In 1891, Joshua Slocum, a Nova Scotia–born sailor living in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, began rebuilding Spray, an old oyster boat that had been gifted to him. He launched the newly refurbished boat on June 21, 1892. It was just the beginning. “I had resolved on a voyage around the world, and as the wind on the morning of April 24, 1895 was fair, at noon I weighed anchor, set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the Spray had been moored snugly all winter,” he wrote in his book Sailing Alone Around the World. Slocum…
