Description

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Like countless Gloucester fishermen before and since, Howard Blackburn and Tom Welch were trawling for halibut on the Newfoundland banks in an open dory in 1883 when a sudden blizzard separated them from their mother ship. Alone on the empty North Atlantic, they battled towering waves and frozen spray to stay afloat. Welch soon succumbed to exposure, and Blackburn did the only thing he could: He rowed for shore. He rowed five days without food or water, with his hands frozen to the oars, to reach the coast of Newfoundland. Yet his tests had only begun.
So begins Joe Garland's extraordinary account of the hero fisherman of Gloucester. Incredibly, though Blackburn lost his fingers to his icy misadventure, he went on to set a record for swiftest solo sailing voyage across the Atlantic that stood for decades. Lone Voyager is a Homeric saga of survival at sea and a thrilling portrait of the world's most fabled fishing port in the age of sail.

About the Author

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Joseph E. Garland, a former newspaperman, has written extensively on social, maritime, and medical history, including thirteen books about Gloucester and Boston's North Shore and some 350 columns in the Gloucester Daily Times. A longtime sailor, he and his wife, Helen, live on the Eastern Point shore of Gloucester's outer harbor.

Praise For…

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Brings alive the struggles of the Gloucester men at seas in the era of fishing under sail like no other book I've ever read....A wonderful, beautifully written book.
— Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm

The only name I can think of that is more Gloucester than Howard Blackburn is Joe Garland. This is the great New England fishing legend definitively told.
— Mark Kurlansky, author of Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World

One of the most remarkable feats of survival in the history of seafaring....It is one for all whose interest runs to the never-ending conflict between man and the sea.
— Henry Beetle Hough, The New York Times Book Review

Howard Blackburn is legendary even today among North Atlantic fishermen, and Joe Garland's lyrical book reveals the even more astonishing man behind the legend. A terrific read: brisk, poetic, and full of the sea.
— Richard Adams Carey author of Against the Tide: The Fate of the New England Fisherman