sailing at its purest: One man in a world shrunk to its bare essentials.

John Passmore is a life-long sailor and professional writer. His book Old Man Sailing was described by Yachting Monthly as “a word-of-mouth bestseller”.

In The Voyage, he takes it a step further. At times truly hilarious, at others, quite frankly weird; as Yachting World’s Tom Cunliffe said of the author: “A professional storyteller who always sees the funny side, even when laughs must have been hard to find.”

Audiobook available from the oldmansailing website.