![Voyage of the Liberdade](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
![Voyage of the Liberdade](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
Hardcover
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Great mariner's thrilling, first-hand account of the wreck of his ship off the coast of South America, the 35-foot "brave little craft" he built from the wreckage, and its remarkable, danger-fraught voyage home. A 19th-century maritime classic brimming with courage, ingenuity, and daring.
Bio:
Joshua Slocum (February 20, 1844 - on or shortly after November 14, 1909) was the first person to sail single-handedly around the world. He was a Nova Scotian-born, naturalised American seaman and adventurer, and a noted writer. In 1900 he wrote a book about his journey, Sailing Alone Around the World, which became an international best-seller. He disappeared in November 1909 while aboard his boat, the Spray.
Joshua Slocum's achievements have been well publicised and honoured. The name Spray has become a choice for cruising yachts ever since the publication of Slocum's account of his circumnavigation. Over the years, many versions of Spray have been built from the plans in Slocum's book, more or less reconstructing the sloop with various degrees of success.
Similarly, the French long-distance sailor Bernard Moitessier christened his 39-foot (12 m) ketch-rigged boat Joshua in honor of Slocum. It was this boat that Moitessier sailed from Tahiti to France, and he also sailed Joshua in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race around the world, making great time, only to abandon the race near the end and sail on to the Polynesian Islands.
Ferries named in Slocum's honour (Joshua Slocum and Spray) served the two Digby Neck runs in Nova Scotia between 1973 and 2004. The Joshua Slocum was featured in the film version of Dolores Claiborne.
An underwater glider-an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), designed by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, was named after Slocum's ship Spray. It became the first AUV to cross the Gulf Stream, while operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Another AUV has been named after Slocum himself: the Slocum Electric Glider, designed by Douglas Webb of Webb Research (since 2008, Teledyne Webb Research).
In 2009, a Slocum glider, modified by Rutgers University, crossed the Atlantic in 221 days. The RU27 traveled from Tuckerton, New Jersey, to Baiona, Pontevedra, Spain - the port where Christopher Columbus landed on his return from his first voyage to the New World. Like Slocum himself, the Slocum glider is capable of traveling over thousands of kilometers. These gliders continue to be used by various research institutions, including Texas A&M University's Department of Oceanography and Geochemical and Environmental Research Group (GERG), to explore the Gulf of Mexico and other bodies of water.
A monument to Slocum exists on Brier Island, Nova Scotia, not far from his family's boot shop. Slocum is commemorated in museum exhibits at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the Mount Hanley Schoolhouse Museum near his birthplace. Several biographies about Slocum are published.
The Slocum River in Dartmouth, Massachusetts was named for him, as was a newly discovered plant in Mauritius while he was there: "Returning to the Spray by way of the great flower conservatory near Moka, the proprietor, having only that morning discovered a new and hardy plant, to my great honor named it 'Slocum'". Slocum himself discovered an island by accident, and named it Alan Erric Island.
Slocum was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2011. (wikipedia.org)
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9798888301883 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Bibliotech Press |
Publication date: | 01/09/2023 |
Pages: | 126 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.44(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Joshua Slocum is widely known for his Sailing Around the World Alone, the story of his solo circumnavigation. The Voyage of the Liberdade, his first book, is equally compelling. In it he recounts his journey to Brazil and back - he sailed down on the Aquidneck, his own ship, and returned on the Liberdade, which he built there. What happened?
Slocum describes sailing from port to port in Brazil, trying to take in and deliver enough cargo on the Aquidneck to make her voyage profitable. Through a series of mishaps he is saddled with a crew which turns out to be composed of brigands, not sailors:
"My pirates thought their opportunity had surely come to capture the Aquidneck, and this they undertook to do. The ringleader of the gang was a burly scoundrel, whose boast was that he had "licked both the mate and second mate of the last vessel he had sailed in, and had "busted the captain in the jaw"...Near midnight, my wife, who had heard the first footstep on deck, quietly wakened me, saying, "We must get up, and look out for ourselves! Something is going wrong on deck; the boat tackle has been let go with a great deal of noise..." My first impulse was to step on deck in the usual way, but the earnest entreaties of my wife awoke me, like, to a danger that should be investigated with caution. Arming myself therefore, with a stout carbine repeater, and eight ball cartridges in the magazine, I stepped on deck abaft instead of forward, where evidently I had been expected..."
Slocum, who landed in jail for shooting a one of the mutineers, eventually lost the Aquidneck on the reefs. Not wanting to remain a castaway in Brazil, he and his family build the Liberdade, the ship that would bring them home:
"Her dimensions being - 35 feet in length over all, 7-1/2 feet breadth of beam, and 3 feet depth of hold, who shall say that she was not large enough? Her model I got from my recollections of Cape Ann dories and from a photo of a very elegant Japanese sampan which I had before me on the spot, so, as it might be expected, when finished, she resembled both types of vessel in some degree. Her rig was the Chinese sampan style, which is, I consider, the most convenient boat rig in the whole world. This was the boat, or canoe I prefer to call it, in which we purposed to sail for North America and home. Each one had been busy during the construction and past misfortunes had all been forgotten. Madam had made the sails - and very good sails they were, too!"
Join the self-reliant and intrepid Slocum on his voyage and gain a glimpse into the romantic era that vanished when steam took over. And perhaps his book will inspire you to follow in his footsteps in your own Liberdade!
Table of Contents
Greeting | 1 | |
Chapter I2 | ||
The ship | ||
The crew | ||
A hurricane | ||
Cape Verde Islands | ||
Frio | ||
A pampeiro | ||
Chapter II9 | ||
Montevideo | ||
Beggars | ||
Antonina for mate | ||
Antonina to Buenos Aires | ||
The bombelia | ||
Chapter III12 | ||
Salvage of a cargo of wine | ||
Sailors happy | ||
Cholera in the Argentine | ||
Death in the land | ||
Dutch Harry | ||
Pete the Greek | ||
Noted crimps | ||
Boat lost | ||
Sail for Ilha Grande | ||
Expelled from the port | ||
Serious hardships | ||
Chapter IV22 | ||
Ilha Grande decree | ||
Return to Rosario | ||
Waiting opening of the Brazilian ports | ||
Scarcity of sailors | ||
Buccaneers turned pilots | ||
Sail down the river | ||
Arrive at Ilha Grande the second time | ||
Quarantined and fumigated | ||
Admitted to pratique | ||
Sail for Rio | ||
Again challenged | ||
Rio at last | ||
Chapter V30 | ||
At Rio | ||
Sail for Antonina with mixed cargo | ||
A pampeiro | ||
Ship on beam-ends | ||
Cargo still more mixed | ||
Topgallant-masts carried away | ||
Arrive safely at Antonina | ||
Chapter VI33 | ||
Mutiny | ||
Attempt at robbery and murder | ||
Four against one | ||
Two go down before a rifle | ||
Order restored | ||
Chapter VII41 | ||
Join the bark at Montevideo | ||
A good crew | ||
Small-pox breaks out | ||
Bear up for Maldonado and Flores | ||
No aid | ||
Death of sailors | ||
To Montevideo in distress | ||
Quarantine | ||
Chapter VIII51 | ||
A new crew | ||
Sail for Antonina | ||
Load timber | ||
Native canoes | ||
Loss of the Aquidneck | ||
Chapter IX57 | ||
The Building of the Liberdade | ||
Chapter X70 | ||
Across the bar | ||
The run to Santos | ||
Tow to Rio by the steamship | ||
At Rio | ||
Chapter XI77 | ||
Sail from Rio | ||
Anchor at Cape Frio | ||
Encounter with a whale | ||
Sunken treasure | ||
The schoolmaster | ||
The merchant | ||
The good people at the village | ||
A pleasant visit | ||
Chapter XII84 | ||
Sail from Frio | ||
Round Cape St. Thome | ||
High seas and swift currents | ||
In the "trades" | ||
Dangerous reefs | ||
Run into harbour unawares, on a dark and stormy night | ||
At Caravellas | ||
Fine weather | ||
A gale | ||
Port St. Paulo | ||
Treacherous natives | ||
Sail for Bahia | ||
Chapter XIII90 | ||
At Bahia | ||
Meditations on the discoverers | ||
The Caribbees | ||
Chapter XIV94 | ||
Bahia to Pernambuco | ||
The meeting of the Finance at sea | ||
At Pernambuco | ||
Round Cape St. Roque | ||
A gale | ||
Breakers | ||
The stretch to Barbadoes | ||
Flying fish alighting on deck | ||
Dismasted | ||
Arrive at Carlysle Bay | ||
Chapter XV106 | ||
At Barbadoes | ||
Mayaguez | ||
Crossing the Bahama Banks | ||
The Gulf Stream | ||
Arrival on the coast of South Carolina | ||
Chapter XVI119 | ||
Ocean currents | ||
Visit to South Santee | ||
At the Typee River | ||
Quarantined | ||
South Port and Wilmington, N.C. | ||
Inland sailing to Beaufort, Norfolk, and Washington, D.C. | ||
Voyage ended | ||
Disposal of the Liberdade | 131 |