Harry Pidgeon

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Harry Pidgeon (1869 – 1954), American sailor, was the second solo person to circumnavigate the world, after Joshua Slocum, and the first person to do so twice. On both trips, he sailed a 34-foot yawl named the Islander.

Pidgeon was born on a farm in Iowa. At the age of 18, he set out for California where he found work on a ranch. Before long, he traveled north to Alaska, where he took a raft down the Yukon River and spent some time sailing among the small islands of the southeastern Alaskan coast. Later, he returned to California and travelled and worked in the Sierra Nevada mountains, taking up a career in photography.

In 1917, Pidgeon started constructing the Islander from plans he copied from a book in the local library. It cost $1,000 in materials and took a year and a half of hard work. Upon completion, he tested the yawl with trips to Catalina Island and then to Hawaii. Once in Hawaii, Pidgeon decided to continue on for the South Seas. This began his four-year circumnavigation (1921 – 1925).

Starting in 1932, Pidgeon embarked on another solo circumnavigation, this one lasting five years. During World War II, in his seventies, Pidgeon married for the first time to the daughter of a sea captain. The two then set out for yet another circumnavigation, but the trip was cut short when the Islander was damaged by rough weather and then driven up on some rocks in the New Hebrides Islands.

Pidgeon was somewhat unique in that his trips were not done as tests of his bravery, publicity stunts, or any other reason than merely seeing if he could succeed. Moreover, Pidgeon had no previous experience with ocean navigation, boat-building, or long-distance sailing.

His experiences during the first voyage are recounted in his book Around the World Single-Handed: the Cruise of the "Islander".