SPRAY yacht Slocum

[aukepalmhof]

When the SPRAY exactly was built is not know, must be around 1800.
She was offered in 1892 by a friend Capt. Eben Pierce, to Joshua Slocum and he told him she needed some repairs.
When Slocum arrived at Fairhaven, MA he found her lying in a field as a rotten old oyster sloop.
Slocum had to rebuilt her from the keel up.
Tonnage 12.07 gross, 9.0 net, dim. 11.2 x 4.3 x 1.3m.

24 April 1895 Slocum at that time 51 years, left on board the SPRAY Boston Mass. He sailed to Gloucester for a two week fitting out before heading to his childhood home in Westport, Nova Scotia.
02 July he sailed from this port for his famous circumnavigation.
First set course to the Azores, then to Gibraltar before he headed south-west across the Atlantic.
05 October arrived at Pernambuco (Recife), after a passage of 40 days.
From there he headed south made a call at Rio de Janeiro he sailed on to the Rio Plate, where he grounded on the coast of Uruguay, after he got off he proceeded to Montevideo and Buenos Aires.
He headed again south with the intention to pass through the Straits of Magellan.
14 February 1896 arrived in Punta Arenas.
After sailing from this port he got very bad weather and it took him a long time before he entered the Pacific Ocean.
Sailed via the Marquesas and Apia, Samoa to Australia where he spent about five months altogether, made calls at Newcastle, Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania and Cooktown, Queensland
06 June 1879 left from Cookstown heading first north then west passing through Torres Strait.
From Thursday Island he sailed to the Keeling Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean a passage of 2.700 mile.
Then he continued to Mauritius and South Africa, arrived at Port Natal on 17 November.
In South Africa he met President Paul Kruger and the explorer Henry M. Stanley.
26 March 1898 he sailed from Cape Town and after a call at St Helena and Ascension Island he set course for the Caribbean.
Visited several islands in the Caribbean before he headed north from Antigua.
27 June 1898 he arrived at Newport, RI, and the world first solo circumnavigation had taken the SPRAY and Slocum on a 46.000 mile voyage, lasting three years, two months and two days.

1901 The SPRAY was exhibited at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
During the winter of 1905 and 1906 he sails the SPRAY to the Caribbean.

14 November 1909 at the age of 69 he set sail from Vineyard Haven on Martha’s Vineyard for a voyage with the SPRAY to the Orinoco River, and that was the last what ever was seen from the SPRAY and his Captain, still one of the many mysteries of the seas.

Dominica 1987 60c sg1090, scott?
Palau 1996 32c sg978, scott389c

Source: Sailing Alone Around the World by Slocum. Some web-sites under which http://www.joshuaslocumsocietyintl.org/jshistory.htm

[Arturo]

Spray (Yacht) Capt. Slocum

Christmas Island 1978, S.G.?, Scott: 79.