Minoru Saito restarts record solo circumnavigation

Guinness Book world record holder Minoru Saito resumed his quest this month to achieve a record eighth solo circumnavigation after his yacht Nicole BMW Shuten-dohji III was disabled and nearly wrecked during a perilous crossing of storm-tossed Cape Horn in April.

Saito, 75, departed the small fishing harbor of Punta Arenas in Chile following a six-month interruption in his voyage to attend to repairs and wait out the harsh winter of Cape Horn. It will take Saito several days to reach the point where he accepted a tow from a Chilean fish factory ship, after he refused to abandon his 56-foot vessel when it was declared disabled by the Chilean navy on April 12.

Saito had already passed the Horn, going the “wrong way” – only a few solo circumnavigators have attempted a westward passage against the prevailing winds -- when a three-day gale hit him head on and drove his yacht back eastward. Sometime after midnight, at the height of the storm a line washed overboard and wrapped the rudder and propeller, crippling the vessel. When it appeared he had only a few hours before his disabled yacht would be blown by 45 knot winds onto nearby islands, Chilean rescue services were summoned by Saito’s support team in Tokyo.

The vessel was towed and a frustrated Saito found he could not communicate with the ship’s Spanish-speaking captain, leaving the solo skipper fuming. “I was kidnapped,” he complained at the time, though later it became clear that removal of the line in the heavy sea conditions would have been too dangerous. “I would have liked to keep trying,” he said later. “I didn’t need the engine, just the rudder.”

In the meantime, a new series of delays set in along with the harsh south Chilean winter: language barriers, legal wrangling, insurance deliberations, equipment inspection/replacement/repairs, and a painful abdominal twinge that turned into a hernia requiring emergency surgery for Saito in September.

He left about the time he would have anyway, having tentatively set a departure date of early to mid-October, following the start of the full moon, when sea conditions are considered to be less changeable. That date was calculated by Saito back in July.

He will be 76 when he returns to Yokohama in approximately three months, a yachting feat that promises to make virtually invincible his standing as the world’s oldest and most-accomplished single-handed circumnavigator. He’ll claim records for most (8), oldest (76) and oldest westward “contrary” route circumnavigations. He already holds the Guinness Book world record as the oldest person to complete a non-stop solo circumnavigation at age 71 in 2005.

Daily updates are available at http://saito8.blogspot.com/

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