Why this 74-year-old swapped a plane for a yacht and sailed solo to seven continents

When ocean sailors are quizzed about their voyages, the commonest query they’re requested is: “Have been you ever scared?” Harry Anderson insists he was not, however when he needed to crawl ahead and repair a damaged **genoa** furling line alone within the Drake Passage amid storm drive winds and seas, he realised he was chillingly susceptible.

“Going south had been straightforward, however going north was a catastrophe,” he recollects. “There was a variety of fog. An enormous storm got here between Cape Horn and 60°S so I put in a little bit of westing and heaved to, to attend out the storm. However I misplaced out the westing and I simply needed to begin to cross.

“It was probably the most difficult time, making an attempt to repair the damaged line and furl the sail again in with frigid water crashing over me, up on the bow. I felt I earned my chops. However I stated to myself, that is what that is about. That is actuality.”

Harry Anderson has been a person on a mission for 15 years. In 2011 he flew his mild plane solo world wide eastabout and in 2019 carried out the identical feat westabout.

In between, he made a lone flight to Antarctica and again, turning into solely one in every of 5 aviators ever to take action, in addition to a daring and prolonged transpolar flight over the North Pole. Happy with the file flights he’d performed, he started to contemplate an world wide crusing voyage, and the opportunity of setting a brand new file as the primary individual to each fly alone and to sail alone to all seven continents.

He completed this on 29 January 2025, crusing his 41ft Allures 40.9 Phywave again to Fort Lauderdale two years and 5 months after leaving Norfolk, Virginia.

He’d spent 350 days at sea and logged over 38,000 nautical miles, crossing the Atlantic to the Azores, Portugal, Morocco and south to Brazil, spherical Cape Horn to Antarctica, throughout the Pacific to Australia and by way of the Indian Ocean to South Africa, earlier than crossing the Atlantic for the third time to return dwelling to the US.

Anderson, now 74, lives on Bainbridge Island, close to Seattle. {An electrical} engineer and entrepreneur, he constructed up an organization designing wi-fi communication networks, offered it – then purchased it again 4 years later and remodeled it as soon as once more.

As a younger man, he studied for a PhD in England, hitchhiked throughout Africa and has labored on 4 continents; his outlook is decidedly international. He has all the time had a style for journey and for journey, and the time and means to get pleasure from his freedom.

Photograph: courtesy Harry Anderson

A Household Dream

The seeds of his aviation and crusing ambitions are there in his household background. His father had been a radioman within the Navy, flying on patrol bombers out of RAF Dunkeswell in Devon to seek for German submarines. His dad and mom have been each eager sailors and for a time lived aboard a yacht.

It had been their dream to sail from San Diego to Baja, and maybe far past, however his mom fell in poor health, then died, and his father moved ashore. When his father later died, he left his sextant to Harry.

Anderson was 48 when he bought his personal pilot’s licence. In 2011 he made his first around the world flight in a Lancair Columbia 300, a small, single-engined airplane he’d chosen as a result of the again seat may very well be eliminated to slot in further gasoline tanks.

In 2018 he flew over the North Pole, from Resolute Bay in Canada to Longyearbyen, Norway, then in 2019 flew alone world wide for a second time, by Russia, Japan, China and Kazakhstan. Crusing had been an early curiosity, however by no means anyplace close to the dimensions of his airborne adventures.

After shifting to Puget Sound Anderson purchased a Bavaria 37. “I sailed it for 12 years up the Inside Passage to Alaska, and realized about various things,” he says.

Flying over Svalbard having crossed the North Pole. Photograph: courtesy Harry Anderson

“However I offered it in 2018 and thought my crusing days have been performed. It wasn’t till 2020 that I resurrected the thought of crusing around the world. Like everybody else [in the pandemic], I used to be sitting round at dwelling twiddling my thumbs, and altered my thoughts.”

Anderson determined he wanted an aluminium yacht to sail to Antarctica and ordered the Allures. At 40ft it’s small as of late for such a visit, however he knew the masses can be manageable.

“It was comparable in dimension to the Bavaria 37 so I knew I might deal with it alone,” he explains. He had the boat shipped from Southampton to Baltimore, US, and the sails, watermaker and generator fitted there.

He selected a Schaefer furling increase and electrical winches to make sail dealing with simpler solo.

King George Island, Antarctica. Photograph: courtesy Harry Anderson

Ticking International locations Off

Anderson’s around the world voyage route didn’t embrace a sightseeing itinerary. “I deliberate the path to land on all seven continents most effectively, with the shortest manner, and I usually deliberate per week in every place.

“I used to be not on a cruise world wide, not there for tourism; I used to be actually on a mission. A part of that was that I had already been to many of those locations, they usually weren’t a thriller to me,” he displays. The primary night time at sea after leaving Norfolk, Virginia, for the Azores was additionally the primary time he’d sailed in a single day on his personal, and it was a turning level.

“I went to mattress at 2200. I didn’t arrange some weird sleep schedule. I believed ‘I can’t try this’, so I went to my bunk within the aft cabin, and slept and I let the boat sail by itself, nobody steering or protecting watch.

It satisfied me I might try this – you need to look to the electronics to be your crew. “Not many days later, I discovered that after I was sleeping I’d develop into very delicate to the movement of the boat and I might rapidly detect the wind growing from the [sound of the] wind generator overhead.”

From the Azores he and Phywave sailed to Portugal, then to Morocco and Lanzarote, from the place Anderson struck out for Brazil, crossing the Atlantic for the second time in three months.

He saved his tempo regular, with a easy sailplan of poled out genoa, staysail and mainsail, utilizing a increase brake to cut back the vitality when gybing. His logs from these passages are matter-of-fact, discovering little to comment on aside from the vacancy of the ocean, occasional pods of dolphins and colleges of flying fish.

Pago Pago. Photograph: courtesy Harry Anderson

Burned Out

By the top of 2022, Anderson was working south from Mar del Plata in Argentina, making an attempt to dodge tidal currents and headwinds on his solution to Patagonia.

In early 2023 he left Puerto Williams within the Beagle Channel and turned south throughout the Drake Passage, making landfall in fog at Deception Island and anchoring at the hours of darkness bay of its submerged volcanic caldera.

Per week later he was making his manner again in fierce climate, anxious to press on into the Pacific. Trying again, he remarks: “I remorse not venturing additional on, however I used to be evaluating the danger and it was riskier to increase into harder waters.

You must set shore strains and one in every of my points was I used to be unable to do this solo – if you go ashore there’s nobody on board to maintain place.”

Reaching Puerto Williams once more he felt he badly wanted a relaxation. “I used to be fairly burned out from crusing and dwelling on the boat. The previous seven months had been intense crusing, protecting greater than 12,000 miles. I used to be due for a break.”

On the seaside at Deception Island, Antarctica. Photograph: courtesy Harry Anderson

The subsequent stage past Chile can be a 2,200-mile voyage to Nuku Hiva within the Marquesas. As an alternative Anderson flew dwelling for six weeks, and bought a supply crew to take Phywave onwards to Puerto Montt, in southern Chile.

It could imply lacking out 5 levels of longitude, so the voyage would fall wanting a full circumnavigation. “However,” he says, “my actual goal was crusing solo to seven continents.”

From French Polynesia throughout the Pacific, the tone of Anderson’s logs modified. Along with his growing ease on Phywave, and the sporadic winds of an El Niño yr, a philosophical temper crept into his writings.

“I’m crusing west throughout the Pacific right into a setting solar, a typical sailor fantasy now actual, although I nonetheless see the clouds above me as a pilot would, not a sailor,” he mirrored. “The times [flow] along with no distinguishing options, the tradewind path and velocity lastly pretty regular.

The sky instantly clouds over then simply as rapidly brightens to sensible blue, seemingly at random, adopted by nights lit up with a moon waxing full. It’s the higher half of a world that has the hypnotic, twisting rhythm of the waves beneath. And me in between.”

A toast with whiskey whereas crossing the equator southbound. Photograph: courtesy Harry Anderson

Lengthy Haul Dwelling

The slog from La Réunion to Richard’s Bay in South Africa, one of the vital notoriously exhausting passages, was one in every of Anderson’s largest exams. Struggling in opposition to the sturdy Agulhas Present and low pressures that funnel up the African coast, he remembers “elevating my arms to the sky and saying ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

“I felt like I used to be being put upon. I had put up with so much and I deserved a break. On the time, it felt so unrelenting.”

However after a relaxation in South Africa he was prepared for the final lengthy haul dwelling to the US, stopping in Walvis Bay, Namibia, St Helena and eventually Antigua for some ‘Darkish ‘n’ Stormies’ – as effectively an advanced restore to an autopilot drive unit.

He arrived again in Fort Lauderdale on 29 January, 2025 to the fanfare of household and associates.

Lombok, Indonesia. Photograph: courtesy Harry Anderson

An Finish In Itself

At this time, Anderson is again on Bainbridge Island and Phywave is on the exhausting close to Annapolis, the opposite aspect of the nation. He’s considering his subsequent journey: crusing by the Northwest Passage.

He has already flown the route by airplane, touchdown in Barrow, Alaska. “It could be probably the most fascinating manner dwelling,” he muses. He would once more make that voyage solo. “I assume it’s what I’ve gotten used to, being alone,” he says.

“Folks ask me this about flying as effectively and I say I’m like a highway cop that no one desires to experience with. It could be bizarre and uncomfortable even bringing associates who’re sailors.”

He all the time seen a airplane or a yacht as automobiles for an journey and a aim, however the lengthy voyages in Phywave took on a that means he didn’t solely anticipate. “When I’m on the market within the ocean that’s the half I get pleasure from probably the most.

I don’t take a look at ocean crossings as one thing to be performed to get it over with. It’s a vacation spot in itself. “Looking back, I believe I actually ought to have savoured a few of these moments extra.

Crusing in tough seas. Photograph: courtesy Harry Anderson

I felt that as I left St Helena – in some methods probably the most distant place I’ve ever been. Because it receded within the distance, and it was clear this voyage was coming to an finish, I stated to myself: I’ve to savour being out right here, with the ability to see horizon to horizon with no different boats and nothing on the radio.”

Anderson’s accounts of his voyage (on phywave.com), will be sparse and startlingly matter of truth – he was definitely not pitching for movie rights. However the voyage grew to become one thing greater than only a companion file to his aviation feats.

His penultimate entry, alongside an enormous picture of his father’s sextant in its picket case, reads: “I’ve carried my Dad’s sextant with me in every single place I’ve sailed for the previous two-and-a-half years, the world over’s oceans, to seven continents, a number of nations and dozens of harbours and anchorages across the globe,” he writes.

“On this small manner [my parents] have been together with me, crusing the world as they as soon as dreamed of doing. I believe they’d have favored that.”

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