Making it to the starting line of a nonstop global circumnavigation is never a simple matter, no matter who you are and where you come from. But for Ronnie Simpson, who on October 28 joined a handful of other sailors leaving A Coruña, Spain, for their start in the Global Solo Challenge, it was a particularly sweet and charged moment.
Sweet, because he has worked on a dream and a shoestring for so long and has seen his efforts come to fruition, making it to the start with a solid sponsor for his Open 50, , and with more than 140,000 hard-earned ocean miles in everything from a Moore 24 to a 72-foot ORMA trimaran. Charged, because for this medically retired U.S. Marine, combat-wounded in Iraq at just 19 years old, solo sailing has proven to be a life-saving path that feeds
