Ant Steward, Around the world alone, in an open boat.

Gobbo torment osa the Cape of storms so called in 1488 by the Navigator Bartholomew Diaz later renamed by King John the third of Portugal as the Cape of Good Hope a place where journeys begin and end it is this dark mestia at the southern tip of Africa which divides the warm Indian Ocean from the wide cold reaches of the South Atlantic this is a place of legend these are the waters where the Flying Dutchman sails condemned to beat out an eternity against the storms of time a place where things may still be done by man if he has the head and heart to see them through today the wind is light and the ocean leaden heavy as if both wind and water those spent of effort remain unwilling to give up this man in his tiny vessel whom they have tested to the very limits of natural range beyond the cake now the little boat points north up towards the safety of Table Bay towards the conclusion of one of mankind's great voyages suddenly he is no longer alone his tiny boat is dwarfed by the welcoming Table Bay he has just crossed this I mean this boat started coming out I actually try to ignore him nothing you know why I couldn't understand why they would come out I mean he's interested in the men and I know what Saturday the 13th of March 1993 the Sailor returns to his point of departure Cape Town Harbor has seen the passage of thousands of great sailing ships Thermopylae Cutty Sark and fiery cross more Shula Archibald Russell and more he'll all here perhaps as ghosts with all their sailors and their yards to cheer the arrival of the little ship which has inherited their water and their wind his voyage alone in an open boat has taken him round the world it has never been done till now the man is Antony Stuart this is his story I'll never forget this poem and I I didn't learn at school those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake to find them was vanity but those who dream by day are dangerous men they love to make their dreams come possible my whole life I've been surrounded by people who wanted to do things but found reason not to when I was a kid I decided well I'm not going to be the top person I'm gonna go out in dirt and stewards story starts far from the sea deep in the landlocked interior I grew up in the middle of South Africa farming country but I was very lucky as a house was on the shores of a dam and every day that I could I went sailing my inspiration about the ocean was just reading about the people famous people had crossed oceans and the places they'd been to and I was very fortunate that we finally moved on to the sea and I got the opportunity to sail on the ocean and go to places that I dreamed about read about the dream takes shape to succeed where others have failed in the last of the seas great challenges to sail around the world alone in an undec open boat from Cape Town via st. Helena and Ascension to the Caribbean from Panama to Polynesia and on to Australia through the Timor Sea and the Indian Ocean and then home down over the Agulhas Bank the most dangerous waters in the world all this in a tiny open vessel less than 20 feet in length the size of ant stewards boat is determined by the lightness of his pocket the basic design is that of a 19-foot day sailor from the board of designer Dudley Dix Anthony came to me really after having bought the boat and went to the boat ball doesn't said he'd like to buy the plug which they sold to him afterwards he said he was going to sail around the world but and I was horrified because it was very very likely both not intended as a structural boat and ant then went about putting out by putting in lots of watertight bulkheads and so on to get it up to the strength that would be required for him to do the job the fitting out of the little hull took place in and steward small apartment in district 6 in the heart of Cape Town finally halfway through the building process was asked to leave because I was making too much noise in a residential area so I basically got evicted the boat is built to the severus of budgets the buoyancy in the bow is polystyrene taped up in household garbage bags the ballast keel is cast by friends in their back garden yet none of these and other desperate economies prejudices the integrity of the boat public at last it represents such a radical idea that it whips up a storm of controversy in the sailing community I always find that the worst critiques for the so called yachting or sailing experts next I odd to fifty to one that I would make a first island but I shall after them because I knew my mind that I would make it the 18th of February 1991 the man and his boat two are as ready as they ever will be but the intended departure date coincides with a typical Cape southeasterly Gale what is the port captain say about two leaving the port the port captain's been very easy about it so far he has had one call from an irate citizen who's worried about myself getting shipwrecked and then the government having to pay the ball but I've signed a form saying that I want no rescue whatsoever we are left Cape Town witness held for about three hours remember insanely one just died there's nothing in this flat calm and I looked I was pretty close to Shawn I looked over there and friends of mine who live right on the beach I could see them going about their daily lives starting to get dark they were ten on the Lots was probably watching TV and i felt quite devastated because I suddenly realized that it was a same way from my life and will not come back it would be a new life I was leaving everything that I knew 9 that would never come back to what it was his first setback is almost immediate he loses his chance the very basis of exact navigation I ran ran and compiled the whole lot of charts that people gave to me five days later their social useless they were just complete pulp and the anything that I had left with school Atlas if Columbus could have discovered America with very little navigation means Arcana Garanimals collectors the South Atlantic is an unforgiving place here the north flowing Benguela current is icy cold and the weather invariably temperamental always less than kind my first capsize was five days out of Cape Town I was off the coast of South West Africa in Libya the first five days I hadn't slipped at all really just brief naps because I still wasn't into us of wait the Atlantic does not intend to treat him well he will suffer regular knock downs he will be forced to jettison his dangerously rusted gas cylinder a diet of raw fish will lead to serious food poisoning and he will drift in a delirium for several days his Atlantic crossing 5,500 nautical miles will take 52 days marv a dose most westerly of the Windward Islands Guardian at the gate of the Caribbean Jiri provisions here then sails Northwest up through the necklace of the Lesser Antilles to st. Maarten and from there west southwest to Panama the Caribbean is a busy place a messy cat's cradle of sea routes funneling down to the Panama Canal for a solo sailor in a tiny engineless boat this is the stuff of nightmares approaching Panama when I fell asleep autumn eternally exhausted I was basically run down my ship the bow wave pushed me art I don't remember what happened at all I was asleep mixing I was covered in water black moving object was moving past me the Pacific Ocean waits for him 9,000 miles is too great to cross all at once and he breaks the journey at the islands of Galapagos and the Marcus's then sails on through Polynesia he must reach Darwin in northern Australia before the hurricane season breaks that at least is the plan with time against him each leg through this supposed paradise is a test of his inner strength his May times that I wanted to give up each leg was in many ways a struggle I mean I had one or two legs between islands which are really Pleasant and an absolute dream but I think Vichy every Lake there was some point in Tom when the conditions were really terrible when the salt sores were getting to me when I can sit down what a soft water just breaking over the bird you can take so much and I'd want to give up but the fury of the storm is nothing compared with burning windless tears when you become you just pray for a storm because stormy Sun you can live with you know maybe it's fear factor but it's something happening Randy but to be back on is the most frustrating experience anyone can go through its sheer frustration youth powerless powerless in a different way when confronted by the Seas compelling beauty in the crystal safety of Island reefs or at points in the deep deep ocean further from land than any other place on earth that's I mean absolute pleasure of being able to think uninterrupted and to dream and interrupted and just to to think things arts unaffected by the surroundings no entertainment could even let no movie no disco supposes this sort of meditation and I used to look forward and I would hate the interruption of her into suddenly prepare a meal would trim the cell reef for sale I would just want to carry on thinking about whatever I was I'd be mostly involved with leaving Pago Pago in American Samoa bound for the Timor Sea his mast weakened by countless knockdowns is no match for the full strength of a sudden rain squall returning to Samoa he sets up a jury-rigged under a lash up of boom and spinnaker pole he sails 2,300 miles to Brisbane where he will be able to make a proper repair he sets sail again up through the Great Barrier Reef into the Timor Sea and into the Indian Ocean it is his intention now to make the longest open boat passage in sailing history from Darwin to Durban more than 6,000 nautical miles a new video camera is the sole witness to this solitary life cramped wet exposed if you live in the city I can see how you can suffer loneliness but on the sea you can never be learn you if you belong to many people sail for the wrong reason and they suffer terrible loneliness and these are the stories you hear about but the real sailors people who love the seat melancholy and cannot recall one day all sending time-turner 60 days at sea that I was actually overloaded see it's pretty relevant now he has an easy confidence now in his ability and in the integrity of his boat it's as if he has made a pact with the natural world he's no longer in the water and I'm still half human I haven't changed but um as you can see the ones very calm well done 2100 miles for just over today was very bad run but what can you do but 1000 to go to vamoose Tibet UTM still up you to shave it but one afford arises let's be nice without ya today's Friday 26 dude and you played all that like this fifty-two degrees east nine degrees south north of Madagascar to windward of the Providence Islands the wrath of the Indian Ocean rips the rig out of his boat and five frightening days and nights of storm follow force eight and above in his path lies the uninhabited sandbar known as surf island there is no avoiding the inevitable suddenly there is water everywhere there are sharks in the storm-battered lagoon he hits out at them with a Marlinspike I wasn't ready to die when I saw that reef I didn't want to die so much still to do nothing wasn't fair I wanted to finish the voyage once I decided that I couldn't get away from the reef well I just accepted it the winds subside the damage is took of the stranded boat nothing but the hull remains there is little to salvage and worse still contact with the outside world is impossible for the emergency radio beacon is corroded beyond repair he is totally alone the island will feed him paupers coconuts and crabs and the video camera charged from the solar panels of the wreck gives him a sense of contact with his family my second day recovered a bit a little bit better and I'm Dana daddy's anyway so I didn't have to Harlan I think it's Alphonse I just hope they find me soon because I'm worried about home and dad can I say Helene Sue and I should be going to hell that's best listening about what I do okay nine days later aunt is rescued by fishermen from nearby Farah Island and he manages to hitch a ride home young Smuts Airport Johannesburg the 18th of august 1992 aunt comes home barefoot broke but not broken home to the people whose love he has carried around the world his mother father and childhood sweethearts ooh the same good fortune which brought and home brought back his boat the fisherman who rescued him returned to surf island and retrieved NCS challenger they had wrapped the abandoned hull in a fishing net and towed it 450 miles to my in the Seychelles their explanation we are sailors so is he and this is his boat from Maha the wreck was shipped home to be rebuilt the old boats made new improved by the knowledge gained over 23,000 miles at sea the boats 90 foot but the area that I live in is 7 foot party food and basically that's some title where I can move about in this boat I don't go up front because it's too dangerous I don't have the guardrails to protect me so I've got to stay here and keep low down so I don't fall overboard this is my basic sleeping arrangement we're all I'll sleep when I need sleep as you can see are putting very tightly so if the bird does capsize I can keep myself pinned in without falling out which has worked so far Diego Suarez Madagascar the Sandra s where xenca bound for the chemours she has agreed to drop an to windward of surf to pick up his track come on wake up the 23rd of November 1992 the Sandra s reaches a point southeast of surf by sailing north and will cross the path of his storm rack drift it's hard to explain to people what you actually go through out to be totally exposed and yeah I mean I must admit I'm really nervous I mean I'm going back to area where on any lost my life so I'm pretty nervous about game back and been soccer in season already I mean I am scared at midnight the launch in a deep sea swell is not easy a mistake made now will put an end to the dream into the water into the darkness too late for second thoughts with the coming of dawn a serious leak develops in the sealed rear chamber rather than return to Madagascar he sails on 450 miles to my yacht bailing constantly through a saucer sized aperture too small for anything larger than a mug so what I did was build a wall around you and just bad luck telling a funny one the Gretl must have bowel at about Ternan litres of water a little bit frightning leaving the chemours is difficult he has been given nothing but help shown nothing but kindness sailing south now in the Mozambique Channel the fins belong to neither dolphin nor shock but Orca or kinas the killer whale pretty never came really good a killer fell I mean the guy was any of the length of our boat and steward works his way down the coast bite by bite caution is best for the thousand miles that still stand between him and the end of his journey across the Agulhas bank are considered to be the most dangerous in the world the own truth the dream of you haunts me more than most most have high my dream would fly silently as ghosts the moon drinks up my soul by night Sun strips off my skin and I can find a winning but the plays were right again the old truth the breed love you to easily yours it disappeared place by Pierre if you wait come home cause the truth of life cuts like a night where the water meets the wind my life is water wanna clean the white back way the stream feel better time when the water what my mind she arrives 40 more than most fast at Heinz dream birds fly lovely more than ghosts moon drinks of my soul by night some strips off my skin like fine Winley but the place where I he he's got that one thing that he's done that no one can take away from the personal satisfaction of achieving his own little girl but she is not such a little girl it's quite a big go what has he done he's had a very nice time he has seen places he would not normally see he's lived in solitude he's enjoying himself he's experienced fear his experience risk and when he lies in the bed he's gonna say have I done everything I want to do everything everything I've enjoyed it I'll bet his answer be yes single-handed selling it's got to be the most selfish thing that a person can do you basically deny the rights of other people rights that they have to you your family your wife and I'm very aware of this selfishness but it's something that I have to do I have to go away to be alone he come back more compassionate more considerate to realize the fact that I could die out there is something I heard my wife can live with and understand that for something I had to do

Channel: Rob Voer

Views: 402,366

Keywords: around the world, yachting, sharks, boat, Ocean, Sailing, Water, insane, Crazy, circumnavigated, Bay, Marine, Yacht, shipwrecked, Islands, Boats, Ships, killer whales, swimming, cape town, open boat, mental, inspirational, voyage, Around, World, sail, keel, leaking, birds, Bird, Diving, around alone, ncs challenger, marine max vacations

Id: 1QkZN35RZfU

Length: 26min 54sec (1614 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 20 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/sirrocco]

Does anyone know the song at the end?

[u/thenomadtrip]

Now I feel like such a sissy. That's hardcore. Really, really hardcore.