How Small A Yacht To Circumnavigate?

[Lighthouse]

A question often asked. The Story.

[Nausikaa]

A magnificent accomplishment but one has to wonder if the guy is a sarmie short of a picnic?

[Lighthouse]

Originally Posted by Nausikaa

A magnificent accomplishment but one has to wonder if the guy is a sarmie short of a picnic?

I wouldn't attempt it - but he is a really well respected sailor.

[Nausikaa]

Originally Posted by Lighthouse

I wouldn't attempt it - but he is a really well respected sailor.

I am sure - and Dudley Dix must be SA's best known yacht designer. He has done some fine wprk but I would want something more solid for such a voyage.

[atavist]

I remember hearing something about someone setting off an a circumnavigation in an 8 foot boat (basically an overbuilt dinghy), which would set a new world record by about 4 feet... i think it is still underway... as i understand the guy doesn't even have a radio aboard....unfortunately I can't find anything about it on google.

[Charlie Jones]

I read about him several years ago. Quite a tale.

Webb Chiles most likely would have been the first around in an open boat, if the Saudis had not, shall we say, confiscated his boat and jailed him for washing ashore on their land- He never did get Chidiock Tickborne back.

[Auzzee]

Take a peek at this story about an old russian man who sailed his tiny home made boat across the world.<H2 class=headline>Russian bathtub sailor arrives in Darwin</H2>PRINT FRIENDLYEMAIL STORY<H4 class=infoline>The World Today Archive - Thursday, 1 August , 2002 00:00:00</H4><H4 class=infoline>Reporter: Anne Barker</H4>ELEANOR HALL: While the United Nations condemns Australia's policy of detaining asylum seekers (as we heard earlier in the program), a 70-year-old Russian sailor may have just become our most intriguing illegal immigrant, arriving as he has in a tiny home-made yacht not much bigger than a large bathtub.

Authorities in Darwin have today been dealing with the Russian adventurer, Eugeniy Gvozdev, who's been on a three-year odyssey sailing from the Caspian Sea to the Northern tip of Australia.

But as Anne Barker reports, just as he's achieved his dream, he's been ordered to leave our shores because his passport is not in order.

ANNE BARKER: Eugeniy Gvozdev's tiny boat, "Said", looks like a bathtub against the sleek maxi-yachts in Darwin's Tipperary Waters Marina. And when this 70-year-old stocky Russian emerges from the hatch, believe me, he's almost as big as the boat.

EUGENIY GVOZDEV: The boat I made in Belkon (my home).

ANNE BARKER: The story of how Eugeniy Gvozdev arrived in Australia is truly inspiring.With no garage and no backyard, he had no choice but to build his 3.7 metre masterpiece where else, but on the balcony of his tiny upstairs flat in his home town of Marhatchkala.

Everywhere he goes, he proudly carries a photograph of himself standing on the deck as the boat quite literally hangs by rope out the window

EUGENIY GVOZDEV: No place. . .

ANNE BARKER: There was no room to build your boat at home? So you built it out the window on the balcony?

EUGENIY GVOZDEV: Yes.

ANNE BARKER: How did you then get it down from the balcony to the ground.

EUGENIY GVOZDEV: No problem. I have rope.

ANNE BARKER: So then you set sail in the Caspian Sea?

EUGENIY GVOZDEV: Yes.

ANNE BARKER: In 1999 Eugeniy Gvozdev launched his tiny boat in the Caspian Sea, and somehow, miraculously, made it to the other side of the world - via the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic to South America, over the Pacific to Tahiti, and finally, three years after he set sail, Darwin, Australia.

But not before he'd battled six metre waves, high enough to fill a thousand bathtubs, and pirates.

EUGENIY GVOZDEV: I stayed anchor … [?]. Next day an Asian found my boat and food, clothes, money, I have for camera, radio, they're all finished…

ANNE BARKER: All stolen by pirates?

EUGENIY GVOZDEV: Yes.

ANNE BARKER: But it's Australia's immigration system that's been the biggest obstacle of all for this Russian sailor. Eugeniy Gvozdev still has a passport from the Soviet Union. Both the country and his passport have now expired.

EUGENIY GVOZDEV: Immigration lady speak "no visa, no visa, problem". The passport every country, Australian embassy look passport no good, no good passport no visa.

ANNE BARKER: Immigration authorities in Darwin have ordered Eugeniy Gvozdev to leave Australia within a week, turning a deaf ear to the five months he'd need to get a new passport. So, reluctantly, he'll head back to the high seas next week to South Africa where he does have a visa. But he harbours no grudge against Australia.

EUGENIY GVOZDEV: Yes Australia big problem. Immigrant illegal. I understand, big problem.

EUGENIY GVOZDEV: But one man thinks Eugeniy Gvozdev has been hard done by. The lock master at Tipperary waters, Peter Dermoudy, believes immigration authorities have been too harsh, and should let him stay until he can get a new passport

PETER DERMOUDY: Of course they should, he's an inspiration to everybody and I think Australia should be very proud and should offer him as much assistance as possible.

He's the type of person that makes you believe in fairies again. That things can happen, and you don't need to be a millionaire, simply things in life are still there.

JOHN HIGHFIELD: Peter Dermoudy is the lock master at Darwin's Tipperary Waters Marina, and he's speaking with our northern Australia correspondent, Anne Barker.

And you think that they would have been smart enough to get Eugeniy to come down to the Sydney International Boat Show. What a talker he would have been for the opening day of the show!PRINT FRIENDLYEMAIL STORY