“What started out as a single-handed voyage had become anything but.” A single-handed circumnavigation had been Adrian Flanagan’s dream since he was 15 and read Francis Chichester. His story begins with intense individualism; separating from his wife, determined to achieve something unique, swept overboard after neglecting his promise to wear a harness. It develops much more interestingly as he is forced to accept his dependence on others; on his yacht Barrabas, on his ex-wife, Louise, on all the people who enable his passage westwards round the Horn and through Russia’s Northern Sea Route. Even the murder of dissident Litvinenko may have contributed to achieving the necessary permissions. Flanagan’s experiences are dramatically recounted and his reflections are impressively honest.
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