5On April 24, 1895, Captain Joshua Slocum set out on a three-year journey to circumnavigate the world alone by boat. Crossing the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in his sloop, the Spray, Slocum visited South Africa, South America, and Australia before returning home as the first man to successfully sail around the world solo. Slocum's memoir tells of pirate attacks, gale-force winds, strange hallucinations and the ever-present threat of shipwreck. Restless and land-weary, Slocum set sail again in 1909 and was never heard from. He was declared legally dead in 1924.