KING OF THE WILD
When Bert ter Hart raised Rarotonga after four months alone at sea since leaving the Falkland Islands, he was, of course, elated. After worrying about running out of food he was going to receive emergency provisions. He had finally put behind him the gales of the Roaring Forties, and he discovered his navigation was spot on. But there was something else, too, and it had everything to do with a deeper sense of purpose that compelled the 61-year-old from Gabriola, British Columbia, to become the first documented North American sailor to solo circumnavigate via the five great capes nonstop using only celestial navigation, and one of only a handful ever to do it.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the early explorers. How do you possibly experience what Bligh might have gone through looking for land and suddenly it’s there. I was after that experience,” ter Hart says. “You can’t duplicate the food, the clothing, the boat, the sail material. There’s nothing about sailing now that’s remotely connected, other than the act of sailing and the principles of it, to the people who first did it. But you can turn off the GPS, the calculator, the iPad, all that kind of stuff, pick up the
